The Trump Presidency Timeline

America’s favorite export — unhinged political violence — is thriving. Florida man Diego Villavicencio has been indicted for allegedly threatening to kill Rep. Eric Swalwell, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, and President Donald Trump, apparently deciding that the best way to express his views on capitalism was to cosplay as a one-man terror cell in a comments section. Among the hits: “I’ll kill you and your family,” “Jerome is next,” and a promise to drive over and “take a couple of shots at trump and some other corrupt plutocrats.” Truly a bipartisan assassination fantasy — at last, something that crosses the aisle.

Swalwell, who has basically become a recurring character in the “people who get death threats for doing oversight” cinematic universe, notes that previous threats against him and his family somehow didn’t result in charges. But now, under Attorney General Pam Bondi — who recently told Congress that no one should be threatened, which is a bold stance in Trump’s America — DOJ is finally moving on at least this case. The FBI affidavit says the X account tied to Villavicencio had been calling for terrorist acts against government officials and CEOs, culminating in a neat little manifesto: “Death to America… Bomb the federal reserve… Kill politicians… Shoot Joe Biden… Shoot Donald Trump… END CAPITALISM FREE THE PEOPLE.”

X eventually suspended the account, apparently deciding that open calls for mass political violence were just a smidge over the line — somewhere between “slur-filled rant” and “buy my crypto scam.” Meanwhile, a federal judge has ordered Villavicencio held pending trial, and we’re all left pretending this is some isolated outburst instead of the logical end stage of a political culture that’s spent years telling supporters that opponents are traitors, pedophiles, communists, or all three. But sure, let’s keep asking why members of Congress need extra security.

Donald Trump carried this New Hampshire district in 2024, so naturally in 2026 it just elected a Democrat by 4 points after a 13-point GOP margin last time. Bobbi Boudman, who previously lost twice to Republican Glenn Cordelli, finally won the seat once he fled the district, proving that the strongest Democratic field operation remains: Republicans moving away.

National Republicans and their dark-money friends like Americans for Prosperity dutifully backed GOP candidate Dale Fincher, then watched more than 4,000 voters politely respond: "No thanks, we’ve tried Trumpism, turns out it’s bad." This is the 28th seat Democrats have flipped since Trump’s 2024 win, while Republicans have flipped exactly zero, which is also the approximate number of lessons the party appears capable of learning.

Democrats are calling it part of a growing wave, with the DLCC openly planning the biggest state-level gains in two decades and the DNC chair saying that no Republican seat is safe. Meanwhile, state Republicans are discovering that running on soaring costs, culture war hysteria, and whatever Trump posted on Truth Social this morning might not be the electoral cheat code they were promised. Tuesdays are becoming a rolling referendum on the Trump agenda, and the voters keep hitting "reject call."

America has reached the "sure, let's put soldiers at the polls" stage of democratic decline. A new NPR/PBS/Marist poll finds 46% of Americans support the National Guard monitoring polling places this November — a thing that would be illegal if ordered by the federal government, which is, of course, exactly the kind of thing President Trump keeps fantasizing about while talking about "nationalizing" elections and wishing he'd sent troops to seize voting machines in 2020.

This isn't some abstract civics seminar: about three-quarters of Republicans say they want the Guard at polling places, while three-quarters of Democrats say absolutely not, please stop speedrunning Weimar. Experts gently note that the Guard can be used by governors for limited support roles, like cybersecurity, but that whole "federal troops policing voting" thing is a giant legal and constitutional no-no — which naturally makes it a top item on Trump's wish list as he urges the GOP to "take over" voting in certain places.

War with Iran and a recent bombing attempt in New York are now the convenient backdrop for normalizing military presence at the ballot box, as some voters say they're more afraid of terrorists than of soldiers guarding their right to vote. State and local election officials, meanwhile, are quietly freaking out after last year's Guard deployments to U.S. cities and Trump's open regret that he didn't use them to snatch voting equipment. So yes, nearly half the country is now pre-gaming for an election system where you cast your ballot under the watchful eye of people with guns — but don't worry, it's all in the name of "security." What could possibly go wrong.

Trump’s latest gift to American diplomacy, Jeremy Carl of Claremont Institute fame, has withdrawn his nomination for assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs after Republican senators discovered—through the grueling, high-tech process of watching a clip on X—that he’d been workshopping white identity takes and making "insensitive" remarks about Jews and Israel. When even Sen. John Curtis decides you’re not the guy to represent America at the U.N., that’s less a red flag and more a ten-story klaxon.

During his confirmation hearing, Carl helpfully explained that he’s worried about the loss of “majority common American culture” due to mass immigration, but insisted he’s not a white nationalist, just a guy talking about white culture being erased and posting through it. Sen. Chris Murphy responded by calling him a “legit white nationalist,” which, fun twist, turned out to be a career-limiting diagnosis for a State Department job that involves not sounding like a Telegram channel in front of other countries.

