The Five Worst Things Trump Has Done In Office So Far
Tonight the president will lie to the country. Here’s some truth.
At tonight’s State of the Union address, Donald Trump will undoubtedly lie, spread conspiracy theories, smear his enemies, say he did things that he didn’t, and say he didn’t do things that he did. As an actual read-out on the state of the country, the speech will be useless. But it will provide us a useful window into Trump’s flood-the-zone-with-shit strategy.
Trump’s whole approach to governing and communications comes down to one thing: chaos by design. The late-night Truth Social posts, the crimes committed in plain sight, the constant drumbeat of lies and conspiracy theories—all of it just becomes white noise. That’s Trump’s sweet spot. He’s banking on the fact that, amid all this, the American people won’t be able to see the forest for the trees.
He’s been doing this for 10 years, and it still works. A lot of legacy media players still haven’t learned this lesson. So it’s on the rest of us—those who recognize this moment for what it is—to refuse to give in to the lies, distractions, and obfuscations. To see this authoritarian presidency for what it really is.
Here are the five worst things, in my opinion, that Trump has done since he came back into office. He probably won’t talk about any of them in his speech. If he does, it will be to lie about them. We can choose to fall for those lies, or call them out and tell the truth about what’s happening in our country right now.
1. Rewriting the history of January 6.
On his first day in office, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 defendants who participated in the January 6 insurrection. This included violent criminals who had been sentenced to decades behind bars. “Full pardon,” he said from behind the Resolute Desk. Many of them quickly committed more crimes and were promptly re-arrested. More importantly, this move sent the message loud and clear that if the president’s supporters commit crimes on his behalf, they’ll be taken care of.
The White House also put out an official website full of preposterous lies and conspiracy theories about January 6. It painted the whole thing as a glorious and patriotic affair, and blamed Nancy Pelosi and Democrats for anything bad that might have happened. It’s a shameless whitewash, and should shock us every day it continues to exist.
2. Occupying American cities.
Right out of the gate, the administration recruited 12,000 new ICE agents to fan out across the country, occupying blue cities that Trump dislikes. With a new $75 billion budget, ICE used blatantly white nationalist-coded appeals to bring in the type of agent it wanted.
Now, we’ve seen those agents repeatedly abuse peaceful protesters, killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti. They wear masks and full battle gear, and carry long guns. They raid residential buildings like they are combat zones. They bag up and disappear immigrants without due process, use children as bait, and—according to the administration—are all but immune from being held accountable for any of it.
3. Stonewalling on the Epstein files.
After promising to release them, Trump and his allies have done everything in their power to bury the Epstein files. The Justice Department withheld files related to Trump, Congress skipped town early, Cabinet secretaries like Pam Bondi covered them up, and Ghislaine Maxwell was given plush Club Fed treatment. Trump repeatedly expresses sympathy for other people implicated in the files, and has been exposed again and again for his decades-long friendship with Epstein.
4. Committing superpower suicide.
By threatening to invade NATO allies, like Canada and Denmark (via Greenland), and by leaving allies like Ukraine and Taiwan out to dry, Trump has taken the US’s alliances to the precipice of collapse. For years, he has shown his contempt for America’s treaty allies, while cozying up to dictators like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. JD Vance attacked our allies in Munich, and he and Trump teamed up to ambush Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office.
Not surprisingly, this is all leaving our allies uncertain about the future of their relationships with the United States. As Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said, for America’s traditional allies, “the old relationship we had with the United States … is over.” That’s a gift to our enemies.
5. Weaponizing justice.
With Trump, every accusation is a confession. After spending years railing against a “weaponized” justice system, Trump has weaponized the DOJ against his enemies. He had US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro try to indict six Democratic lawmakers, a stunning move that failed spectacularly.
He has threatened to investigate—or in some cases is actively prosecuting—his political enemies, including James Comey, Adam Schiff, John Bolton, Jack Smith, Jerome Powell, John Brennan, and Letitia James. Even if these individual people are not prosecuted or convicted, the message to everyone else is clear: No enemy of Trump is safe.
All of this barely scratches the surface. There’s also the tariffs, meddling at the Fed, National Guard deployments, pressure campaign against Jimmy Kimmel, liquidation of whole government agencies like USAID, DOGE, the takeover of Gaza, kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro, illegal boat-bombings, Signalgate, pay-to-play pardons, East Wing demolition, Kennedy Center renaming, anti-vaccine policies, seizure of Fulton County ballots, and possible deployment of federal agents at polling places. A comprehensive list would make a book.
The administration is doing all of this without focusing on the material needs of real people. Americans have made clear that prices and the economy are their top concerns today. They expect that the federal government should be laser-focused on addressing those issues. So far, though, Trump has done nothing to help, and is actually making things worse.
Remember all of that while you listen to the president lie tonight. He’s flooding the zone, just like he always does, and counting on the fact that you’ll keep falling for it. Will you?
Sarah Longwell is a Home of the Brave advisory board member.
I appreciate how hard it was to narrow the list down to five. No doubt prior to the State of the Union this evening he will have done something else that deserves to be on it.
Good top 5 list, drawing from a long list of terrible things. Funny how virtually everyone agrees that his tariffs are a huge mistake, but that doesn’t even come close to being in the top 5. I might argue that his attacks on science and public health belong on the list, at least in the sense that it affects virtually all of us. Cutting medical aid to needy countries and the poor in the US has arguably already killed thousands. Putting a loony antivaxer in charge of HHS is a real threat to our national health, and the consequences are already being seen in outbreaks of measles and whooping cough. Cutting medical and scientific research is putting us behind other nations in an area that we have traditionally owned. And slashing renewable energy investment while propping up fossil fuels makes us less energy self-sufficient, harms us economically, and obviously contributes greatly to environmental damage.