The Trump Presidency Timeline

The Trump-appointed board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has decided that what America’s official memorial to a murdered president really needed was... Donald Trump’s name bolted on top of it. They voted to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center and, in a totally normal democratic flourish, slapped his name on the facade the very next day—because nothing says living memorial to JFK like stapling a gold-plated billboard for the guy who tried to overturn an election right above it.

Rep. Joyce Beatty, who actually sits on the Kennedy Center board by law, is suing, arguing that you can’t just rebrand a congressionally-created memorial by vibes and cult devotion; you need an act of Congress. Her lawsuit notes that during the board meeting she was literally muted after identifying herself and then informed she would not be unmuted—after which the board declared the vote “unanimous.” In other words, it’s not just a power grab, it’s a badly stage-managed one, more authoritarian dinner theater than governance.

This is just the latest episode in Trump’s takeover of the Center: earlier this year he reshuffled the board so it could elect him chair, then they helpfully adjusted programming to effectively cancel some Pride events. Now they’re trying to retroactively pretend Congress meant “John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts (Some Restrictions and Future Trump Branding May Apply).” Beatty is asking a federal judge to confirm the obvious: that the legal name is still the JFK Center and this cosplay-monarchy renaming stunt is “null and void and without legal effect.” But sure, tell us again how the real threat to American traditions is drag queens, not the guy carving his name into the national arts memorial like it’s another failing golf resort.

In a plot twist absolutely no one saw coming, a federal judge has ruled that when Donald Trump dusted off the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan men to a mega-prison in El Salvador, the administration was supposed to follow that annoying little thing called due process. Chief Judge James Boasberg held that the men Trump labeled as members of the Tren de Aragua gang were entitled to hearings before being shipped off like excess luggage, writing that the government must actually let them argue their case. Our law requires no less, he said — a sentence that reads like a subtweet of the entire Trump immigration agenda.

On March 15, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to target alleged gang members and promptly filled planes with people the White House insisted were part of a Venezuelan prison gang "invading" the U.S. ACLU and Democracy Forward sued, pointing out that maybe, just maybe, you can't use a John Adams–era law as a magic deportation wand. Boasberg certified the deportees as a class and noted that the men remained effectively in U.S. custody even while locked inside El Salvador's CECOT hellscape, meaning the court still had jurisdiction over the mess Trump created.

In a particularly on‑brand move, the administration ignored Boasberg's same‑day temporary restraining order and let the planes land in El Salvador anyway, then argued the judge was meddling in "foreign policy" — because nothing says strong executive leadership like blowing off a federal court order and calling it diplomacy. Now the administration has until Jan. 5 to either bring the men back to the U.S. or somehow provide real hearings that meet constitutional standards. In other words, the court just informed Trump that even when you're playing with 18th‑century laws and 21st‑century prison states, the Constitution still technically applies.

The Trump administration has discovered a bold new national security threat: affordable, renewable energy. Doug Burgum’s Department of the Interior abruptly froze construction on five major offshore wind projects — Vineyard Wind 1, Sunrise Wind, Empire Wind, Revolution Wind, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind — claiming the turbines might create radar "clutter" that could somehow endanger the military. This, despite Pentagon assessments under Biden that said Revolution Wind would not harm Defense Department missions, and despite the minor detail that the same administration is totally fine with oil rigs, tankers, and whatever else clutters up the ocean as long as it burns nicely.

This pause comes on the heels of a federal judge already ruling Trump’s earlier wind permit ban "arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law" — in other words, illegal cosplay masquerading as policy. So naturally, instead of complying with the law, the White House doubled down and escalated its war on wind, threatening billions in investment, thousands of jobs, and badly needed clean power just as AI-driven electricity demand spikes. Because nothing says "protecting the American people" like sabotaging cheap homegrown energy to keep a bunch of dying coal plants on taxpayer-funded life support.

Trump, who has hated wind ever since it offended the view from his Scottish golf course, summed up the intellectual rigor of the policy at a rally: "Wind is the worst… that’s a scam." In reality, wind is among the cheapest energy sources on the planet, but sure, let’s pretend the real emergency is spinning blades in the Atlantic and not the administration systematically kneecapping the country’s largest source of new renewable power. The message is clear: if it helps the climate, the grid, or consumers, this White House will find a way to call it a security risk and shut it down.

Donald Trump has once again decided that international law is more of a vibe than a rulebook, appointing Louisiana governor Jeff Landry as "special envoy to Greenland" – a semi-autonomous part of Denmark that he has repeatedly said he wants to annex, like it’s a golf course with better ice. Landry proudly announced he’ll serve in a "volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the United States", because nothing says respect for sovereignty like publicly declaring your goal is to absorb someone else’s territory.

Denmark’s government, apparently still under the illusion that borders mean something, called the move "deeply upsetting" and reminded Washington that Danish territorial integrity is not a suggestion box. Greenland’s prime minister politely responded with the diplomatic equivalent of "absolutely not", stressing that "Greenland belongs to Greenlanders" and that an American envoy doesn’t magically turn their island into Trump National Nuuk. Polls show Greenlanders overwhelmingly oppose joining the US, which makes this whole project very on-brand: an administration that can’t win consent at home now fantasizing about forced acquisitions abroad.

Trump, back in the White House and once again fixated on Greenland’s "strategic location" and mineral wealth, is now refusing to rule out using force to take control of the island – against a NATO ally, during escalating Arctic competition, in a region central to US and alliance security planning. In other words: the guy who screams about "sovereignty" every time someone criticizes him is now openly toying with threatening an ally’s sovereignty to grab resources, because . But sure, tell us again how this is all about national security and not a half-baked colonial fantasy with nuclear submarines.

The Trump administration is dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado—one of the world’s premier climate research institutions—because nothing says “great again” like shuttering the lab that studies the thing currently cooking your country. Office of Management and Budget ghoul Russell Vought announced the execution on X, calling NCAR “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism,” which is a fun way of saying “they keep accurately describing reality and that’s bad for our donors.”

Vought, the Project 2025 architect of America’s new climate Lysenkoism, has been trying to zero out climate research across government, from NOAA to other federal labs, so that oil and gas companies—who conveniently dropped at least $75 million into Trump’s campaign—never again have to worry about pesky concepts like “evidence” or “human survival.” Meanwhile, Trump’s Department of Energy put out a propaganda report pretending greenhouse gases aren’t a problem, which was obliterated by more than 85 climate scientists and contradicted by the National Academy of Sciences, so now EPA is expected to just drop the science part altogether and go full vibes on overturning the endangerment finding.

In other words, we’ve reached the “Stalin, but for Exxon” phase of the Trump project: purge the scientists, destroy the data, and replace decades of peer-reviewed research with whatever the former Liberty Energy CEO and a handful of handpicked cranks can scribble down between industry meetings. Climate researchers are losing jobs, participation at major scientific conferences is collapsing, and the administration is proudly turning the ransacking of the library of Alexandria into a policy model. But sure, tell us more about how this is all about “energy dominance” and not just a fossil-fueled bonfire of the future.