On New Year's Eve 2025, Trump posted on Truth Social about Tina Peters, the former Mesa County, Colorado, clerk serving a nine-year state prison sentence after jurors found she allowed unauthorized access to the county's secured election system. “Hard to wish her a Happy New Year,” he wrote, “but to the Scumbag Governor, and the disgusting 'Republican' (RINO!) DA, who did this to her... I wish them only the worst. May they rot in Hell. FREE TINA PETTERS!”
The targets were Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, and Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein, a fellow Republican who prosecuted Peters. Trump had already announced a “pardon” for Peters in December, although a president's pardon power does not reach state convictions. Rubinstein replied that “President Trump has no facts and no law here,” and Polis said he hoped the president's resolution would be “to spend less time online talking about me.”
The post contained errors. Trump said Peters was 73 and in a “Maximum Security Prison”; the Daily Beast reported she is 70, and WION reported she was held in a medium-security women's facility. The same day he also attacked George and Amal Clooney over their new French citizenship. This was the second time Trump used a year-end holiday to tell opponents to “rot in hell”; he did so on Christmas Day 2023.
The New Year's Eve post suggested that Trump's inability to set aside grievances even for a single holiday is not an aberration but a defining trait.
Correction (October 14, 2026): This entry previously said Trump posted from Mar-a-Lago, that the targets of the tirade included Rep. Ilhan Omar, whom he attacked with debunked claims, and that he called Democrats “cheaters and thieves.” The “rot in Hell” line was aimed only at Polis and Rubinstein, and the remaining claims could not be confirmed by at least two independent live sources, so they have been removed. The entry also stated as fact that Peters is held in a medium-security prison; that detail rests on a single outlet and is now attributed to it.