Donald Trump’s unhinged 2025: Wildest and most stunning moments month-by-month

On Dec 30, 2025

Month-by-month, here’s the most unhinged things Donald Trump did in his first year back in the oval office

07:00, 30 Dec 2025

Donald Trump, to the surprise of many people, won the 2024 election.

Despite being the most unpopular President in history, according to polls taken throughout his first term – and despite spending the last few months of his presidency trying to steal the election he lost to Joe Biden, culminating in the most egregious and violent attempted coup d’état in American history, the election was expected to be close. In the end it wasn’t a landslide, but it wasn’t super close. Either the American people had forgiven Trump’s transgressions, or more likely, had forgotten exactly how bad it got.

A year into his second term in office, polls make him the second most unpopular President of all time. He’s spending most of his time fighting the old wars of 2020, punishing his enemies and remodelling the White House to more closely resemble Mar A Lago. He schmoozes America’s enemies and alienates her allies.

He and his team are openly using far-right and white nationalist rhetoric to back up his foreign policy and immigration purge. He’s doing everything someone might do if they wanted to commit an ‘auto-coup’, meaning he never has to leave office again. And unlike his first term, there seems to be nobody in the White House – and vanishingly few in positions of power outside of it – willing to stand in his way.

Almost every day since Trump returned to office, I’ve written a roundup of the unhinged things he did the day before. Here’s a roundup of the first year of those roundups.

January

We could have predicted quite a lot of Trump’s first term from two things that happened on his first day back in office. The first is who turned up to his inauguration. The ceremony, for the first time in a long time, didn’t happen on the Capitol Steps, because organisers feared it would be too cold. So it was held in the Capitol Rotunda, a huge round domed space in the centre of the building.

Many will recognise from the photos of January 6th, 2021, when marauding Trump fanatics stormed the building, seeking to mount a violent coup d’état by preventing the results of a fair, legal election being certified. But on the day of the Inauguration, there was a different crowd in the Capitol: Tech billionaires.

Elon Musk was there of course, but so were Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and – much to the chagrin of many who thought his company, at least, was better than this – Apple CEO Tim Cook. It was a handy preview of the kind of people who would be seeking Trump’s attention this time around. Recognising they would never get anything done in the United States without blowing smoke up this guy, so they’d better get in early to pledge their fealty.

The other thing he did on his first day that was a preview of things to come? Within hours of taking office, at a rally of his supporters at the Capital One Arena, he sat down at a tiny table and signed the pardons of almost everyone who tried to steal the 2020 election for him.

What else happened?

Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, withdrew from the Paris Climate accords and pulled out of the World Health Organisation
He laid the groundwork for his deportation purge, branding it ‘Protecting the American People Against Invasion’

February

Volodymyr Zelensky probably had some level of expectation when he came to the White House that he’d walk away with very little. I don’t think he expected to be publicly berated and insulted by Trump and JD Vance, telling him he’s been insufficiently grateful for American support for Ukraine. It’s one of the most uncomfortable Presidential moments ever broadcast live to the world, and ensured the war would barrel on for yet more months.

Meanwhile Elon Musk went on a tear through government departments, locking people out of their offices and allowing teenagers access to the private personal data of pretty much everyone in America. USAID, which managed most of America’s foreign humanitarian programmes was gutted along with a bunch of other organisations that either Republicans hated or didn’t do anything Trump was interested in. Then there was the thing where Musk emailed pretty much every government employee, hundreds of thousands of them, and suggested to them that they might want to leave their jobs. Also, one of Musk’s team was a teenager named “Big Balls”.

Later in the month, Musk made an appearance at the CPAC conference in Washington DC, where he was given a gift on stage by Argentina’s President Javier Milei – a giant gold plated chainsaw with which to cut through government spending. Musk waved it around the stage and shouted “Chainsaw, woooo!”. I was there, it was one of the weirdest and lamest things I’ve ever seen with my two eyes.

What else happened?

