Political actions, executive orders, and policy
Trump-backed challengers unseated five Republican Indiana state senators who had voted against his demand to redraw the state's congressional maps, in a $13.4 million primary spending blitz that demonstrated the cost of crossing the president.
After launching a military operation in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, Trump paused it within 24 hours and threatened on Truth Social that 'the bombing starts' at 'a much higher level' if Iran doesn't accept his peace terms.
Trump joined Israel in nearly 900 strikes on Iran in 12 hours, killing Supreme Leader Khamenei, opening an undeclared war that he later told Congress he didn't need their authorization to wage.
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz accidentally added The Atlantic's editor to a Signal group where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was sharing the targets, weapons, and timing of imminent U.S. strikes on Yemen — and Trump's first instinct was to defend everyone involved.
Trump fired USAID Inspector General Paul Martin one day after his office reported nearly $500 million in food aid was at risk of spoiling due to the administration's gutting of the agency.
Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) launched aggressive efforts to slash federal spending and reduce the government workforce, generating controversy over its access to sensitive government systems and the legality of its actions.
The Trump administration launched an unprecedented effort to drastically reduce the federal workforce, firing probationary employees en masse, offering buyout packages, and reclassifying civil servants to strip employment protections.
Trump imposed or threatened sweeping tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China, roiling global markets and sparking fears of a trade war, before pausing some tariffs after last-minute negotiations with neighboring countries.
As devastating wildfires raged across the Los Angeles area, Trump threatened to withhold federal disaster aid from California unless the state complied with his demands on water policy and immigration, drawing sharp criticism from local officials and disaster experts.
On his first day in office, Trump issued sweeping pardons and commutations for approximately 1,500 people charged in connection with the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, including individuals convicted of violent assaults on police officers.
Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States in a ceremony moved indoors due to extreme cold, returning to power with promises of sweeping policy changes and retribution against political opponents.
Within hours of taking office, Trump signed dozens of executive orders targeting immigration, withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, ending federal DEI programs, and declaring a national emergency at the southern border.
Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to win the 2024 presidential election, becoming only the second president in American history to win non-consecutive terms and the first convicted felon elected to the presidency.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump faced off in their only general election debate on ABC, in a contentious exchange where Harris put Trump on the defensive and Trump repeated debunked claims about immigrants eating pets.
President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who rapidly consolidated Democratic support and became the party's presidential nominee in an unprecedented late-stage shakeup.
Donald Trump was shot and wounded during an outdoor campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when a gunman opened fire from a nearby rooftop, killing one attendee and critically injuring two others before being neutralized by Secret Service.
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed Colorado's removal of Trump from the state's primary ballot, ruling that states cannot unilaterally disqualify federal candidates under the 14th Amendment's insurrection clause.
Donald Trump won the Iowa Republican caucuses by the largest margin in the contest's history, capturing over 50% of the vote and signaling his dominant grip on the Republican Party.
A Fulton County, Georgia grand jury indicted Trump and 18 co-defendants under state racketeering laws for a sprawling conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, including Trump's recorded call pressuring the secretary of state to 'find' votes.
Special Counsel Jack Smith charged Trump with four federal counts related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, alleging a broad conspiracy involving fake electors, pressure on the Vice President, and the weaponization of the Justice Department.
The House Select Committee voted unanimously to refer Donald Trump to the Justice Department on four criminal charges, including insurrection and obstruction, concluding that he was the 'central cause' of the January 6 attack.
One week after Republicans' disappointing midterm results, Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election from Mar-a-Lago, becoming the first former president in decades to seek a non-consecutive second term.
The House Select Committee investigating the Capitol attack launched its public hearings, presenting evidence over multiple sessions that Trump orchestrated a multi-part plan to overturn the 2020 election.
The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack issued subpoenas to members of Trump's inner circle, including former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Steve Bannon, and other key figures, setting up major legal confrontations over executive privilege.
