Early in President Trump’s first term, McSweeney’s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We called this list a collection of Trump’s cruelties, collusions, corruptions, and crimes, and it felt urgent to track them, to ensure these horrors—happening almost daily—would not be forgotten. Now that Trump has returned to office, amid civil rights, humanitarian, economic, and constitutional crises, we felt it critical to make an inventory of this new round of horrors. This list will be updated monthly between now and the end of Donald Trump’s second term.
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ATROCITY KEY
– Constitutional Illegalities, Collusion, and/or Obstruction of Justice
– Environment
– Harassment, Bullying, Retribution, and/or Sexual Misconduct
– Lies and Misinformation
– Musk Madness
– Policy
– Public Statements and Social Media Posts
– Trump Family Business Dealings
– Trump Staff and Administration
– White Supremacy, Racism, Misogyny, Homophobia, Transphobia, and/or Xenophobia
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DECEMBER 2025
- – December 1, 2025 – Trump confirmed a phone call with Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and delivered an ultimatum for him to relinquish power. The call was thought to have happened on November 21. Trump told reporters, “I wouldn’t say it went well or badly, it was a phone call.” Sources told The Miami Herald the US president had sent a “blunt message” to the authoritarian leader and reportedly said, “You can save yourself and those closest to you, but you must leave the country now.” Maduro declined and said during a Caracas rally, “We want peace, but peace with sovereignty, equality, freedom! We do not want a slave’s peace, nor the peace of colonies!” Maduro had been the focus of a four-month pressure campaign in which Trump ordered a massive naval deployment off Venezuela’s northern coast and declared the country’s airspace “closed in its entirety.”
- – December 2, 2025 – Trump unleashed a xenophobic tirade against Somali immigrants during a cabinet meeting, calling them “garbage” that he didn’t want in the United States. Even for Trump, the outburst was shocking in its bigotry. “These are people who do nothing but complain,” he said. “When they come from hell and complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in our country.” Vice President JD Vance banged the table in apparent agreement. Trump’s statements came as his administration started ICE operations targeting Somalis in the Minneapolis–St. Paul region. Trump also renewed his attacks on Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who emigrated from Somalia in 1995 as a child. He stated, “Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.” Omar pushed back at Trump on social media, writing, “His obsession with me is creepy. I hope he gets the help he desperately needs.”
Trump Says He Doesn’t Want Somali Migrants in the US, Calls People “Garbage” (PBS)
- – December 3, 2025 – During a White House event flanked by auto executives, Trump announced a proposal to weaken vehicle mileage rules for the auto industry, loosening regulatory pressure on automakers to control pollution from gasoline-powered cars and trucks. The move is the latest by the Trump administration to reverse Biden-era policies that encouraged cleaner-running cars and trucks, including electric vehicles. Trump said the policies “forced automakers to build cars using expensive technologies that drove up costs, drove up prices, and made the car much worse.” Auto executives applauded the announcement. Ford CEO Jim Farley said the planned rollback was “a win for customers and common sense.” Environmentalists denounced the move. Dan Becker of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign for the Center for Biological Diversity responded, “In one stroke, Trump is worsening three of our nation’s most vexing problems: the thirst for oil, high gas pump costs, and global warming.”
- – December 3, 2025 – The DHS confirmed the beginning of a sweeping immigration crackdown in New Orleans. DHS officials also said that Border Patrol, not ICE, would be running the New Orleans operation, which has been dubbed “Catahoula Crunch.” Senior Border Patrol Agent Greg Bovino was spotted in a Home Depot parking lot in a suburb of the city. According to DHS officials, the operation would focus on “criminal illegal aliens that have been released from jail.” New Orleans resident Rocío Tirado told NBC News that she was delivering groceries and paychecks to families who were too scared to leave their homes. “They’re afraid because everybody’s hiding,” she said. “Some of these people have a work authorization, and they have Social Security.”
- – December 4, 2025 – Navy Admiral Frank M. Bradley told lawmakers that there was no “kill them all” order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth regarding the attack that killed two survivors on an alleged drug boat in international waters near Venezuela. The video that lawmakers viewed showed two shirtless survivors, clinging to the hull. Bradley, commander of the operation, gave an order for a follow-up strike. During the briefings, military officials stated the survivors could be communicating, but the video did not show any radios or satellite phones. Amid preparations for the briefing, multiple US officials told The New York Times that they had been told that one of the survivors had radioed for help, but the people said remarks from Admiral Bradley about communications were purely speculative.
- – December 4, 2025 – The Supreme Court ruled that Texas could use a redrawn congressional map that adds as many as five Republican-friendly congressional districts. The order handed Trump a major win in his push to boost Republican seats ahead of the midterms. The 6–3 conservative majority blocked a lower court decision that found the new boundaries were likely unconstitutional because they were drawn based on race. In its order, the Supreme Court said that a lower court that ruled against the map failed to honor “the presumption of legislative good faith by construing ambiguous direct and circumstantial evidence against the legislature.” In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan objected to the decision, arguing, “We are a higher court than the district court, but we are not a better one when it comes to making such a fact-based decision.”
