
Reversals
Timeline
2015.10.06 | Trump on Afghanistan: "We made a terrible mistake getting involved there in the first place." cnn.com (See also Afghanistan) |
2015.10.20 | Trump: "I've never said we made a mistake going into Afghanistan", contradicting his statement two weeks earlier saying that invading Afghanistan was "a terrible mistake." cnn.com (See also Afghanistan) |
2016.08.03 | Where once Trump demanded tougher U.S. response to Russian aggression, after hiring Paul Manafort, the GOP nominee's views change and he now says he can live with a Russian Crimea. politico.com (See also Ukraine, Conflicts of Interest) |
2017.01.20 | Trump White House takes down Native Americans web page from White House website. nativenewsonline.net (See also Native Americans, Racism, Department of the Interior, First 100 Days) Within hours of the presidential transition, the White House, took down the Native Americans web page that had been part of the Obama White House website for the previous eight years. |
2017.01.25 | Trump officials appear to have walked back on plans to delete EPA climate web pages. sciencemag.org (See also Climate Change, Environmental Protection Agency, Environment) |
2017.01.26 | On the campaign trail Trump was sure he could balance the budget but in an interview on Thursday he said a balanced budget is no longer his top priority. washingtonpost.com (See also First 100 Days, Budget, Military) Replenishing a “really depleted” military takes precedence, President Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “I want a balanced budget eventually,” Trump said. “But I want to have a strong military. To me that’s much more important than anything.” |
2017.01.31 | After meeting with pharma lobbyists, Trump drops promise to negotiate drug prices instead he now plans tax cuts and deregulation. vox.com (See also First 100 Days) |
2017.02.02 | Trump warns Israel that new settlements ‘may not help’ achieve Middle East peace washingtonpost.com (See also First 100 Days, Israel) The statement signals that the new administration will seek continuity with past presidents marking a step away from what he has said in the past. |
2017.02.03 | In signing Dodd-Frank rollback Trump delivers on Wall Street's top priority, betraying his campaign promises to oppose Wall Street. msnbc.com (See also First 100 Days, Promises vs Actions, Dodd-Frank) When Donald Trump campaigned against Wall St, he was brazenly lying. That's especially, painfully obvious today. |
2017.12.07 | Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin has shifted course, and is now essentially ending a special $460 million program that has dramatically reduced homelessness among chronically sick and vulnerable veterans. politico.com (See also Americans in Poverty) |
2017.12.11 | Despite the deaths of as many as half a million people in the Syrian civil war, the Trump Administration is now prepared to accept President Bashar al-Assad’s continued rule until Syria’s next scheduled Presidential election, in 2021, reversingrepeated U.S. statements that Assad must step down as part of a peace process. newyorker.com (See also Russia, Syria, Foreign Policy, Rex Tillerson, Iran) |
2017.12.13 | The Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Republican said Wednesday that two of Donald Trump’s nominees for open seats on the federal bench will not be confirmed, just a day after urging the White House to “reconsider” them. washingtonpost.com (See also Assaults on Government, Rejected or Withdrawn Appointments) |
2017.12.14 | The Federal Communications Commission voted to dismantle Net Neutrality: landmark rules regulating the businesses that connect consumers to the internet, scrapping regulations that prohibited broadband providers from blocking websites or charging for high-quality service or content, reversing the agency's 2015 decision. nytimes.com (See also Assaults on Civil Liberties, Domestic Policy, Net Neutrality) |
2017.12.15 | The Department of Justice acknowledged in a statement that copies of private text messages exchanged between two former special-counsel investigators were disclosed to certain members of the media before they were given to Congress, even though those disclosures "were not authorized." businessinsider.com (See also Legal Issues, Department of Justice, Jeff Sessions) |
2017.12.21 | Donald Trump insisted for months that he wouldn't benefit from the tax bill, but now that it has been signed into law, his press secretary has finally admitted he will. msnbc.com (See also False Statements, Economy, Conflicts of Interest, Corruption) |
2017.12.22 | Donald Trump’s plan to abolish a tax break for hedge-fund managers was kept out of the final tax overhaul legislation -- an act of defiance by congressional leaders who exploited a split among Trump’s advisers. bloomberg.com (See also Steven Mnuchin, Economy, False Statements, Hypocrisy) |
2017.12.23 | The Trump administration moved to renew leases for a copper and nickel mining operation on the border of Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, reversing a decision made by Barack Obama, marking a win for the Chilean mining firm belonging to the family of billionaire Andrónico Luksic, who rents a home to Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, in Washington. washingtonpost.com (See also Conflicts of Interest, Department of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Corruption) |
2017.12.24 | U.S. District Judge James Robart released a 65-page order blocking the administration’s restrictions on the process of reuniting refugee families and partially lifted a ban on refugees from 11 mostly Muslim countries. washingtonpost.com (See also Immigration, Muslim Immigration Ban, Legal Issues) |
2017.12.28 | The Trump administration is rolling back offshore drilling rules put in place after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster killed 11 workers and spewed millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. bloomberg.com (See also Environment, Department of the Interior, Ryan Zinke) |
2018.01.03 | The White House announced Wednesday that Donald Trump is dissolving his voter fraud commission after states failed to hand over requested information. thehill.com (See also Voter Fraud, Voter Suppression, False Statements, 2016 Election) |
2018.01.04 | The Trump administration will allow new offshore oil and gas drilling in nearly all United States waters, giving the energy industry broad access to drilling rights in most parts of the outer continental shelf, including Pacific waters near California, Atlantic waters near Maine and the eastern Gulf of Mexico, reversing a ban on drilling, imposed by President Obama in his final days in office, that protected more than 100 million offshore acres along the Arctic and Eastern Seaboard. nytimes.com (See also Ryan Zinke, Department of the Interior, Energy, Environment) |