Carl blamed his exit on a lack of unanimous Republican support on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, bravely withdrawing so that Trump and Secretary Rubio wouldn’t have to “waste valuable time and energy” trying to sell his nomination. He then praised the administration for not picking from the usual ‘business as usual’ nominees—which is true, if by “business as usual” you mean “people who don’t show up to their hearing with a public record of white identity discourse and anti-Israel hot takes.”

The position he was supposed to fill: implementing U.S. policy at the United Nations and other multilateral bodies. Instead, the administration will have to go back to the drawing board and find another ideologue who can talk about "culture" loudly enough for the base, but not so loudly that GOP senators have to pretend they’ve never heard of him.

The Trump White House has decided the US Air Force Academy doesn’t have nearly enough Turning Point USA in its diet, so the president quietly swapped in Erika Kirk — widow of slain rightwing activist Charlie Kirk — to a key advisory board overseeing the school’s morale, curriculum, and, you know, how future officers are trained. No press release, no hearing, just poof, her name appears on the official site like a new app icon you didn’t ask for.

Erika, a former Miss Arizona who now runs Charlie’s TPUSA empire, joins a board already stacked with MAGA loyalists: Senator Tommy Tuberville (famous for blocking military promotions and not knowing what the three branches of government are), Dina Powell from Trump’s first-term foreign policy clown car, and assorted GOP senators handpicked by John Thune. The Air Force Academy’s board of visitors is supposed to oversee discipline, academics, and fiscal affairs; Trump is treating it like a donor rewards program for the culture war.

The White House insists she’s a “perfect choice” to “continue his legacy,” which is a poetic way of saying the Air Force Academy is now being used as another stage for TPUSA’s brand of Christian nationalist grievance politics. Meanwhile, Erika is out promoting a Turning Point project to plant a chapter in every public high school in Arkansas, because nothing says civil-military neutrality like fusing the officer pipeline with a partisan youth organization. America’s future pilots are apparently one step closer to getting their ethics lessons from the same people who do viral campus meltdown compilations.

The president of the United States is reportedly spending his golden years as the nation's oldest Florsheim brand ambassador, sitting behind the Resolute desk like a discount Al Bundy and critiquing his cabinet's footwear. Donald Trump has turned Oval Office meetings with JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, Howard Lutnick and the rest of the right-wing fan club into a traveling shoe party, complete with size-guessing parlor tricks and follow-up shipments of $145 dress shoes. Policy? Democracy? No time. He's busy running a mid-range men's shoe store out of the West Wing.

Staff say "all the boys" have the presidential loafers now, and they're "afraid not to wear them" – because nothing says healthy workplace culture like your boss forcing you into matching shoes as a visible symbol of loyalty. One cabinet member even had to mothball his Louis Vuitton collection so Dear Leader wouldn't pout. Meanwhile, the Brookings numbers quietly remind us this is the least diverse administration of the century, but sure, let’s focus on the important part: the 79-year-old president presiding over a taxpayer-funded boys' club where Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Lindsey Graham all get their matching autographed kicks.

The White House insists Trump pays for the shoes personally, which is adorable, as though the ethical bar for the presidency is now "doesn't directly bill the government for his weird dominance-fetish swag." Still, it's fitting: a man who built his brand on cheap symbolism and ill-fitting power fantasies has literally reduced the job to handing out identical footwear while measuring his allies by their shoe size. American democracy isn't exactly dead, but it is being slowly replaced by a loyalty program with punch cards and wingtips.

Ed Martin, Trump’s pardon attorney and former head of the administration’s so-called "weaponization working group," is now being formally disciplined for doing exactly what the job title promised: allegedly using his government perch to punish speech he doesn’t like. While serving as interim U.S. attorney for D.C., Martin wrote Georgetown Law’s dean to rage about the school’s DEI policies and announced he’d discriminate against applicants from Georgetown — while explicitly speaking in his official capacity. According to D.C. Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton P. Fox III, that’s not just tacky; it’s a First and Fifth Amendment violation, because you’re not allowed to condition government benefits on a school abandoning its own views.

Georgetown’s then-dean William Treanor had to explain to the chief federal prosecutor for D.C. that the First Amendment means the government doesn’t get to dictate a university’s curriculum — a civics lesson that really should have been covered before they handed him prosecutorial power. Rather than quietly Googling "basic constitutional law," Martin allegedly doubled down, firing off letters to the chief judge and senior judges of the D.C. Court of Appeals demanding they sideline Fox, and copying the White House counsel like a kid CC’ing mom on a playground dispute. The chief judge politely told him to stop trying to have an ex parte tantrum and follow actual procedures, which, to be fair, is not this administration’s core competency.

The Justice Department’s response was to accuse the D.C. Bar of being a partisan hit squad targeting Trump loyalists, while Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche logged on to X to declare the bar a "Democrat-run political organization" and brag that he’s not a member. Bold move for a regime screaming about "weaponization" while its own weaponization czar is under fire for, per the complaint, coercively punishing disfavored viewpoints and trying to pressure judges into firing the ethics watchdog. Trump’s DOJ: still insisting they’re the victims as they swing the hammer at the Constitution.