Keir Starmer visits Trump to talk Ukraine, and to give himself a leg up in tariff talks by offering Trump another state visit
Trump starts openly musing about “taking over” Gaza once the fighting stops
Then he posts an AI video of what a Trump Gaza Resort would look like, which culminates in him and Netanyahu together on the beach
Trump’s revenge tour kicks into gear as he pulls security clearances from Joe Biden and a string of Biden Era officials.
He announced the “Trump Gold Card”, basically a visa exceptionally rich people could pay for, literally with his face on it
He announced 25% tariffs on nearest neighbours Canada and Mexico. These will go on to be increased, decreased, paused and threatened a baffling number of times in a baffling number of different combinations over the following 11 months

March

March saw Trump give his first “joint address to congress” – which is just what they call the State of the Union Address in the first year for some reason. During the speech he made troubling remarks urging Greenland to join the United States voluntarily, before “We need it, for international world security. And I think we’re going to get it. One way or another…we’re going to get it.” To this day, we don’t know if he’s serious about annexing Greenland, but this week he did appoint an Ambassador to the country over the strong objections of Denmark, which owns it.

Meanwhile, a judge got a little nervous about the administration’s deportations to places like El Salvador, because of Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies act to bypass the usual deportation hearings. He said, ‘alright, quit it and any planes in the air should just go ahead and turn around’. As it turned out, the administration basically ignored the order and allowed 260 people already in the air to be transported to El Salvador, destined for places likeCecot, the illegal torture prison where – the same month – Trump’s administration “accidentally” deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man with a legal right to be in the US, and no criminal record. After being forced to bring him back to the US, the Justice Department would spend most of the rest of the year smearing Garcia with various unproven claims, and vindictively pursuing him through the courts in a bid to deport him. The case is ongoing.

What else happened?

With Musk’s DOGE rampage having a knock on effect on his main business, Tesla, Trump decided to give him a li’l bump – effectively turning the White House lawn into a Tesla dealership, saying things like “everything is computer”, and pretending to put in an order for one of Elon’s electric cars.
Trump went after a bunch of law firms that worked on investigations targeting him during his time out of office
Trump signed an executive order pledging to eliminate the department for Education
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, apparently accidentally, invited the Atlantic’s Editor in Chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, into a group chat with senior Trump officials. In the unencrypted chat, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth shared sensitive information about a future airstrike in Yemen.

April

LIBERATION DAY! April 2nd 2025 will be long remembered as the day Donald Trump swanned out into the rose garden with an A3 poster board with a list of countries and the manifestly random tariffs they will have to pay on goods sent to the US. As the day went on it became clear that many of the tariffs had been developed not through some expert master plan, but cribbed from ChatGPT. For example, 10% tariffs were announced on the Heard and McDonald Islands, which are solely inhabited by seals and penguins.

It also became clear that the markets had not dared to believe he’d actually go through with it – and reacted with widespread panic selling across global markets. It wasn’t until Trump blinked a few days later and announced a 90-day delay in the tariffs being implemented that markets began to recover. The about turn was so abrupt it prompted the Wall Street Journal to coin the nickname TACO – Trump Always Chickens Out.

What else happened

Robert F Kennedy Jr fires huge numbers of staff and officials at the Department of Health and Human Services
Trump launched a crackdown on Trans people, scrapping federal legal protections and banning them from military service
Trump’s Easter message was a legendary rant targeting “Radical Left Lunatics” and “MS-13 Gang Members”. He wished those who “CHEATED” in 2020 a “very Happy Easter!!!” with “great love, sincerity, and affection”
JD Vance visits Pope Francis in the Vatican. The Pope dies the next day.

May

Trump took a jaunt around the Middle East to sign a bunch of investment and cooperation deals with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE. He’ll spend much of the rest of his first year crowing about the “money coming in” to the US from these deals, despite experts suggesting the purported value of them is wildly optimistic. Meanwhile, Qatar offers to give Trump a plane to replace the ageing Air Force One. In all likelihood the jet will never be Air Force One during Trump’s presidency – it would have to be taken apart bit by bit by the security services to ensure it’s not bugged, tampered with or full of Greeks ready to infiltrate the city of Troy. That takes years for a jet that hasn’t been given to us by a foreign power, let alone one from Qatar, a state that has historically “been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.” Not my words, but the words of President Donald Trump way back in 2017, before they offered him a free plane. And the jet, Trump says, won’t be gifted to the nation, but will end up the property of the Trump Foundation, the body that is in charge of his presidential library after his term. So yeah. It’s a gift for him.