2018.01.08 | The White House is considering finding a role for Andrew Puzder, Donald Trump’s first pick for labor secretary, who withdrew his nomination in February after old allegations of domestic abuse resurfaced. politico.com (See also Women, Trump Cabinet) |
2018.01.09 | The Trump administration said Tuesday it wouldn't allow oil drilling off the coast of Florida, abruptly reversing course under pressure from Republican Gov. Rick Scott, during a meeting with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. nbcnews.com (See also Conflicts of Interest, Department of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, Environment) |
2018.01.10 | A federal judge’s said safeguards against deportation must remain in place for the nearly 690,000 people in the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program while a legal challenge to ending the program proceeds. washingtonpost.com (See also Immigration, Legal Issues) |
2018.01.11 | After watching a report on Fox & Friends, Donald Trump caught Republican leadership by surprise with a tweet about FISA renewal, horrifying GOP leadership, given that it was the opposite of the party position... which was followed up by another tweet reversing his stance on the issue. axios.com (See also National Defense) Per a source close to Republican leaders: “I have decided that the only way to stay sane in Trump’s Washington is to ignore everything he says.“ |
2018.01.19 | The Trump administration announced it is rescinding guidance from the Obama administration that made it harder for states to defund Planned Parenthood. thehill.com (See also Women, Health Care) |
2018.01.21 | If the Environmental Protection Agency does not implement restrictions on pesticides (including chlorpyrifos, which hampers the development of children's brains) advocated in a recent National Marine Fisheries Services report, environmental activists and commercial fisheries hoping to preserve Pacific Northwest stocks of “salmon, sturgeon, orca and other endangered species” may file lawsuits. gizmodo.com (See also Environment, Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt) This was a reversal of a Barack Obama-era initiative to ban chlorpyrifos, but changed after a meeting between Scott Pruitt and Andrew Liveris, the then-head of its manufacturer, Dow Chemical. |
2018.01.22 | Through an executive order, Montana Governor Steve Bullock declared that any internet service provider with a state government contract cannot block or charge more for faster delivery of websites, two core aspects of net neutrality, to any customer in the state. nytimes.com (See also Net Neutrality) |
2018.01.24 | Instead of helping consumers (as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau), Mick Mulvaney, who has accepted donations from payday lenders, is now delaying the implementation of payday lending rules. npr.org (See also Mick Mulvaney, Corruption, Conflicts of Interest) |
2018.01.25 | Donald Trump ordered the firing last June of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation, but ultimately backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive. nytimes.com (See also Unpresidential Behavior, Legal Issues, Trump Relationship with Russia) |
2018.02.01 | Four years after the United States pledged to help the world fight infectious-disease epidemics such as Ebola, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is dramatically downsizing its epidemic prevention activities, reducing it's budget by 80% in 39 out of 49 countries because money is running out. washingtonpost.com (See also Foreign Policy, Assaults on Government) |
2018.02.04 | Mick Mulvaney, head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has pulled back from a full-scale probe of how Equifax Inc failed to protect the personal data of millions of consumers, after hackers stole personal information from approximately 143 million Americans. reuters.com (See also Mick Mulvaney, Assaults on Government) |
2018.02.13 | A second U.S. judge on Tuesday blocked Donald Trump’s decision to end a program that protects immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children from deportation, ruling that DACA cannot end in March as the Republican administration had planned. reuters.com (See also Immigration, Legal Issues) |
2018.02.13 | The White House changed its story on Tuesday about how it handled allegations of spousal abuse against Rob Porter, the staff secretary who resigned in disgrace, conceding that the F.B.I. told White House career officials last summer about problems in Mr. Porter’s background check, but members of President Trump’s team said top advisers in the West Wing were kept in the dark. nytimes.com (See also Resignations and Dismissals, False Statements) |
2018.02.20 | During his first six months in office, Donald Trump frequently told the story of how he spontaneously came up with an idea to force energy companies to build pipelines with American-made steel and pipes, but in the six months since a deadline for the plan passed, Trump has dropped the idea from his stump speech and rarely mentions the plan, going "radio silent." cnbc.com (See also Jobs, Domestic Policy) |
2018.03.01 | The top lobbyist for the National Rifle Association claimed late Thursday that Donald Trump had already retreated from his surprising support a day earlier for gun control measures after a meeting with N.R.A. officials and Vice President Mike Pence in the Oval Office. nytimes.com (See also False Statements, Mike Pence) |
2018.03.08 | A week after his inauguration, Donald Trump signed an executive order that bars former lobbyists, lawyers and others from participating in any matter they lobbied or otherwise worked on for private clients within two years before going to work for the government, but records show Trump's top lawyer has issued at least 24 ethics waivers to key administration officials at the White House and executive branch agencies. cnbc.com (See also Hypocrisy, Corruption, Conflicts of Interest, Don McGahn) |
2018.03.25 | Donald Trump has decided not to hire two lawyers previously announced as new additions to his legal team, leaving him with a shrinking stable of lawyers as the investigation by Robert S. Mueller III enters an intense phase. nytimes.com (See also Legal Issues, Resignations and Dismissals) |
2018.03.28 | Thousands of teachers had their grants taken away and turned into loans, despite meeting the program's teaching requirements, sometimes for minor errors in paperwork, by the Department of Education. npr.org (See also Department of Education, Betsy DeVos) |