The Senate voted 57-43 to convict Trump for incitement of insurrection, but fell short of the two-thirds majority needed. Seven Republicans crossed party lines to vote guilty, the most bipartisan impeachment vote in history.
Donald Trump refused to attend Joe Biden's inauguration, becoming the first outgoing president to skip his successor's swearing-in since Andrew Johnson in 1869.
The House of Representatives impeached President Trump for the second time, charging him with 'incitement of insurrection' for his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, making him the only president in American history to be impeached twice.
Following a rally where Trump urged supporters to 'fight like hell,' thousands stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's electoral victory.
In a recorded hour-long phone call, President Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to 'find 11,780 votes' to overturn Biden's victory in the state, a call that would later form the basis of criminal charges.
In the weeks following his election loss, Trump personally pressured state legislators, election officials, and governors in key battleground states to overturn certified results and declare him the winner.
After major news organizations called the presidential race for Joe Biden, Trump refused to concede and launched an unprecedented campaign to overturn the results, falsely claiming the election had been stolen through widespread fraud.
President Trump announced he had tested positive for COVID-19, was hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center, and received experimental treatments, raising urgent questions about presidential succession and transparency about his condition.
During the first presidential debate, when asked to condemn white supremacist groups, Trump told the far-right Proud Boys to 'stand back and stand by,' a statement the group immediately adopted as a rallying cry.
Recordings from journalist Bob Woodward's interviews revealed that President Trump privately acknowledged COVID-19 was deadly and airborne as early as February 2020, even as he publicly downplayed the virus for months.
The Trump administration deployed federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security to Portland, Oregon, where officers in unmarked vehicles detained protesters off the streets, provoking a constitutional crisis over federal overreach.
Federal officers used tear gas and rubber bullets to forcibly clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square so President Trump could walk to St. John's Church and pose for photographs holding a Bible.
As protests over the police killing of George Floyd spread across the country, Trump tweeted 'when the looting starts, the shooting starts' — a phrase with a violent, racist history — drawing widespread condemnation and a warning label from Twitter.
During a White House coronavirus briefing, President Trump mused publicly about whether injecting disinfectant or using ultraviolet light inside the body could treat COVID-19, prompting immediate alarm from medical professionals.
As COVID-19 spread rapidly across the United States, President Trump repeatedly downplayed the severity of the virus, comparing it to the common flu and predicting it would soon disappear.
The Republican-controlled Senate voted to acquit President Trump on both articles of impeachment, with Senator Mitt Romney becoming the only Republican to vote for conviction.
The House of Representatives impeached President Trump on two articles — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — making him the third U.S. president to be impeached.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted to formalize the impeachment inquiry into President Trump over his efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating political rival Joe Biden.
A whistleblower revealed that Trump had pressured Ukraine's president to investigate political rival Joe Biden during a July phone call, while withholding military aid, leading to Trump's first impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Trump tweeted that four Democratic congresswomen of color — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib — should 'go back' to the 'totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,' a racist trope directed at American citizens and elected officials.
After Congress refused to fund his border wall and the longest government shutdown in U.S. history failed to force their hand, Trump declared a fabricated 'national emergency' to seize billions in military funds — a brazen end-run around the constitutional power of the purse.
After Saudi agents murdered and dismembered journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Trump refused to hold Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman accountable, prioritizing arms deals over human rights and press freedom.
Standing beside Russian President Vladimir Putin at a joint press conference in Helsinki, Trump sided with Putin's denial of election interference over the unanimous assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies, stunning allies and drawing bipartisan condemnation.
The Trump administration's 'zero tolerance' immigration policy resulted in thousands of children being forcibly separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, with some families never reunited, provoking widespread outrage and comparisons to internment camps.
During a bipartisan meeting on immigration, Trump asked why the U.S. was accepting immigrants from 'shithole countries' in Africa and Haiti rather than from places like Norway, laying bare the racial animus behind his immigration agenda.
Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the largest overhaul of the U.S. tax code in three decades, which slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and delivered the majority of its benefits to corporations and the wealthiest Americans.
During a visit to hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico, Trump tossed rolls of paper towels into a crowd of disaster survivors in a widely criticized display, while downplaying the death toll and praising his administration's response to a catastrophe that killed nearly 3,000 Americans.
After a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned deadly when a neo-Nazi drove his car into counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer, Trump said there were 'very fine people on both sides' — equating white supremacists with those protesting against them.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election and any links to the Trump campaign, launching a two-year investigation that would dominate Trump's presidency.
At a rally in Florida, Trump referenced a nonexistent terrorist attack 'last night in Sweden,' baffling the Swedish government and drawing international ridicule. He later claimed he was referring to a Fox News segment.
Just 29 days into his presidency, Trump tweeted that major news outlets are 'the enemy of the American People' — echoing language used by Stalin and Mao to justify suppressing dissent.
Less than a month into his presidency, Trump held a combative, rambling 77-minute press conference in which he attacked reporters, coined the term 'very fake news,' falsely claimed the largest Electoral College win since Reagan, and insisted his scandal-plagued administration was running like a 'fine-tuned machine.'
Just one week into his presidency, Trump signed an executive order banning entry from seven Muslim-majority countries, triggering immediate chaos at airports and a wave of federal court challenges.
On his first full day in office, Trump sent his press secretary to falsely claim the inauguration had the 'largest audience ever,' and counselor Kellyanne Conway defended the lies as 'alternative facts.'
Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States and delivered a dark, nationalist address that former President George W. Bush reportedly called 'some weird shit.'
Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton to become the 45th president of the United States, winning the Electoral College 304 to 227 despite losing the popular vote by nearly three million ballots, in one of the most stunning upsets in American political history.
After Gold Star father Khizr Khan delivered a powerful DNC speech challenging Trump's proposed Muslim ban, Trump attacked the Khan family, suggesting Khan's wife was not 'allowed' to speak and questioning their motives.
At a press conference, Trump publicly called on Russia to find Hillary Clinton's deleted emails, saying 'Russia, if you're listening,' in a moment that would become central to investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
A pattern of violence at Trump rallies culminated in the cancellation of a major Chicago event amid clashes between supporters and protesters, as Trump repeatedly encouraged aggressive behavior from the stage.
At a campaign rally in Iowa, Trump boasted that his supporters were so loyal he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York City and not lose voters, a remark that became one of the most quoted lines of the 2016 campaign.
In a written statement and at a rally in South Carolina, Trump called for a 'total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,' drawing bipartisan condemnation and comparisons to some of the darkest chapters in American history.
During the first Republican primary debate, Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly confronted Trump about his history of calling women 'fat pigs' and 'slobs,' prompting a prolonged feud in which Trump appeared to suggest Kelly was menstruating.
In his presidential campaign announcement speech at Trump Tower, Donald Trump described Mexican immigrants as 'rapists' and criminals, sparking immediate backlash from Latino communities and setting the tone for his candidacy.
Donald Trump descended a golden escalator at Trump Tower in Manhattan to announce his candidacy for president, delivering a speech in which he called Mexican immigrants 'rapists' and promised to build a border wall.
President Obama used his speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner to deliver a pointed, comedic takedown of Donald Trump, who sat stone-faced in the audience as the room laughed.
President Obama took the extraordinary step of releasing his long-form birth certificate from Hawaii, directly responding to Donald Trump's relentless promotion of the false birther conspiracy theory.
Donald Trump embraced and amplified the false conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States, using it to build a political following and establish himself as a leading figure on the populist right.
Donald Trump withdrew from the Reform Party presidential race, citing the party's dysfunction, after months of exploratory campaigning that foreshadowed his eventual 2016 run.
Trump formed a presidential exploratory committee under the Reform Party banner, proposing a one-time wealth tax and universal healthcare before ultimately withdrawing, in what many viewed as an early test of his political ambitions and media strategy.
