The Trump Tracker
Comprehensive documentation of 995 controversies, backed by evidence and sources
The Administration Is Pressuring the Park Service to Hand a Strip of Yosemite to a Private Developer Who Wants a Road to His Resort Land
For more than a year, National Park Service staff have been working under a directive from Trump administration officials to arrange something no administration has done: convey a piece of Yosemite Na...
Judge Rules Hegseth Illegally Blacklisted an AI Company to Punish It for Criticizing the Government
On the evening of August 27, 2026, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ruled that the Pentagon's designation of the AI company Anthropic as a "supply chain risk" to national security was illegal, and ordered...
$900 Million From a Federal Wind Settlement Is Going to a Firm Run by a Trump Donor Who Bought a Mansion Near Mar-a-Lago
The Trump administration's settlement with the German energy company RWE pays $1.2 billion from a federal fund on the condition that RWE surrender its offshore wind leases off New York, California and...
RFK Jr. Told Senators His Samoa Trip Had 'Nothing to Do With Vaccines.' His Own Letter Asking to Study Samoa's MMR Vaccine Says Otherwise
During his 2025 confirmation hearings, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeatedly told senators that his 2019 visit to Samoa, made months before a measles outbreak that killed 83 people, mostly children under 5...
The Pentagon Fired the Top Three Staff at Stars and Stripes a Day After It Reported on Conditions Aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln
On August 27, 2026, three ousted Stars and Stripes staffers sued the Pentagon in federal court in Washington: editor-in-chief Erik Slavin, publisher Max Lederer, and Middle East reporter Lara Korte. T...
Trump Renames Lake Ontario 'Lake America' and Orders Every Federal Reference to the Old Name Deleted
On August 27, 2026, Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario as "Lake America," five days into a trade war with Canada. Flanked in the Oval Office by large maps of the Great Lakes, one ca...
ICE Buys 6,000 Electric Shock Gloves in a No-Bid Deal, for Use on Detainees Who Are 'Actively or Passively Resisting'
On August 27, 2026, a federal notice showed ICE had awarded a $16.7 million no-bid contract to Compliant Technologies LLC, a Kentucky manufacturer, for 6,000 pairs of gloves that deliver electric shoc...
A Federal Judge Rules the Administration's Farmworker Wage Cut Unlawful, After It Dropped California Pay From $19.97 to $16.90 an Hour
On Wednesday, August 26, 2026, U.S. District Judge Kirk E. Sherriff in Fresno ruled that the Labor Department acted unlawfully when it cut the wages paid to H-2A guest farmworkers. The H-2A program r...
After Pennsylvania Reports Its First Measles Deaths in 35 Years, RFK Jr. Says They May Have Been 'Altogether Fabricated' by a Governor's Staffer
On Tuesday, August 26, 2026, Pennsylvania announced the deaths of two unvaccinated Lancaster County residents, one a newborn, describing them as measles-associated. Health Secretary Debra Bogen said s...
Wyoming's Republican Governor Asks His Attorney General to Look Into DOJ Election Monitors He Calls 'Aggressive' and 'Irregular'
At a state canvassing board meeting on August 26, 2026, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, said he had asked his attorney general to examine the conduct of Justice Department election monitors se...
ICE Arrested More Than 800 People a Day With No Criminal Record in July, the First Month of the Term Where Civil Violations Were the Majority
Federal data released in late August 2026 shows ICE arrested an average of more than 800 people a day with no criminal record during July, a record for the second term. July was the first month of th...
Raskin Opens an Investigation Into 1789 Capital, Asking Whether Donald Trump Jr.'s Firm Made Bets With 'Almost Clairvoyant Accuracy' Using Administration Access
On August 26, 2026, Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote to 1789 Capital opening an investigation into the venture firm Donald Trump Jr. joined shortly after...
The MS-13 'Mastermind' the Administration Paraded in 2025 Has Now Deadlocked Two Juries, Amid a String of Losses in Pirro's D.C. Office
In March 2025 the administration publicly celebrated the extradition from Guatemala of Moises "Viejo Santos" Rivera-Luna, an alleged MS-13 leader charged with racketeering conspiracy, presenting his a...
The Supreme Court Lifts One of Two Injunctions on Trump's Mail Voting Order, Ruling 6-3 That the States Sued Too Soon Rather Than That the Order Is Lawful
On Monday, August 24, 2026, the Supreme Court granted emergency applications from the Justice Department and a dozen Republican-led states and lifted a permanent injunction that had blocked Trump's Ma...
A Pentagon Spokesperson Confirms U.S. Central Command Keeps a Secret Directory of Blacklisted Journalists
The Intercept reported on August 24, 2026 that U.S. Central Command maintains a secret directory of blacklisted journalists, a practice confirmed by a Pentagon spokesperson. It lands at the end of a ...
Border Patrol Detains the Father of a Sailor Who Had Been Deployed Nine Months on the USS Abraham Lincoln, as He Waited for His Son to Come Home
Luis Manuel Aviles Roa, 48, a handyman in Key West, Florida, was arrested by Border Patrol on Saturday, August 22, 2026 after a vehicle stop. According to his wife, he had left the house to take his c...
The Rose Garden Statues Came From Harlan Crow, After the White House Credited Them to 'Generous Private American Patriots'
As Trump converted the White House Rose Garden into a sculpture garden, the administration described the statues as being on loan from "generous private American patriots," without naming them. Repor...