2018.03.29 | EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt plans to sign a declaration by Sunday that the Obama administration’s vehicle efficiency rules for 2022 through 2025 are “not appropriate” and must be revised. reuters.com (See also Scott Pruitt, Environmental Protection Agency, Climate Change, Environment) |
2018.04.02 | The Trump administration announced Monday afternoon that Obama-era rules to reduce climate pollution from cars and trucks have got to go because they are too strict. buzzfeed.com (See also Scott Pruitt, Environmental Protection Agency, Climate Change, Environment) It’s the latest example of the Trump administration gutting environmental and climate rules. |
2018.04.02 | The Trump administration wants to limit a federal consumer regulator’s ability to independently oversee financial firms by placing the agency under congressional and White House oversight, thus further reining in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. wsj.com (See also Mick Mulvaney, Domestic Policy, Corruption) |
2018.04.03 | Scott Pruitt bypassed the White House to give big raises to his favorite aides. theatlantic.com (See also Scott Pruitt, Environmental Protection Agency, Corruption) The EPA chief used an obscure provision last month to increase the salaries of a pair of staffers by tens of thousands of dollars, despite the White House declining to approve the raises. |
2018.04.04 | After Donald Trump moved to impose tariffs on exports to China, he reversed course once China retaliated, saying that it was only a threat, with the White House saying that the tariffs might never happen. nytimes.com (See also China, Economy) |
2018.04.04 | After asking for an immediate withdrawal from Syria, Donald Trump backed off after commanders told him they still needed time to complete their mission. nytimes.com (See also Syria, Foreign Policy) |
2018.04.12 | A regretful Donald Trump wants to roll back spending in a massive omnibus bill he signed into law, but Republicans who helped craft the legislation are in open revolt. politico.com (See also Mick Mulvaney, Economy) |
2018.04.12 | Donald Trump ordered top administration officials Thursday to look at rejoining the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the sprawling trade pact he rejected three days after taking office. washingtonpost.com (See also Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership) |
2018.04.16 | Donald Trump rejected a fresh round of sanctions set to be imposed against Russia, a course change that underscored the schism between the president and his national security team, including the president’s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, who had already announced that the administration would place sanctions on Russian companies found to be assisting Syria’s chemical weapons program. nytimes.com (See also Russia, Trump Relationship with Russia, Nikki Haley) |
2018.04.19 | A federal judge in D.C. ruled Thursday that the Trump administration's cuts to the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, ending their five year grants in 2018 rather than in 2020, were unlawful. thehill.com (See also Legal Activity, Women, Department of Health and Human Services) |
2018.04.22 | Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt met in his office last year with a veteran Washington lobbyist tied to the bargain-priced condo where Pruitt was living, despite Pruitt and lobbyist Steven Hart previously denying Hart had conducted any recent business with EPA. theguardian.com (See also Scott Pruitt, Environmental Protection Agency, False Statements) |
2018.04.23 | A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the Trump administration cannot delay a regulation that increased automakers’ fines for cars that violate fuel efficiency standards. thehill.com (See also Legal Activity, Environment, Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt) |
2018.04.23 | The Treasury Department eased sanctions on Russian aluminum producer Rusal and said it would consider lifting them altogether if the company severs ties with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with close ties to President Vladimir Putin. politico.com (See also Department of the Treasury, Russia, Trump Relationship with Russia) |
2018.04.24 | The Trump administration is likely to end public access to a web portal used by hundreds of thousands of consumers each year to file complaints against financial companies. wsj.com (See also Mick Mulvaney, Assaults on Government) Mick Mulvaney, the leader of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says he doesn’t have to “run a Yelp for financial services.” |
2018.04.26 | Donald Trump acknowledged for the first time that his longtime lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen represented him in efforts to silence Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress who has alleged a sexual encounter with Trump more than a decade ago. washingtonpost.com (See also Legal Activity) |
2018.04.26 | Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson has withdrawn as Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, as his nomination was hampered by a flurry of allegations about his professional conduct. cnn.com (See also Resignations and Dismissals) |
2018.04.27 | The Russian lawyer who met with Trump campaign officials in Trump Tower in June 2016 on the premise that she would deliver damaging information about Hillary Clinton has long insisted she is a private attorney, not a Kremlin operative trying to meddle in the presidential election, but newly released emails show that she worked hand in glove with Russia's chief legal office to thwart a Justice Department civil fraud case against a well-connected Russian firm, and has recanted her earlier denials. nytimes.com (See also Russian Meddling in Election) |
2018.04.27 | The Trump administration has drafted a proposal that would freeze fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles starting in 2021 and challenge California’s ability to set its own fuel-efficiency rules, changes that would hobble one of the Obama administration’s most significant initiatives to curb climate change. washingtonpost.com (See also Climate Change, Environment, Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt) |
2018.05.01 | The Trump administration embraced Israel's claims that Iran entered a nuclear deal with the world's major powers under false pretenses, a start divergence from its European allies, who said the disclosures broke little new ground and reinforced, rather than weakened, the case for the 2015 deal. nytimes.com (See also Iran, Israel) |
