I’ve logged over 200 actions because the 1st July on my TrumpActionTracker. The equipment of the state is being subverted to reward the president’s allies and punish everybody else. On this put up, I’ll display by that sample throughout a number of domains: the abuse of legislation and reality in opposition to perceived enemies, the rise of propaganda alongside the withholding of actual data, blatant corruption, the retreat from proof in science and well being, and the continued dismantling of social protections.
Between them, undermining the rule of legislation and weaponising the state in opposition to perceived enemies accounted for round half of the whole lot I logged within the final month.
A working example is the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool which has been a common function within the tracker this yr (see additionally timeline determine). The renovation was a $14.7m venture to show the pool “American flag blue” for the Fourth of July. Two separate no-bid contracts went to Trump-connected companies: on 9 Might a $6.9m no-bid paint contract went to a firm Trump had used at his Virginia golf course, and on 18 June a $1.7m no-bid water-purification contract went to a agency tied to a Trump donor. When the paint peeled and the pool turned inexperienced with algae, Trump blamed vandalism and vowed to prosecute, whereas scientists pointed to the disturbance from the works and heat climate.
Trump obtained his prosecution in early July, when a grand jury indicted David Hearn, a three-time US Olympic canoeist, for ‘vandalising’ the pool. Hearn confronted as much as ten years in jail if convicted. Nonetheless, on the finish of July federal prosecutors moved to dismiss the charges, having conceded that the harm was attributable to a botched contractor set up moderately than by vandalism, not to mention any vandalism by Hearn The federal government’s personal Inside Division had held the paperwork exhibiting this the entire time.
Trump then publicly contradicted his own Justice Department, insisting the harm was vandalism. He then accused his own US attorney, Jeanine Pirro, of “folding like an umbrella” and was reported to be contemplating firing her, and days later he doubled down on his criticism of Pirro. The truth that the President is livid along with his Division of Justice for not carrying on with a prosecution it knew was false, as a substitute for bringing it in any respect, epitomises what has gone mistaken in Trump’s America.
Then there’s the pursuit of Dr Anthony Fauci, who led the US covid response, which has accelerated during the last month. The marketing campaign in opposition to Fauci will not be new. It started 4 days into Trump’s second time period, when Trump stripped his safety element regardless of energetic threats. In July 2025, Senator Rand Paul referred Fauci to the Division of Justice for investigation on the spurious foundation of alleged destruction of federal information and ‘lab-leak origins’ concealment. By 15 May 2026 senior scientists have been being pushed out of the Nationwide Institute of Allergy and Infectious Ailments, the place Fauci had been director for 38 years, with the Trump administration pursuing fees in opposition to researchers who had labored on Covid.
Issues then sped up a lot during the last month. Rand Paul, as chair of the Senate Homeland Safety and Governmental Affairs Committee, subpoenaed Fauci to look after he declined to come back voluntarily. Paul’s grounds for the summons have been an accusation that Fauci had funded and then hid dangerous analysis that Paul claims is linked to the origins of Covid, a cost Fauci denies and most virologists reject. Within the days earlier than the listening to, Paul released greater than 1,000 pages of Fauci’s non-public diaries, presenting them as proof that he had hidden his non-public uncertainty about how the pandemic started. Fauci declined to answer questions at a Senate hearing, invoking his Fifth Modification proper in opposition to self-incrimination, saying in his opening assertion that Paul had convened the listening to to trick him into mendacity beneath oath. This wasn’t unreasonable provided that Paul had already said that any solutions Fauci gave might create new alternatives to prosecute him for mendacity (and wouldn’t be coated by Biden’s pardon). Following Fauci’s look, Florida’s legal professional normal opened a state investigation into him, a Senate committee voted along party lines to hold him in contempt, Rand Paul asked the Justice Department to prosecute him, and Trump himself said Fauci should be prosecuted. This use of varied levers of native and nationwide authorities to pursue a perceived enemy – a man in his 80s who served the US faithfully throughout Covid – epitomises the vindictiveness of this administration.
Info management was the subsequent largest area this month. The Division of Vitality deleted more than 1,600 web pages on how to cut back utility payments and defending the electrical energy grid throughout heatwaves. The federal authorities refused a record number of public document freedom of information requests. The Pentagon revised its casualty database for the Iran battle, including 140 injured personnel it had beforehand withheld. It additionally break up the battle’s casualty depend in two, opening a new class on 7 July on the argument that the preventing after the ceasefire collapsed was a separate battle from the sooner section. This has the impact of resetting the working whole and making the headline quantity of People killed and wounded look smaller than it’s. It’s also unprecedented.