- – December 5, 2025 – Trump was awarded the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize, which was announced during a World Cup draw at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. “This is your prize—this is your peace prize!” FIFA president Gianni Infantino gushed after Trump took the stage. The trophy was a golden globe resting on five golden hands with “Donald J. Trump” emblazoned in capital gold letters. Infantino added, “There is also a beautiful medal for you that you can wear everywhere you want to go.” Trump snatched the medal and hung it around his neck without Infantino doing the honors. The move drew comparisons to how Benito Mussolini used the 1934 World Cup in Italy to promote a resurgent Roman empire.
FIFA Gives Its New Peace Prize to Trump: “World Is a Safer Place Now” (AP)
- – December 5, 2025 – The Trump administration released the thirty-three-page Trump National Security Strategy. The strategy painted long-standing European allies as “weak” and said they risked the “prospect of civilizational erasure” due to their migration and free speech policies. The strategy starkly reinforced Trump’s “America First” philosophy, which questions decades of strategic relationships and prioritizes US interests. The document also described the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, which was set forth by President James Monroe in 1823. Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, who sits on House committees overseeing intelligence and the armed forces, called the strategy “catastrophic.” He added, “The world will be a more dangerous place and Americans will be less safe if this plan moves forward.”
- – December 6, 2025 – The Trump administration added Trump’s birthday and removed Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth from next year’s calendar of entrance fee–free days for national parks. The calendar also removed National Public Lands Day and the first Sunday of National Wildlife Refuge Week. Additionally, under the new “America-first pricing” policy, non-US residents will be required to pay entrance fees on national park entrance fee–free days. International visitors will be charged an extra $100 on top of the standard entrance fee. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said in a statement: “These policies ensure that US taxpayers, who already support the National Park System, continue to enjoy affordable access, while international visitors contribute their fair share to maintaining and improving our parks for future generations.”
- – December 7, 2025 – After disbanding the Kennedy Center board earlier in the year and installing himself as chairman, Trump became the first president to host the Kennedy Center Honors. In his address, he insulted a portion of the audience, calling them “miserable, horrible people.” In addition to skipping the event every year during his first term, Trump had also never attended a show at the Kennedy Center, which he criticized as “woke,” before becoming chairman. When he and Melania attended Les Misérables in August, they were booed. Around the same time, Trump also said he was “about 98 percent involved” in selecting this year’s honorees, who included Sylvester Stallone, George Strait, KISS, Gloria Gaynor, and Michael Crawford.
Moments from the Kennedy Center Honors Hosted by Trump (AP)
- – December 8, 2025 – Twelve former FBI agents sued the Bureau after they were fired earlier this year for kneeling during racial justice protests. The Washington, DC, protests took place in the summer of 2020 following the death of George Floyd. A crowd of protestors had backed the agents against the wall of the National Archives building, and the agents claim they kneeled to de-escalate the situation. No misconduct was found when the Justice Department reviewed the incident in 2024. However, new FBI Director Kash Patel began targeting the agents earlier this year and fired them in September, arguing that they had “demonstrated unprofessional conduct and a lack of impartiality in carrying out duties, leading to the political weaponization of the government.” The lawsuit alleged that the agents’ First and Fifth Amendment rights were violated.
- – December 8, 2025 – Trump pledged $12 billion to bail out struggling farmers hurt by the trade war he initiated and falsely claimed that the relief package was only possible because of his tariffs. Earlier this year, China, the largest buyer of American crops, retaliated against Trump’s tariffs by cutting off purchases. In addition, the farmers were further negatively impacted by the Trump administration’s immigration restrictions and high tariffs on foreign goods that they need to run their businesses. “While we need to help farmers who have been hurt by the president’s across-the-board tariffs, ultimately farmers want trade—not aid. The easiest way to give our farmers more certainty would be for the president to end his tariff taxes,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar. According to estimates, the bailout will only cover a third of the farmers’ losses—at best.
- – December 8, 2025 – Despite the president’s promises to end America’s drug crisis and his threats against Venezuela, a Washington Post analysis found that Trump had granted clemency to around one hundred people accused of drug-related crimes, including Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, gang leader Larry Hoover, drug kingpin Garnett Gilbert Smith, and former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández. “There’s no consistency,” said Jeffrey Singer, a drug policy expert at the Cato Institute. “He pardons a drug trafficker but orders the shooting on-site of drug traffickers who are not in this country.” Added Senator Thom Tillis, “It’s confusing to say, on the one hand, we should potentially even consider invading Venezuela for a drug trafficker, and on the other hand let somebody go.”
- – December 8, 2025 – Breaking precedent, Trump said he would “be involved” in the competing Netflix and Paramount bids to buy Warner Brothers Discovery. Although presidents are not supposed to interfere with regulators reviewing major corporate deals, Trump had made numerous public comments about Netflix and Paramount, who had each sought favor with the Trump administration, and is entangled with their leaderships. In November, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos visited the White House. A private equity firm founded by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is an investor in the Paramount deal, and Paramount’s chairman David Ellison is the son of Trump friend Larry Ellison.