2018.05.02 | When Dr. Harold Bornstein described in hyperbolic prose then-candidate Donald Trump's health in 2015, it turns out that Donald Trump dictated the statement. cnn.com (See also False Statements, Unpresidential Behavior, Unprecedented Actions) |
2018.05.03 | Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor and a recent addition to Donald Trump’s legal team, said that Trump made a series of payments reimbursing his attorney Michael Cohen for a $130,000 settlement with an adult-film actress — despite Trump’s assertion last month that he was unaware of the payment. washingtonpost.com (See also Legal Issues, False Statements) |
2018.05.07 | Donald Trump is sending a plan to Congress that calls for stripping more than $15 billion in previously approved spending, almost half of which would come from two accounts within the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that White House officials said expired last year or are not expected to be drawn upon. washingtonpost.com (See also Economy, Health Care, Affordable Care Act) An additional $800 million in cuts would come from money created by the Affordable Care Act in 2010 to test innovative payment and service delivery models. |
2018.05.07 | Fair-housing advocates plan to file a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and HUD Secretary Ben Carson for suspending an Obama-era rule requiring more than 1,200 communities receiving billions of federal housing dollars to draft plans to desegregate their communities — or risk losing federal funds. washingtonpost.com (See also Racism, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson) |
2018.05.08 | Donald Trump said he is pulling the United States out of the international nuclear deal with Iran, despite last-ditch efforts by Britain, France and Germany to convince him the accord could be “fixed.” washingtonpost.com (See also Foreign Policy, Iran, Steven Mnuchin) Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the administration was revoking licenses for Boeing and Airbus, which were among the biggest deals since the nuclear accord,as Boeing had planned to sell IranAir about 80 aircraft worth about $17 billion; Airbus had agreed to sell 100 aircraft worth about $19 billion. |
2018.05.09 | The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will shutter its student lending office, according to a bureau-wide memo written by its acting director, Mick Mulvaney, which had been responsible for returning $750 million in relief. talkingpointsmemo.com (See also Mick Mulvaney) |
2018.05.10 | German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Europe can no longer count on the U.S. for military protection and must “take its destiny into its own hands.” bloomberg.com (See also Foreign Policy, Europe) |
2018.05.10 | The top White House official responsible for leading the U.S. response in the event of a deadly pandemic, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, has left the administration, and the global health security team he oversaw has been disbanded under a reorganization by national security adviser John Bolton. washingtonpost.com (See also Resignations and Dismissals) Ziemer’s last day was Tuesday, the same day a new Ebola outbreak was declared in Congo. He is not being replaced. |
2018.05.11 | The Trump administration rolled back rules that allowed transgender inmates to use facilities that match their gender identity, including cell blocks and bathrooms, thereby reversing course on an Obama administration effort to protect transgender prisoners from sexual abuse and assault. buzzfeed.com (See also LGBTQIA) |
2018.05.14 | Donald Trump personally will profit from a new Trump Indonesian resort project that will get $500 million in Chinese loans in a deal sealed just days before before his tweet ordering help for Chinese government owned cellphone maker ZTE. huffingtonpost.com (See also China, Trump Business, Conflicts of Interest, Corruption) |
2018.05.15 | The Trump administration has eliminated the White House’s top cyber policy role, jettisoning a key position created during the Obama presidency to harmonize the government's overall approach to cybersecurity policy and digital warfare. politico.com (See also Cybersecurity) |
2018.05.16 | Donald Trump acknowledged that he has repaid his lawyer Michael Cohen for expenses Cohen occurred during the 2016 presidential election, according to the release of his financial disclosure forms. cnn.com (See also False Statements, Legal Issues, Unpresidential Behavior) |
2018.05.16 | The Senate voted to pass a measure that would repeal changes to net neutrality rules that were recently adopted by the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission. cnn.com (See also Net Neutrality) |
2018.05.21 | A new lawsuit is seeking to force the Trump administration to release the results of the FBI’s February-March 2018 “climate survey,” an anonymous review that takes the temperature of worker morale at the agency, that previously had been released to the public every year. talkingpointsmemo.com (See also Legal Activity, Department of Justice) |
2018.05.21 | Donald Trump signed legislation that will undo a 2013 effort by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to discourage discrimination in auto lending. politico.com (See also Racism, Mick Mulvaney) |
2018.05.22 | The Trump administration is moving to reverse Obama-era rules barring hunters on some public lands in Alaska from baiting brown bears with bacon and doughnuts and using spotlights to shoot mother black bears and cubs hibernating in their dens. nbcnews.com (See also Ryan Zinke, Department of the Interior) |
2018.05.24 | Donald Trump, citing a flurry of hostile statements from North Korea, pulled out of a highly anticipated summit meeting with Kim Jong-un. nytimes.com (See also North Korea, Foreign Policy) |
2018.06.04 | White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to answer questions about her claim that Donald Trump did not dictate a statement about a critical Trump Tower meeting during the 2016 campaign — even after her earlier statement was undercut by a memo from Trump's own legal team. thehill.com (See also False Statements, Russian Meddling in Election) |
2018.06.05 | In a confidential, hand-delivered memo to the special counsel, Donald Trump's lawyers acknowledged that the President had dictated a statement, which attempted to deflect questions about a meeting with a Kremlin-tied lawyer at Trump Tower, which could be part of an effort by the president to obstruct a federal investigation. nytimes.com (See also False Statements, Legal Issues, Russian Meddling in Election, Trump Relationship with Russia) |