Then there’s the propaganda. The Republican Celebration has actually leant into AI-generated imagery just lately and there have been a quantity of examples this month. Some of probably the most egregious: Trump posted a series of AI images of himself captioned “Trump 2028” (the Structure doesn’t permit him to run for a 3rd time period). He posted a picture of himself as a World War 2 military hero alongside former generals and one other of him signing a doc alongside Lincoln and Washington.
Internationally, the State Division stated it might begin screening the social media accounts of international journalists searching for visas, making what they put up a take a look at for whether or not they can work within the US. Domestically, the Federal Communications Fee (FCC) scrapped the 39% cap on nationwide tv possession, a restrict Congress set in 2004, clearing the best way for giant media teams to get greater. This issues as a result of the cap exists to cease anybody firm dominating what native areas watch, so lifting it lets the most important house owners consolidate. Those greatest positioned to learn run the Trump-friendly native information operations. On the identical time, the FCC threatened ABC’s native licences this month, so it seems just like the FCC is favouring pleasant broadcasters whereas it pressures supposedly hostile ones.
More and more blatant corruption and self-enrichment has been a key theme this yr and continued this previous month. It emerged that the Trump household’s cryptocurrency firm, World Liberty Monetary, accepted $100 million from a businessman who was beneath investigation for cash laundering by Trump’s Division of Justice. The Securities and Trade Fee (SEC) moved to drop its insider-trading case in opposition to a former healthcare govt after Trump pardoned him, all whereas the administration makes use of fraud as the rationale to go after Blue States or immigrant communities. Trump’s sons are investing closely in defence know-how corporations and benefiting from the Pentagon’s elevated spending on this know-how.
In the meantime, on the Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau, the watchdog meant to defend folks from predatory lending, the chief examiner warned workers of “most disagreeable” penalties in the event that they policed monetary companies too aggressively, simply as inspections have been resuming after a lengthy pause.
The month’s different working corruption thread was the “anti-weaponization” fund, a proposed $1.8bn pot to compensate Trump’s political allies. Trump defended it even because it threatened to sink Todd Blanche’s legal professional normal nomination, and later vowed to revive it by Congress. Individually the administration was already compensating allies for earlier convictions, paying a seven-figure settlement to anti-abortion activist Paul Vaughn, who had been convicted of conspiring to dam entry to an abortion clinic earlier than being pardoned by Trump. On 3 August, Blanche formally rescinded the weaponization fund in a memo that nonetheless left intact Trump and his household’s lifetime immunity from tax investigation.
The sample in science and well being coverage has been constant for a very long time: the administration replaces unbiased consultants on a scientific physique, and then the brand new physique overturns earlier selections. This month RFK Jr moved to remake the panel that determines which preventive remedies insurers should cowl totally free, and Trump was reported to be pushing him to go further on cutting vaccines. The teenager being pregnant prevention programme was rebuilt around conservative family ideology, with 53 of 67 federal grants cancelled.
On the surroundings, the administration moved to revoke California’s authority to set stricter automobile emissions requirements, exempted power vegetation serving knowledge centres from clear air laws, and admitted that it had scrapped $7.5 billion in inexperienced power grants to States based mostly solely on how States had voted within the 2024 election.
The final area I needed to focus on is the regular dismantling of social protections and civil rights, and the means for implementing them. The Equal Employment Alternative Fee voted to scrap the requirement that employers report workforce race and intercourse knowledge, a rule in place because the Nineteen Sixties. The Schooling Division removed “disparate impact” regulations that for many years prohibited practices with discriminatory results. The administration confirmed it might strip most federal requirements from Head Start, the anti-poverty programme for low-income kids.
These aren’t headline-grabbing actions, however they matter. The information that retains observe of discrimination is being lowered and the principles that policed discrimination are being rolled again. Lastly, Republicans in North Carolina have tried to move early voting websites off faculty campuses and scale back Sunday voting, which officers in each events known as a blatant try and make it more durable for college kids and Black voters to forged ballots.
So much has occurred – and retains occurring – and sadly the actions coated on this put up aren’t even the half of it. To me, the overarching message is that that is an administration governing in one of the best pursuits of Trump and his allies and nobody else. Any dissent, from any path, is punished and there may be a fierce, ubiquitous assault on reality and proof.