What else happened

During a visit to the Jaguar Land Rover factory in Solihull, Keir Starmer announces he’s spoken to Trump on the phone and secured an understanding for a future trade deal to avoid the worst of the tariffs. Instead of 25%, we’ll pay a minimum of 10%, and be exempted from tariffs on a handful of goods like steel. That’s the theory anyway, it’s unclear whether this deal has ever fully gone into effect
Days after the death of the Pope, Trump posted an AI picture of himself as the pope. It was later reposted by official White House accounts, prompting widespread horror and criticism
Trump ousts Mike Waltz and gives him a new job as Ambassador to the UN.
Trump talks to Putin on the phone…as his presidency goes on, this will be a regular feature in the days before he does something stupid and rash.
Musk officially exits as a White House “special employee”, just before the deadline where he’d have to make financial disclosures. At a Press Conference Trump says Elon is “not really leaving”. Musk turned up at the press conference with a black eye, which he blamed on his son.

June

The Trump/Musk bromance appeared to come to a crashing, shuddering close as the two started trading jibes on social media. It all culminated with this tweet from Musk: “Time to drop the really big bomb: Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!” It seemed pretty wild at the time, but nobody could have predicted how consequential that tweet would become.

What else happened?

Protests swell in Los Angeles against immigration raids in the city.
Trump deploys up to 4,000 National Guard and 700 marines to the city – a massive overreaction to a handful of violent incidents in otherwise peaceful protests
Military hardware rolls through the streets of Washington DC, as Trump finally gets his birthday tank parade. It’s a little underwhelming compared to North Korea, but was still jarring (at this point) to see so much armour in a Western capital city.
Elon said sorry for the Epstein tweet.
Some protests kick off elsewhere in the country, under the banner of “No Kings”
Trump orders direct strikes on nuclear sites in Iran, claiming to have “obliterated” the country’s nuclear capabilities

July

Trump flew over to Scotland for a few days golfing at his bicoastal resorts. He made QUITE a lot of news during the visit, having another pop at Sadiq Khan, signing a trade deal with the EU…and admitting the reason he kicked Epstein out of Mar A Lago was because he used to “steal” the staff from his spa.

Earlier in the weekend, Trump was spotted on the golf course with a huge entourage – and a couple of guys dropping easy Balls on the fairway for him to hit.

Meanwhile, Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal attorney – and now Deputy Attorney General – sat down for two days of meetings with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s fixer and accomplice who is in prison for sex trafficking. Maxwell insisted Donald Trump had nothing to do with anything, and is a perfect “gentleman”. A couple of days later she was moved to a cushier prison

What else happened?

Karoline Leavitt announced Trump has a benign venous insufficiency resulting in a bruise on his hand and swelling in his cankles.
Trump visited Central Texas to meet with victims of the floods
Trump attended the Club World Cup final, hands out the trophy and appears to pocket one of the medals.
Trump announced a plan for a 60 day ceasefire in Gaza

August

Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington DC to tackle what the White House claimed was a surge of violent crime in the capital. In reality crime had been decreasing in DC since well before Trump was President again. This all appears to have been provoked by the aforementioned “Big Balls”, one of Elon’s Doge kids, getting mugged.

Meanwhile, Trump and Putin met in Alaska. The US literally rolled out the red carpet for a war criminal, before letting him ride in the back of a car with the President without translators, officials or security for several minutes.

A few days later, Zelensky returned to the White House, flanked by several world leaders including Keir Starmer, and it was much more cordial this time.

The summit ends without any real progress towards a ceasefire.

What else happened?

Trump took away Kamala Harris’ Secret Service detail
JD Vance took a trip to the UK to meet US troops. While staying at Chevening with David Lammy, the pair were spotted fishing without a licence on the estate. He also met with a host of right wingers during his stay, and also Thomas Skinner off of the Apprentice for some reason

September

The Epstein/Trump story really kicked into gear in September, when the Wall Street Journal published a description of what it said was a sexually suggestive letter Trump had sent to Epstein for his birthday.

But just a day later, the air was sucked out of Trumpworld when far-right influencer Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah. When he was shot, Kirk, a skilled orator and provocateur, was doing one of his regular public “prove me wrong” events, where he would invite people with different views to line up and argue with him in order to humiliate them.

Following his death the surge of support for free speech was such that thousands of people across America – including TV host Jimmy Kimmel – were suspended or fired from their jobs for being insufficiently mournful.

What else happened?