2018.06.07 | The E.P.A. has in most cases decided to exclude from its calculations any potential exposure caused by the substances’ presence in the air, the ground or water, according to more than 1,500 pages of documents released last week by the agency, instead focusing on possible harm caused by direct contact with a chemical in the workplace or elsewhere. nytimes.com (See also Environmental Protection Agency, Environment, Scott Pruitt) The approach means that the improper disposal of chemicals — leading to the contamination of drinking water, for instance — will often not be a factor in deciding whether to restrict or ban them. |
2018.06.09 | Donald Trump said that he had instructed U.S. officials to withdraw support for a joint statement with other members of the G7 nations he had backed just hours earlier, saying the United States would not join after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly criticized Trump’s trade policy. washingtonpost.com (See also Trade, Mexico, Russia) Trump did not specify which of Trudeau's statements he considered false. |
2018.06.14 | Talks with the United States over how to reform the main U.N. rights body have failed to meet Washington’s demands, activists and diplomats say, suggesting that the Trump administration will quit the Geneva UN Rights Forum. reuters.com (See also Foreign Policy, Nikki Haley, United Nations) |
2018.06.18 | Across immigration, policing, criminal justice, and voting rights, the attorney general is pushing an agenda that could erase many of the legal gains of modern America's defining movement. theatlantic.com (See also Assaults on Civil Liberties, Jeff Sessions, Department of Justice, Racism) |
2018.06.18 | The Senate voted to reinstate tough penalties on ZTE, a Chinese telecom company accused of violating American sanctions, in a sharp rebuke of the Trump administration’s handling of the matter that almost ensures a rare showdown between Republican lawmakers and the White House. nytimes.com (See also Department of Commerce, China, Conflicts of Interest) |
2018.06.19 | Mick Mulvaney will most likely remain acting chief of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as Kathy Kraninger, nominated to run the 1,700-person agency quickly ran into opposition from the left and right, with many critics saying she wasn’t qualified for the job. wsj.com (See also Administration Errors, Mick Mulvaney) |
2018.06.19 | The Trump administration announced a sweeping new rule that will make it easier for small businesses to skirt many requirements of the Affordable Care Act, offering lower costs but also fewer benefits. nytimes.com (See also Health Care, Affordable Care Act) |
2018.06.19 | The US formally announced its withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council. buzzfeed.com (See also United Nations, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo) |
2018.06.20 | Donald Trump caved to enormous political pressure and signed an executive order meant to end the separation of families at the border by detaining parents and children together for an indefinite period, despite repeating for days that the only way to end the division of families was through congressional action because "you can't do it through an executive order." nytimes.com (See also Immigration) The president's order does nothing to address the plight of the more than 2,300 children who have already been separated from their parents. |
2018.06.20 | Donald Trump is repealing an executive order drafted by former President Obama that was meant to protect the Great Lakes and the oceans bordering the United States. thehill.com (See also Environment) |
2018.07.03 | The Trump administration will encourage the nation’s school superintendents and college presidents to adopt race-blind admissions standards, abandoning an Obama administration policy that called on universities to consider race as a factor in diversifying their campuses. nytimes.com (See also Racism, Jeff Sessions, Assaults on Civil Liberties, Department of Education) |
2018.07.06 | Some immigrant U.S. Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a promised path to citizenship are being abruptly discharged. apnews.com (See also Immigration) |
2018.07.10 | The Trump administration is taking a big step forward in its effort to replace the Obama administration’s climate change rule for power plants with a more industry-friendly alternative, reducing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review. thehill.com (See also Environmental Protection Agency, Climate Change) |
2018.07.10 | The Trump administration’s campaign to undermine the Affordable Care Act moved forward by slashing funds for organizations that help people to shop for coverage, forcing the groups to make do with about one-fourth of the federal funding they got for this year’s open enrollment. huffingtonpost.com (See also Affordable Care Act, Health Care) |
2018.07.11 | Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's overnight visit to Pyongyang last week failed to demonstrate any progress on denuclearization talks, leading one source with knowledge of the discussions to say the White House felt it went "as badly as it could have gone." cnn.com (See also North Korea, Department of State, Mike Pompeo) |
2018.07.17 | Under unrelenting pressure from congressional Republicans, his own advisers and his allies on Fox News, Donald Trump abruptly reversed course and claimed he had misspoken during a news conference with President Vladimir V. Putin about whether Russia tried to influence the 2016 presidential election, yet even while conceding this point, he undercut his own assertion that he had accepted the findings of Russian involvement. nytimes.com (See also Russian Meddling in Election, Trump Relationship with Russia, Administration Errors) “Could be other people also,” Mr. Trump said, appearing to ad-lib. “A lot of people out there.” |
2018.07.18 | Donald Trump, who has been under fire for not aggressively confronting Russian President Vladmir Putin over election interference, said he believes Russia is no longer targeting the United States, which is at odds with the views of U.S. intelligence officials, as just last week, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats said Russia and other countries are continuing to target American businesses, the government and other institutions and “the warning lights are blinking red.” washingtonpost.com (See also Trump Relationship with Russia, Russian Meddling in Election, False Statements) “These actions are persistent. They’re pervasive, and they are meant to undermine America’s democracy on a daily basis, regardless of whether it is election time or not,” Coats said during a speech at a Washington think tank. |
