2025/2026 Trump Talking Points

In a nutshell: President Trump is not trying to govern. He is trying to rule. The list of examples of the Trump administration’s authoritarian actions keeps getting longer and longer.

Bypassing Congress and the Constitution

• Taking military action against Iran and Venezuela, and striking suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, without seeking or waiting for congressional authorization — even as Congress voted on (and narrowly rejected) resolutions demanding he do so.

  • Imposing sweeping global tariffs by executive fiat under a law never intended for that purpose — and losing. In February 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the law Trump invoked (IEEPA) does not authorize a president to impose tariffs at all, striking down roughly $175 billion in collected duties.

  • Bypassing Congress's constitutional power of the purse by unilaterally withholding or clawing back funds Congress had already appropriated, including the dismantling of USAID's programs before any law authorized it.

  • Declaring a national "invasion" at the southern border to justify using the military for domestic law enforcement — a use of the armed forces normally barred by law absent an actual declared emergency of that kind.

  Eliminating the Referees

  • Firing at least 19 independent inspectors general in the first weeks of the term, without the 30-day notice or written justification the law requires — several of them shortly after their offices published findings critical of the administration. A Senate committee found the fired IGs had collectively uncovered billions of dollars in fraud, waste, and abuse.

  • Replacing ousted inspectors general with officials who have direct personal or political ties to the administration, undermining the independence the position is designed to guarantee.

  • Ignoring and violating federal court orders — including a Supreme Court order to facilitate Kilmar Abrego Garcia's return from a Salvadoran prison, which the administration delayed for two months — while the president calls judges who rule against him "radical left" and "a lunatic."

  • Denying individuals, including U.S. citizens, their Fifth Amendment right to due process before detention or deportation.

  Deception and Loss of Public Trust

  • Publicly blaming ICE shooting victims for their own deaths — claiming they "weaponized" vehicles or attacked federal agents — in cases where video, eyewitness accounts, or DHS's own internal review later contradicted the official story. In one Minneapolis case, DHS admitted its own agents "appear to have made untruthful statements" under oath after the DOJ had already filed charges based on their account.

  • Claiming for weeks that "vandals" had slashed the newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool with a knife or razor — a claim the president repeated with escalating, shifting figures (150 feet, then 250, then 300, then 350) — and criminally prosecuting a former Olympic athlete over it, before the administration quietly admitted in a court filing that the damage was actually caused by a botched contractor installation.

  • A documented pattern of officials asserting things directly contradicted by video or physical evidence, then declining to retract the original claim even after the correction becomes public.

  Fear and Coercion Aimed at Individuals

  • Instilling fear in citizens and immigrants alike by having immigration enforcement personnel wear masks, use unmarked vehicles, refuse to identify themselves, and detain people — including U.S. citizens — without due process.

  • Deploying military and National Guard forces to American cities over the objections of the governors and mayors of those cities, who neither requested nor said they needed that presence.

  • Conducting lethal strikes on suspected drug-trafficking boats in international waters — reportedly killing more than 115 people by early 2026 — with the president, rather than any court, effectively acting as judge, jury, and executioner.

  Punishing Critics, Rewarding Loyalty

  • Repeatedly labeling political opponents and critics "the enemy from within" and floating the use of the National Guard or military against them — rhetoric that, since taking office, has been followed by actual domestic deployments of forces to cities run by his political opponents.

  • Expecting the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute individuals the president perceives as having wronged him personally, rather than operating independently of the White House.

  • Prioritizing personal loyalty over qualifications in cabinet and senior appointments, with willingness to embrace the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen functioning as an informal litmus test.

  • Continuing, years later, to publicly deny the outcome of the 2020 election and to claim without evidence that Democrats rig elections.

  • Pardoning or commuting the sentences of January 6th defendants, including people convicted of violently assaulting police officers.

  Curbing the Press and Free Speech

  • Removing the Associated Press and Reuters from their standing rotation in the White House press pool, and withholding official pool reports that contained information the White House found "inconvenient" — restricting the public's access to independent, wire-service coverage of the presidency.

  • Using lawsuits, threats to pull federal funding, and threats of regulatory retaliation to pressure universities and media organizations into policy changes — including freezing billions of dollars from Harvard and Columbia over disputes about campus speech and protest policy.

  • Firing thousands of federal employees, in many cases without the legally required cause or process — actions multiple courts have already found unlawful, with litigation ongoing over others.