TRUMP

LAST YEAR'S PERSON OF THE YEAR SPENT 2025 TESTING THE LIMITS OF HIS OFFICE

- By Brian Bennett

DONALD TRUMP HAD BEEN WAITING FOUR years to get back in the Oval Office, and he arrived with a long to-do list.

“They came out of the gate like Man o’ War,” says Joseph Grogan, who served as director of Trump’s domestic policy council during the first term. “They set a blistering pace of administrative actions across all major agencies.”

On his first day alone, he pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate-change agreement, froze all foreign aid, suspended refugee admissions, and granted clemency to more than 1,500 people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot that tried to overturn his 2020 election loss. And he was just getting started. Within a month, he’d fired 17 inspectors general, allowed immigration agents to arrest people inside courthouses, taunted Denmark about handing over Greenland, announced steep tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and said the U.S. should “own” the Gaza Strip.

Within two, he had deported Venezuelan men to a notorious prison in El Salvador, declared English the country's official language, and bawled out Ukraine's President in the Oval Office as cameras rolled.

It was hard to keep up. Presidents typically sprint to get things done during their first year in office, while they can ride the momentum from a winning campaign. But Trump’s pace as he returned to the White House was head-spinning. “It is obvious the team knows they are in a hurry,” Grogan says. Many of those working with Trump were frustrated with how often courts blocked major initiatives in his first term and how investigations and Trump’s impeachment distracted from their work, Grogan says, and they are trying to make up for that.