- – December 8, 2025 – Less than two months after Trump claimed that he helped end a border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia, Thailand launched airstrikes on its neighbor. Both countries argued they were acting in self-defense and accused the other of instigating the attack and violating the terms of the peace deal. On the same day, the Democratic Republic of Congo also accused Rwanda of violating a US-brokered peace agreement negotiated in June and signed less than a week ago at the newly renamed Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. Since taking office, Trump has cast himself as a great peacemaker, openly campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize and misleadingly claiming to have “solved” eight conflicts. “Trump seems to think he can swoop in and resolve a deep, long-running conflict with a couple of phone calls or a minerals deal,” said Daniel B. Shapiro, a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council. “But conflict-resolving diplomacy usually involves much more sustained engagement.”
- – December 8, 2025 – Dr. Mehmet Oz, former TV personality and current Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief, lectured federal workers about their eating habits. “You don’t have to try every cookie,” Oz wrote, cautioning his employees to “practice portion control,” “be mindful,” and “don’t double fist.” The recommendations were not the first time Oz has offered unsolicited dietary advice. Earlier this year, he told Medicaid recipients to stop eating cake and complained about snacks in the Fox News green room. Throughout his career, Oz has promoted bogus weight-loss tips and supplements.
- – December 9, 2025 – Government filings showed that Stephen Miller sold shares worth $50,000 to $100,000 in the mining company MP Materials one month after the announcement of a lucrative deal between the company and the Trump administration. The company’s stock price rose from $30.03 per share on July 9, the day before the deal was announced, to $76.58 per share on August 14, the day Miller sold his shares, eventually peaking at $99 per share on October 14. Ethics experts questioned the timing of the sale and said that Miller, who had known since November 2024 that he would be working in the White House, should have divested from potential conflicts of interest much sooner. “It shouldn’t have taken that long,” said Hui Chen, who has served as a government ethics advisor and corporate compliance officer.
- – December 9, 2025 – At a rally-style speech in Pennsylvania, Trump railed against immigrants, mocked affordability, lied about the economy, and attacked the Fed. The speech also included racist and false statements about Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a Somalian-born Muslim. “Ilhan Omar, whatever the hell her name is. With her little turban. I love her. She comes in, does nothing but bitch. She’s always complaining,” said Trump. “We ought to get her the hell out! She married her brother… Therefore, she’s here illegally!” Trump also referenced “remigration,” a euphemistic term for deporting immigrants used by European white nationalists, and confirmed a previously denied story that he had called Haiti and African nations “shithole countries.” Calling affordability a “hoax,” Trump said, “You know, you can give up certain products. You can give up pencils. That’s under the China policy. You know, every child can get thirty-seven pencils. They only need one or two, you know. They don’t need that many.”
- – December 10, 2025 – A Belarusian woman extradited to the US to face smuggling, fraud, and money-laundering charges was subsequently detained for being in the country illegally. Federal prosecutors had spent over a year on the extradition of Yana Leonova, who may now be deported before her trial. US Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui described the situation as “Kafkaesque.” “Indeed, it is both preposterous and offensive for the government to bring someone into the United States against their will and then turn around and seek ICE detention because that person is here ‘illegally.’ The government needs to decide what its priorities are: ginning up deportation stats or prosecuting alleged criminals.”
- – December 10, 2025 – As part of an escalating campaign to weaken Nicolás Maduro, the US government seized a Venezuelan oil tanker. When questioned by reporters, Trump said the US would keep the oil, though it was not clear whether this was legal, and declined to say who owned the tanker. “Other things are happening,” he added. Officials have not said what will happen to the ship. Venezuela called the seizure “barefaced robbery and an act of international piracy.” Although the Trump administration has claimed its campaign against Maduro is aimed at preventing cartels from sending drugs to the US, many current and former Washington officials believed the administration’s true intent was regime change, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other top aides had been pushing for months.
- – December 10, 2025 – Applications opened for the Trump administration’s expedited “gold card” visas, which require a $15,000 processing fee and cost $1 million to purchase upon approval, and expedited “corporate gold card” visas, which allow businesses to sponsor employees by paying the same $15,000 processing fee and $2 million per each approved employee. Alongside the applications, the Trump administration also previewed a $5 million “platinum card,” which will allow foreign nationals to live in the US for up to 270 days per year without paying taxes on income earned abroad. The visas have been heavily criticized for offering the wealthy an expedited process even as the administration has cracked down on immigration, carrying out mass deportations and pausing immigration applications from asylum seekers and individuals from mostly African and Middle Eastern countries, subject to the president’s travel ban.
- – December 11, 2025 – The State Department ordered its employees to switch from the more accessible Calibri font to the more formal and traditional Times New Roman. “Typography shapes how official documents are perceived in terms of cohesion, professionalism and formality,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “Although switching from Calibri was not among the department’s most illegal, immoral, radical or wasteful instances of DEI, it was nonetheless cosmetic. Switching to Calibri…
