The Trump Presidency Timeline

President Trump has a bold new Middle East strategy: he wants U.S. allies to, quote, "go to" the Strait of Hormuz and "just take it." Because when you’re talking about one of the most strategically vital and heavily militarized waterways on Earth, why bother with things like international law, diplomacy, or basic sanity when you can treat it like grabbing the last parking spot at Mar-a-Lago?

The New York Times helpfully brings in national security correspondent Eric Schmitt to explain that, actually, clearing and controlling the Strait of Hormuz by force is not "easy" unless your benchmark for success is "global oil shock and potential regional war." While Trump riffs like a guy yelling at CNN from his recliner, serious people have to game out what happens when a U.S.-led coalition tries to muscle Iran out of a narrow shipping lane bordered by missiles, mines, and small attack boats. Spoiler: it doesn't end with everyone shaking hands and going home for golf.

So we now have the Commander in Chief treating the world’s energy lifeline as a sort of geopolitical Black Friday doorbuster. Allies are supposed to show up, push Iran out of the way, and plant a flag, presumably while Trump takes credit on Truth Social and complains that NATO didn’t Venmo him for the operation. American foreign policy, reimagined as a real estate seizure with cruise missiles.

Donald Trump is reportedly frustrated with Attorney General Pam Bondi because she’s not turning the Justice Department into a fully operational personal revenge machine at a fast enough clip. According to multiple sources, Trump thinks Bondi hasn’t “executed on his vision” — which, helpfully translated from Trumpese, means she hasn’t produced enough indictments of his political enemies to satisfy a man who now talks about the DOJ like it’s DoorDash for prosecutions.

Bondi’s standing apparently cratered after the Jeffrey Epstein files saga, where Trump’s allies decided she didn’t squeeze the case hard enough to manufacture “wins” against his foes. Failing to secure indictments, a former White House official notes, is “a problem for job security with the president,” because nothing says "independent law enforcement" like your boss grading you on how many people he hates end up in handcuffs. Trump, we’re told, is very aware that “time goes fast” and “wants action” — a charming way to describe an elderly man trying to speedrun banana republic authoritarianism.

Enter Lee Zeldin, current head of the Environmental Protection Agency — an agency he’s presumably been busy dismantling — now floated as a top contender to run the Justice Department. Trump has been polling his friends about Zeldin as a possible replacement, with the key question being whether the Senate will confirm someone even more openly enthusiastic about weaponizing federal law enforcement. Publicly, Trump calls Bondi “a wonderful person” who is “doing a good job,” while privately shopping for a new Attorney General who will treat indictments like campaign swag.

So the president is mad that his Attorney General hasn’t gone hard enough after his political enemies, is looking to replace her with a loyalist, and everyone’s calmly discussing whether the Senate will sign off on this next step in turning the DOJ into his personal hit squad. American democracy continues to be held together by the fact that his cronies keep failing at authoritarianism in the most embarrassingly public ways possible.

Indiana Republicans committed the unpardonable sin: they didn’t contort the congressional map quite hard enough to please Donald Trump. So now the president is on a full-blown revenge tour, using the White House like a mob clubhouse and the Resolute Desk as a step-and-repeat backdrop for state senate primary challengers whose main qualification is that they’ll happily saw democracy’s legs off if he asks nicely.

Blake Fiechter literally dropped out of his race, then got called to the Oval, took a photo with Trump, and — presto — he’s back in. The message, as one adviser helpfully translated: “Work hard, we’ll be there for you, don’t let me down.” Totally normal thing for a president to say about a state legislative primary that just happens to be about punishing anyone who voted against a Trump-approved gerrymander. Millions of dollars are now flooding into these primaries, because apparently the republic must be saved from the existential threat of Republicans who think maybe the maps shouldn’t be drawn exclusively to please one guy.

Outside groups are lining up to kiss the ring and crack the whip. Club for Growth is tossing in $1.5 million, Jim Banks-linked outfits are throwing $3 million more, and every ad reads like a personality cult infomercial: Trump’s name four times in 15 seconds, loyalty oaths dressed up as campaign spots, and attacks on sitting GOP senators for the crime of being “against Trump.” One digital ad even tells voters to scold a state senator because he’s “voting like a bad guy,” which is what passes for policy analysis in the MAGA era.

Fair Maps Indiana — an Orwellian little brand, given the context — brags that Indiana could have picked up two more GOP seats if only the legislature had fully surrendered to Trump’s demands, and now those who hesitated must be purged. The president of the United States is micromanaging state senate primaries to enforce loyalty to gerrymandering and himself, while a network of PACs and “youth groups” shovel cash into the fire. American democracy isn’t just being undermined; it’s being focus-grouped, branded, and sold by the ad buy.

The FDA has granted expedited approval to Eli Lilly’s new oral GLP‑1 weight-loss pill, Foundayo, under a program for drugs deemed of “national importance.” Apparently the national emergency is not, say, poisoned water systems or a collapsing maternal health infrastructure, but making sure Americans can get their hands on $149–$349-a-month diet pills a few weeks faster so Lilly’s earnings call doesn’t have to wait.

Because this is the Trump era, the public subsidy hose is already pointed in the right direction. Under a Trump administration proposal, Medicare could start covering the drug for certain patients as early as this summer, dropping copays to around $50 while taxpayers quietly eat the rest. So you get a neat little pipeline: fast-tracked FDA approval, direct-to-consumer shipping via LillyDirect, telehealth upsell factories, and a federal insurance program poised to underwrite the whole thing. It’s not healthcare, it’s a vertically integrated obesity monetization strategy.

Executives like Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks are framing Foundayo as a way to “level the playing field” for people with obesity, which is an interesting way to describe a product priced like a car payment and pushed through a regulatory fast lane usually reserved for actual life-or-death crises. Fewer than 1 in 10 eligible patients are on GLP‑1s now, but don’t worry: between Trump’s Medicare rule change and Big Pharma’s direct-marketing blitz, that little obstacle called “cost” is on track to be someone else’s problem — namely, the federal budget and whatever’s left of a rational healthcare system.

The American Heart Association has released new nutrition guidance saying the radical, woke, extremist thing that decades of science already said: eat more plants, less red meat, fewer ultraprocessed foods, and maybe don’t chase every meal with a glass of melted cheese. In a plot twist no one saw coming, this happens to conflict with Donald Trump’s government, which has been busy issuing its own “Make America Healthy Again” guidelines that somehow translate to: more animal protein, full‑fat dairy for everyone, and a special shout‑out to beef tallow like it’s a founding father.

While Trump and Health Secretary RFK Jr are out here crusading against seed oils and synthetic dyes like they’re the Sole Root Cause of All American Illness, the AHA is gently pointing out that maybe, just maybe, hosing your arteries with saturated fat and red meat isn’t the road to national vitality. The AHA wants legumes, nuts, seeds, low‑fat dairy, unsaturated fats, low salt, less booze, and heart‑healthy habits starting at age one. The federal line, meanwhile, is veering toward a taxpayer‑funded meat lobby infomercial with a side of pseudoscience.

The FDA, clearly trying to avoid being dragged into the food culture war Thunderdome, quietly notes that it’s actually aligned with the AHA on the major points and is looking forward to working together. So on one side: cardiologists, long‑term data, and public health. On the other: a president who sells red hats and red meat as a lifestyle brand, plus RFK Jr doing wellness cosplay while the administration’s own recommendations undercut the very heart health they claim to be championing. Make America Healthy Again, apparently, means keep the base angry at broccoli while the arteries do the real protesting.