Trump Made More Than 1,000 Securities Trades in a Single Month, Worth Up to $263 Million, While Setting the Policies That Move Those Markets
A financial disclosure published by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics on Saturday, August 22, 2026 shows Trump made more than 1,000 securities trades during June alone. The filing reports ranges r...
Trump Tells Supporters He Will Be Impeached if Republicans Lose the Midterms, and That They Will 'Lose Everything'
Campaigning in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on Friday, August 21, 2026, Trump told supporters he expects to be impeached if Republicans lose the midterm elections in November, warning that they would ...
Trump Tells a Rally That Hospitals Are Performing 'Reverse Surgery' on Transgender Patients 'At My Order'
At a rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on Friday, August 21, 2026, Trump told supporters that "hospitals now are doing reverse surgery, at my order," adding that nobody had heard about it. No suc...
A Judge Voids Rubio's Visa Ban on 75 Countries, Calling It 'Patently Unlawful' for Rejecting Applicants Solely on Nationality
On Friday, August 21, 2026, U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas of the Southern District of New York struck down the Trump administration's suspension of immigrant visa processing for 75 countries, c...
SNAP Enrollment Falls to a 17-Year Low, With About 5 Million People Off the Program Including Roughly 1.5 Million Children
Food assistance enrollment has fallen to its lowest level in 17 years following the 2025 Republican reconciliation law. Between the law's July 2025 enactment and May 2026, USDA data shows SNAP partic...
The Navy Is Weighing Stripping Pearl Harbor Hero Doris Miller's Name From an Aircraft Carrier and Putting Trump's on It Instead
CNN reported on August 20, 2026 that the Navy is working to rename the future aircraft carrier CVN-81, currently designated the USS Doris Miller, and is considering naming it after Trump. Doris Mille...
The Bureau of Land Management Has More Than Doubled Wild Horse Sales, and a Times Investigation Traced Some of Them to Slaughterhouses
In August 2026 The New York Times published an investigation titled "Under Trump, Protected Wild Horses Are Going to Slaughter," reporting that the Bureau of Land Management has more than doubled its ...
Hegseth Uses an Anti-Transgender Slur at an Iowa Fundraiser: 'At the Department of War, We Do Training, Not Trannies'
On August 17, 2026, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used an anti-transgender slur while speaking at a military fundraiser tied to the Iowa State Fair, saying: "At the Department of War, we do training,...
The White House Tells CNN's Kristen Holmes Her Children Will Be 'Sickened and Embarrassed' by Her, After She Asked Trump a Question He Disliked
At an Oval Office event on Monday, August 17, 2026, CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes asked Trump to respond to Sen. Jon Ossoff's remark about his relationship with aide Natalie Harp...
Trump Frees a Ponzi Schemer Less Than Halfway Through a 33-Year Sentence, Cancelling the Restitution She Owed Her Victims
Marian Morgan and her husband John ran an investment firm in Sarasota, Florida that prosecutors said operated as a Ponzi scheme, misappropriating around $10 million in investor funds and spending it o...
Trump Says He Will Declare the Strait of Hormuz a U.S. Territory, Then Posts a Map Labeling It One
At a rally in New York state on August 14, 2026, Trump said: "After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I'll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the Uni...
The FCC Abolishes the National Gigabit Broadband Goal, Saying It Is Unfair to Slower Technologies
In a broadband report released August 14, 2026, the Federal Communications Commission abandoned the national long-term speed goal of 1 gigabit per second download paired with 500 megabits per second u...
Trump Orders the Navy to Rip Out Its Electromagnetic Catapults and Go Back to Steam, Including on a Carrier Already Being Built for the New System
Trump directed the Navy to abandon the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System on its Ford-class aircraft carriers and revert to steam-powered catapults and hydraulic arresting gear. The order would r...
Bulldozers Enter Big Bend National Park for Border Barrier Work, in What a Former Superintendent Calls the Least Active Crossing Area in the Country
In early August 2026, federal contractors authorized by Customs and Border Protection began bulldozing sensitive habitat near Santa Elena Canyon inside Big Bend National Park, clearing ground for bord...
Treasury Ends the Shell-Company Ownership Registry and Orders the Records Americans Already Filed to Be Deleted
On August 11, 2026, the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a final rule permanently ending the requirement that U.S. companies and U.S. persons report who actually owns ...
Days After Blanche Is Confirmed, His DOJ Extends Executive Privilege to Trump's Private Advisers, Shielding Them From Congress
On August 10-11, 2026, days after Todd Blanche was confirmed as attorney general, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel published an opinion greatly expanding the reach of executive privile...
Trump Calls Democratic Candidates 'Jihadists' Being Elected 'All Over the Place,' Offering No Evidence
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office around August 10, 2026, three months before the midterms, Trump debuted a new attack line on Democrats: "Well, the one thing is, we have jihadists being electe...
The DOJ Abandons Its Appeal to Seize Transgender Minors' Medical Records From a Pittsburgh Children's Hospital
Around August 10, 2026, the Justice Department moved to voluntarily dismiss its appeal of court rulings that had quashed a federal subpoena to UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. The subpoena soug...
The State Department Says It Has Revoked More Than 175,000 Visas Since Trump Took Office
On August 10, 2026, the State Department announced that it has revoked more than 175,000 visas since the start of Trump's second term, a pace it put at more than 10,000 a month in 2026, compared with ...
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