2018.07.23 | After a week of tortuous statements, walk-backs and clarifications on whether he believes the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump has once again appeared to have come full circle, falsely dismissing the issue as “all a big hoax.” washingtonpost.com (See also Trump Relationship with Russia, False Statements) |
2018.07.23 | The Trump administration will seek to revoke California’s authority to regulate automobile greenhouse gas emissions -- including its mandate for electric-car sales -- in a proposed revision of Obama-era standards. bloomberg.com (See also Environment, Environmental Protection Agency) |
2018.07.24 | Donald Trump claimed, without evidence, that the Kremlin will support Democrats in the November midterms, debuting a new line on Russian interference as the uproar over his shifting stances on the issue enters its second week. washingtonpost.com (See also False Statements, Trump Relationship with Russia, Unpresidential Behavior) |
2018.07.25 | Education Secretary Betsy DeVos proposed to curtail Obama administration loan forgiveness rules for students defrauded by for-profit colleges, requiring that student borrowers show they have fallen into hopeless financial straits or prove that their colleges knowingly deceived them. nytimes.com (See also Betsy DeVos, Department of Education) |
2018.07.25 | The Trump administration was warned that ending US protections for more than 300,000 Central Americans would strengthen and grow MS-13 and gangs that Donald Trump has called "animals," but the administration went on to end the protections for citizens of El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua regardless. cnn.com (See also Administration Errors, Department of State, Racism) |
2018.07.25 | The White House has suspended the practice of publishing public summaries of Donald Trump's phone calls with world leaders, bringing an end to a common exercise from Republican and Democratic administrations. cnn.com (See also Foreign Policy, Assaults on Facts) |
2018.07.27 | The Trump administration is looking into lifting sanctions against a major Russian aluminum company founded by one of Vladimir Putin's closest allies, even though its former owner, oligarch Oleg Deripaska, was sanctioned this year by the US in an attempt to punish the Kremlin for interfering in the 2016 US presidential election. cnn.com (See also Trump Relationship with Russia, Steven Mnuchin, Department of the Treasury) |
2018.08.02 | The Trump administration proposed a freeze to car mileage standards that would increase air pollution, calling for a 37-mpg average by 2021, reversing the Obama administration standards of 54-mpg by 2025. buzzfeednews.com (See also Environmental Protection Agency, Climate Change, Environment) The administration claims that lighter, more fuel-efficient cars would kill nearly 1,000 people a year, but EPA analysis suggests otherwise. |
2018.08.03 | A Washington, D.C.-based federal judge ruled that the Trump administration must fully restore the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, saying the government's rationale for dropping it is inadequate. npr.org (See also Immigration, Legal Activity) |
2018.08.05 | Donald Trump tweeted that a Trump Tower meeting between top campaign aides and a Kremlin-connected lawyer was designed to “get information on an opponent” — the starkest acknowledgment yet that a statement he dictated last year about the encounter was a lie. nytimes.com (See also Criminality, Trump Relationship with Russia, 2016 Campaign, False Statements, Donald Trump Jr) The tweet also served as an admission that the Trump team had not been forthright when Donald Trump Jr. issued a statement in July 2017 saying that the meeting had been primarily about the adoption of Russian children. |
2018.08.06 | Asbestos is now legally allowed back into U.S. manufacturing under a serious of loopholes by the Environmental Protection Agency. archpaper.com (See also Environmental Protection Agency) |
2018.08.07 | The Federal Communications Commission is changing its tune on that website “hack” that took place in May 2017, based on a statement released by Chairman Ajit Pai, there never was any hack in the first place. futurism.com (See also Net Neutrality) |
2018.08.10 | A federal appeals court ruled that the Trump administration endangered public health by keeping a widely used pesticide on the market despite extensive scientific evidence that even tiny levels of exposure can harm babies’ brains, ordering the the Environmental Protection Agency to remove chlorpyrifos from sale in the United States within 60 days. apnews.com (See also Legal Activity, Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt) |
2018.08.13 | The Trump administration is taking aim at a law designed to protect military service members from getting cheated by shady lending practices, while also separately taking broader steps to roll back enforcement of the Military Lending Act, designed to protect service members from predatory loans and financial products. npr.org (See also Mick Mulvaney, Department of Defense) |
2018.08.14 | White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders apologized for wrongly stating that Donald Trump has created three times as many jobs for black workers as President Barack Obama did. washingtonpost.com (See also False Statements, Black Americans) At a news conference, Sanders said Obama created 195,000 jobs for African Americans during his eight years in office, when the actual number was almost 3 million. |
2018.08.17 | A federal appeals court ordered the Trump administration to immediately implement an Obama-era chemical safety rule introduced in response to a 2013 explosion at a fertilizer plant in Texas that killed 15 people. reuters.com (See also Legal Activity, Environmental Protection Agency) |
2018.08.21 | The Trump administration’s own analysis of its overhaul of federal pollution restrictions, revealed that they could lead to as many as 1,400 premature deaths annually by 2030 from an increase in the extremely fine particulate matter that is linked to heart and lung disease, up to 15,000 new cases of upper respiratory problems, a rise in bronchitis, and tens of thousands of missed school days. nytimes.com (See also Environment, Environmental Protection Agency, Nationalism) |
