Trump’s Dizzying First Year

Photograph by Fabrice Coffrini / Getty

Erin Neil Newsletter editor

A year ago this week, Trump declared, in his second Inaugural Address, “my proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.” Now, just three weeks into 2026, the President has already ordered an attack on Venezuela, made threats against the regime in Iran in support of protesters there, and spent the past few days making statements about pursuing military action against Greenland (and, by extension, all of NATO). In a recent letter to the Prime Minister of Norway, he wrote, “I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace.” Then this morning, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump—at least for now—said that the United States would not use force to take control of Greenland, …

Photograph by Fabrice Coffrini / Getty

Erin Neil Newsletter editor

It’s hard to overstate just how dizzying Trump’s first year in office has been. As Amy Davidson Sorkin writes on the anniversary of his Inauguration, “There’s an undercurrent of political violence that wasn’t present in the same way a year ago.” Trump’s ambitions may be more grandiose than ever, but his public polling is well underwater, and the midterm elections are just months away. “While Trump can break many things,” Sorkin notes, “whoever comes next will have a lot of power to undo his damage and rebuild.”

To help make some sense of the President’s first year back in the White House, we reached out to a few of our writers and editors to hear what, if anything, has surprised them most about Trump 2.0.

There’s a disconnect between the cruelty inflicted by Trump’s deportation agenda and the level of outrage among most Americans. Every day, by caprice, the lives of ordinary, law-abiding people—our neighbors—are being destroyed. Polls show that a majority of Americans now oppose Trump’s immigration policies, but the consternation should be more widespread, and the volume knob turned up. Perhaps it’s because we’ve become inured to Trump’s excesses. Or perhaps we simply can’t keep up with the sheer number of horrors. But I also think there’s long been an empathy gap when it comes to immigrants in this country, the strangers in our midst.—Michael Luo, executive editor

With Donald Trump, there are no surprises; what he’s done since returning to office a year ago has largely been both predictable and specifically predicted, often directly from the mouth of the man himself. The surprise this time is that so many who knew better stood by and let it happen—or outright facilitated it. Without them, Trump would be just another Florida retiree, shouting at the TV at his country club in between endless rounds of golf.—Susan B. Glasser, a staff writer who writes the column Letter from Trump’s Washington.

From a financial perspective, the biggest surprise from the past year is how, at least until now, the markets have weathered Trump’s disruptive policies and have continued to thrive. The decisive moment came last April, when he introduced sky-high blanket tariffs but then reduced them substantially after they prompted a big sell-off in stocks and bonds. That backdown gave rise to the acronym “TACO”—Trump Always Chickens Out—coined by a columnist for the Financial Times. Since then, Wall Street has largely ignored Trump’s antics and concentrated on the A.I. boom. After his recent threats to Greenland and NATO, we are back to April, with investors again divided on whether to take him seriously. On Tuesday, the uncertainty promised an anniversary swoon in the stock market.—John Cassidy, a staff writer who writes the column The Financial Page.

Chaotic or methodical? Well, both. Being on the federal-agency beat, I’ve been surprised, and exhausted, by the non-linearity of the Administration’s destruction. Not every part of the government has gone the sad, cannonball way of U.S.A.I.D. Some employees at the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency, for instance, have been fired and rehired multiple times. The courts have protected many workers; the President and his lieutenants have also responded to public pressure. Federal unions have come to the fore, and tried to resist the overarching push toward war and immigration enforcement. Trump II is a drama of attack and retrenchment, and we aren’t yet at intermission.—E. Tammy Kim, a contributing writer who has been covering Trump’s dismantling of the federal workforce.

What has most surprised me is the sheer audacity of the Trump family’s exploitation of the Presidency for their own self-enrichment. His first term now looks practically abstemious. Back then, the Trumps had more or less limited themselves to his preëxisting business and refrained from any new business deals abroad. No more. Now the Trumps race to consummate as many improbable deals around the world as they can before he has to leave office (including in Saudi Arabia and others in Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Vietnam). They no longer limit themselves to real estate, either: Trump and his sons have come up with no fewer than five businesses that use crypto to transform the prestige of the Presidency into their personal profit, running into billions of dollars. Surely no one had imagined that a President might actually use his position to hawk his own meme coin, like $Trump?—David D. Kirkpatrick, a staff writer who has reported on how much the Trumps are making off the Presidency.

At the first hundred-day mark, the most surprising thing was the velocity with which Trump moved and the scope of what he was trying to accomplish, from the dismantling of so much of the federal government to the assault on private enterprise, from law firms to universities. At the year mark, that continues to be true, and his Presidency has also been eclipsed by this unexpected pivot toward imperialism and overseas adventurism. I did not see the “Donroe Doctrine” coming.—Ruth Marcus, a contributing writer who focusses on law, the courts, and the rule of law under President Trump.

Editor’s Pick

Sanders arrived in Vermont before the New Leftists did in the sixties, and he stayed after they left.

Illustration by Shepard Fairey; Source photograph by Hal Yeager / Stringer / Getty

When Bernie Sanders Headed for the Hills

Early in his life, Sanders left the streets of Brooklyn for the woodlands of Vermont. What did the man bring to the state—and what did the state bring to the man? Jill Lepore reviews a new biography of the country’s leading progressive populist. Read the story »

A filmmaker started following a New York state assemblyman named Zohran Mamdani at just the right time.

Why do albums “drop” and movies “launch”?

In a new documentary, an artist leaves New York City for a home without an address in the desert.

Our Culture Picks

Read: Madeline Cash’s début novel, “Lost Lambs,” is an “exhilarating comic” story in which parents and children are both fighting battles with youth.

Watch: If you watched “Heated Rivalry” for the hockey, then the 1977 classic “Slapshot,” starring an incomparable Paul Newman, might be a nice follow-up.

Listen: Zach Bryan’s “With Heaven on Top” is a “shaggy” album that seemed intent on breaking a bit with the past. But, expecting fan backlash, he released an acoustic version, too.

Puzzles & Games

Today’s Crossword Puzzle: Moe, Larry, or Curly—six letters.
Shuffalo: Can you make a longer word with each new letter?

Daily Cartoon

“And then your next line is: ‘Will you come to my cottage this summer?’ ”

Cartoon by Joline Jourdain

P.S. The current rift between Brooklyn Beckham and his parents, David and Victoria, which is spilling out in viral social-media posts, is a lesson in the things that a famous family wants to say, and not say, about itself in public.

Ian Crouch contributed to today’s edition.