The Justice department indicted James Comey, the former Director of the FBI, on nonsense charges of lying to congress – just days before the statute of limitations was set to expire. The charges were brought by Lindsey Halligan, a former Trump lawyer rapidly sworn in as a US attorney after nobody else would take the case. Letitia James, the former Attorney General of New York who prosecuted Trump in his time out of office, was also indicted on jumped up Mortgage fraud claims.
The US launches its first strike against boats linked to Venezuela, which it claims are running drugs to the US. The strikes are immediately criticised as effectively being extrajudicial executions
Trump visited the UK for his second state visit, meeting with the King, Queen, Starmer and not going anywhere near real people.
Back home, Trump and RFK Jr hold a mad press conference claiming without evidence that paracetamol causes autism, and urging pregnant women not to take one of the only fever inhibitors they’re allowed to take
Trump gave a lengthy, rambling speech at the United Nations, berating other nations and complaining about the autocue not working
Trump deployed troops to Portland, Oregon claiming the city was filled with “domestic terrorists” and describing it as “war-ravaged”. In reality, the most exciting thing about the protests in Portland was a guy in a frog costume

October

A lot of the energy in October was taken up by the government shutdown – forced by the Democrats in protest over Trump’s budget bill failing to extend subsidies to keep healthcare affordable.

But the real shock was on October 20th, when Trump without warning demolished the entire East Wing of the White House. He’d suggested for a while that he wanted to build a ballroom, but promised nothing would be done that would change the existing building. This was, of course a lie.

The new ballroom is just part of a gradual process throughout the year to turn the White House into Mar a Lago. Every time the Oval Office was on TV, there was a fresh gold (painted) sconce or detail somewhere. The art deco bathroom in the “Lincoln bedroom” was torn out to make way for the kind of polished marble monstrosity one only sees in a building that either has Trump in it or written on the outside. He paved over the rose garden to put a patio out there to match the one at his Florida resort – inviting Republicans over for dinner and glad-handing on late summer evenings. Even the two enormous flagpoles he installed on the White House lawn were identical to one he has in Palm Beach.

What else happened?

Hamas say they’ve agreed to some of the 20 point plan developed under Trump’s name to end the war in Gaza. Hostages started to be released

November

Remember that strike on a Venezuelan “drug boat”? Well similar strikes continued in through October and by November near 80 people were confirmed dead.

And reports suggested that during the first one, in September, Pete Hegseth gave the order to “kill everyone” – so when two apparent survivors were spotted clinging to the vessel’s burning hull, a second strike was performed killing them too. Which would constitute at best murder and at worst a war crime. Hegseth denies either, bravely saying the decision to take a second strike was down to the commanding officer. He also claimed he couldn’t remember whether he was aware survivors were on the boat, because of the “fog of war”. The US is currently (still) not at war with Venezuela.

What else happened?
Kash Patel fired a top FBI official in a fury over backlash to his using a private FBI jet to go and see his girlfriend sing at a wrestling event
Private emails from Jeffrey Epstein referencing Trump and his conduct with Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and victims were published by House Democrats
Under mounting pressure in the country and in congress, Trump agreed to sign a law forcing the justice department to release everything it has on Epstein within 30 days
After being asked about the Epstein files during a press conference, Trump called for ABC News’ licence to be revoked
Trump fell out with former MAGA stalwart Marjorie Taylor Greene in spectacular style. She had a pop at him over the Epstein files. He started referring to her as Marjorie Traitor Brown. Greene announces she’s to step down from congress.

December

Trump did two wild things in December that beautifully illustrate how ‘late stage Gadaffi’ he has become in such a short period of time. First, having been cruelly overlooked for a Nobel Peace Price a few weeks earlier, Trump was handed a giant golden trophy by Gianni Infantini, the head of FIFA and a fellow traveller, to award him the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize.

People have been so eager to kiss Trump’s ring, that a multimillion dollar sport organisation, the governing body for a sport beloved by billions of people…made up a peace prize to keep America’s toddler king happy.

The other thing he did was complete the most baffling coup he’s been working up through the year – the takeover of the Kennedy Centre.

The performing arts centre, known for its annual honours of important actors and musicians, is now called the Donald J Trump and John F Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts, after he (possibly illegally) fired the board en masse and replaced him with his hangers on and flunkies. He then presided over this year’s honours, dished out to, among others, Kiss and Michael Crawford – Frank Spencer to you.

What else happened?

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The DoJ came under fire for releasing only some of the Epstein files on time – and for managing to get a curious number of pictures of Bill Clinton over the line with redactions, while not managing to get any of Trump out there. Weird

Donald Trump