2018.08.25 | Unions representing federal workers declared victory in what they have described as an assault by the Trump administration after a federal judge struck down key provisions of a set of executive orders aimed at making it easier to fire employees and weaken their representation. washingtonpost.com (See also Legal Activity, Department of Justice) |
2018.08.27 | A panel of three federal judges held that North Carolina’s congressional districts were unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republicans over Democrats and said it may require new districts before the November elections, possibly affecting control of the House. washingtonpost.com (See also Voter Suppression, Legal Activity) |
2018.09.03 | The Trump administration has rolled back worker safety protections affecting underground mine safety inspections, offshore oil rigs and line speeds in meat processing plants, among others. politico.com (See also Domestic Policy) |
2018.09.06 | The Trump administration announced a new rule that would allow immigrant children with their parents to be held in detention indefinitely, upending a ban on indefinite detention that has been in place for 20 years. nbcnews.com (See also Immigration, Department of Health and Human Services) |
2018.09.10 | The Trump administration, taking its third major step this year to roll back federal efforts to fight climate change, is preparing to make it significantly easier for energy companies to release methane into the atmosphere. nytimes.com (See also Environment, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of the Interior) |
2018.09.18 | The Trump administration reversed a regulation designed to prevent methane, one of the most powerful greenhouse gases, from escaping into the atmosphere during oil and gas operations. nytimes.com (See also Department of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, Climate Change, Environment) |
2018.09.20 | The New York Times Co. is suing the Federal Communications Commission for records the newspaper alleges may reveal possible Russian government interference in a public comment period before the commission rolled back Obama-era net neutrality rules. bna.com (See also Legal Activity, Russia, Federal Departments) |
2018.09.21 | Donald Trump walked back his order earlier this week to declassify information in the ongoing probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, saying Justice Department officials and others had persuaded him not to do so for the time being. washingtonpost.com (See also Trump Relationship with Russia, 2016 Election, Department of Justice) |
2018.09.22 | K.T. McFarland, a former top White House official has revised her statement to investigators about a key event in the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, after her initial claim was contradicted by the guilty plea of former national security adviser Michael Flynn. washingtonpost.com (See also Michael Flynn, Trump Relationship with Russia, Russia) |
2018.09.24 | The Trump administration on Monday rolled back a safety rule that would have required trains carrying oil and other flammable materials to install special brakes, reversing an Obama administration rule that followed a series of dangerous oil train explosions in Alabama, North Dakota, and elsewhere. buzzfeednews.com (See also Environment, Department of the Interior) Many of these past derailments have resulted in the release of hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil and have prompted local evacuations. |
2018.09.30 | The Trump administration has completed a detailed legal proposal to dramatically weaken a major environmental regulation covering mercury, a toxic chemical emitted from coal-burning power plants. nytimes.com (See also Environment, Environmental Protection Agency) |
2018.10.02 | Due to a new rule from the Trump administration, foreign diplomats and foreign staffers assigned to the United Nations in New York need to be married — and not just in a domestic partnership — in order to obtain a visa for their partner to enter the United States. buzzfeednews.com (See also Department of State, LGBTQIA) |
2018.10.02 | The EPA is pursuing rule changes that experts say would weaken the way radiation exposure is regulated, turning to scientific outliers who argue that a bit of radiation damage is actually good for you — unlike the current, decades-old guidance says that any exposure to harmful radiation is a cancer risk. apnews.com (See also Environmental Protection Agency) |
2018.10.04 | A federal judge in San Francisco blocked the Trump administration from ending special protections for immigrants from four countries devastated by war and natural disaster, temporarily relieving more than 300,000 people from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan from the threat of deportation. nytimes.com (See also Racism, Legal Activity, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security) |
2018.10.08 | The Trump administration is moving to allow year-round sales of gasoline with higher blends of ethanol, a boon for Iowa and other farm states that have pushed for greater sales of the corn-based fuel, which is currently banned during the summer due to concerns that it contributes to smog on hot days. cbsnews.com (See also Environment, Environmental Protection Agency) |
2018.10.19 | The Trump administration announced it would withdraw an Obama-era proposal aimed at regulating how waste from uranium milling is disposed. thehill.com (See also Environmental Protection Agency, Environment) |
2018.10.21 | The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a government-wide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law. nytimes.com (See also LGBTQIA, Department of Health and Human Services, Assaults on Civil Liberties, Homophobia) |
2018.10.22 | Donald Trump said that transgender issues were in flux after a report that his administration was considering defining gender as male or female based on genitalia at birth drew widespread condemnation. reuters.com (See also LGBTQIA, Homophobia) |
2018.11.02 | The Trump administration restored U.S. sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal, but carved out exemptions for eight countries that can still import oil from the Islamic Republic without penalty. apnews.com (See also Iran) |
2018.11.07 | The Trump administration issued a pair of federal rules that allow some employers to deny insurance coverage of birth control on religious or moral grounds, plowing ahead despite a legal and ideological tempest, creating a deep exception to a federal requirement under the Obama-era interpretation of the Affordable Care Act that essential health benefits must include coverage of contraception at no charge to consumers. washingtonpost.com (See also Women, Health Care, Affordable Care Act) |
2018.11.14 | Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is set to release a sweeping overhaul of how colleges and universities must handle allegations of sexual assault and harassment, giving new rights to the accused, including the ability to cross-examine their accusers. washingtonpost.com (See also Women, Betsy DeVos, Department of Education) |
2018.11.20 | A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to resume accepting asylum claims from migrants no matter where or how they entered the United States, dealing at least a temporary setback to the president’s attempt to clamp down on a huge wave of Central Americans crossing the border. nytimes.com (See also Immigration, Legal Activity) |
2018.11.26 | The Trump administration is reducing the number of prescription drugs that must be made available to people with cancer, AIDS, depression, schizophrenia and certain other conditions through Medicare. nytimes.com (See also Health Care, Department of Health and Human Services) |
2018.11.29 | The Trump administration announced new rules further dismantling the Affordable Care Act, by granting states broad freedom to help pay for unregulated health insurance plans, which typically have cheaper premiums but higher out-of-pocket costs and cover fewer services. buzzfeednews.com (See also Department of Health and Human Services, Affordable Care Act) |
2018.11.30 | Another federal judge has found that the Trump administration’s attempts to strong-arm state and local governments into being hostile to immigrants is illegal, as U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos of the Southern District of New York ruled that that the executive order signed by Donald Trump last January, which withheld funding from sanctuary cities, was both illegal and unconstitutional. splinternews.com (See also Immigration, Legal Activity) |
2018.12.03 | White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said the Trump administration wants to end subsidies for electric cars and other items, including renewable energy sources. reuters.com (See also Environment, Climate Change) White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Monday the Trump administration wants to end subsidies for electric cars and other items, including renewable energy sources. |
2018.12.04 | The Trump administration freed federal prosecutors on Thursday to more aggressively enforce marijuana laws, effectively threatening to undermine the legalization movement that has spread to six states, rescinding an Obama-era policy that had discouraged federal prosecutors from bringing charges of marijuana-related crimes in states that have legalized sales of the drug. nytimes.com (See also Jeff Sessions, Department of Justice) |
2018.12.06 | The Trump administration moved forward with plans to ease restrictions on oil and natural gas drilling, mining and other activities that were put in place to protect an imperiled bird species across millions of acres in the American West. apnews.com (See also Department of the Interior, Environment) |
2018.12.07 | The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Trump administration’s attempt to reinstate its policy that bars asylum for those who cross into the country without authorization. buzzfeednews.com (See also Immigration, Legal Activity, rever) “At the end of day, what’s happening here is quite simple: The executive is trying to unilaterally undermine the rule of law,” said an immigration expert. |
2018.12.07 | The Environmental Protection Agency, now led by acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, has announced more rollbacks regulations on coal-fired power plants, including the loosening an Obama-era restriction on how much carbon dioxide new coal power plants can emit. vox.com (See also Environmental Protection Agency, Environment, Climate Change) |
2018.12.07 | The Trump administration has finalized a rollback of school lunch regulations championed for years by former first lady Michelle Obama, relaxing restrictions on what can be served, and efforts to limit sodium content in school lunches have been delayed or partially eliminated. abcnews.go.com (See also Sonny Perdue, Department of Agriculture) |
2018.12.07 | The Trump administration is poised to ease an Obama-era water rule, shrinking the number of waterways that are protected from industry pollutants. thehill.com (See also Environmental Protection Agency, Environment) |
2018.12.10 | The Trump administration is expected to unveil a plan that would weaken federal clean water rules designed to protect millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of streams nationwide from pesticide runoff and other pollutants. nytimes.com (See also Environment, Environmental Protection Agency) |
2018.12.13 | A federal appeals court has upheld a ruling that will prevent businesses and nonprofits from denying birth control coverage on the basis of a religious or moral objection, but has limited the scope of the order to include the five states — California, Maryland, Delaware, New York, and Virginia — that sued to block the rules last year. theslot.jezebel.com (See also Women, Legal Activity) |
2018.12.13 | When the Trump administration laid out a plan this year that would eventually allow cars to emit more pollution, even automakers, the obvious winners from the proposal, balked, but it turns out that there was a hidden beneficiary of the plan that was pushing for the changes all along: the nation’s oil industry, including Marathon Petroleum, who worked with powerful oil-industry groups and a conservative policy network financed by the billionaire industrialist Charles G. Koch to run a stealth campaign to roll back car emissions standards. nytimes.com (See also Corruption, Environment, Environmental Protection Agency) |
2018.12.17 | The Trump administration is planning to roll back Obama-era policies aimed at ensuring that minority children are not unfairly disciplined. nytimes.com (See also Racism, Department of Education, Betsy DeVos) |
2018.12.19 | A federal judge struck down most of a Trump administration policy that turned away asylum seekers who claimed to suffer domestic violence or gang violence. politico.com (See also Immigration, Legal Activity, Mexico) |
2018.12.19 | The U.S. Treasury said it will lift sanctions on the core empire of Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska, including aluminum giant Rusal and its parent En+, watering down the toughest penalties imposed since Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. reuters.com (See also Department of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, Trump Relationship with Russia) |