Early in President Trump’s first term, McSweeney’s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We called this list a collection of Trump’s cruelties, collusions, corruptions, and crimes, and it felt urgent to track them, to ensure these horrors—happening almost daily—would not be forgotten. Now that Trump has returned to office, amid civil rights, humanitarian, economic, and constitutional crises, we felt it critical to make an inventory of this new round of horrors. This list will be updated monthly between now and the end of Donald Trump’s second term.
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ATROCITYKEY
– Constitutional Illegalities, Collusion, and/or Obstruction of Justice – Environment – Harassment, Bullying, Retribution, and/or Sexual Misconduct – Lies and Misinformation – Musk Madness – Policy – Public Statements and Social Media Posts – Trump Family Business Dealings – Trump Staff and Administration – White Supremacy, Racism, Misogyny, Homophobia, Transphobia, and/or Xenophobia
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OCTOBER 2025
– October 1, 2025 – Vice President JD Vance laughed off two racist AI-generated videos of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that Trump posted earlier in the week. “Oh, I think it’s funny,” he said. “The president’s joking, and we’re having a good time.” The videos portrayed Jeffries, who is Black, with a mustache and sombrero while mariachi music played in the background; the first video also falsely accused Democrats of trying to give free healthcare to undocumented immigrants. When asked to respond to Jeffries’s statement that the videos were racist and bigoted, Vance responded, “I don’t even know what that means.”
Trump’s Post of Rep. Jeffries with Sombrero is ‘Funny,’ Vance Says (PBS)
– October 1, 2025 – In retaliation for the government shutdown, the Trump administration canceled over $27 billion in funds for Democratic states. The denied funds included $8 billion in climate-related funding and $18 billion for two major transportation projects primarily in New York City. Voice of America broadcasts were also suspended, and its journalists were placed on furlough. Partisan language blaming “the Radical Left Democrat Shutdown” for slow responses was also inserted onto federal agency websites and into the out-of-office email replies of furloughed federal workers, a possible violation of both the First Amendment and the Hatch Act. “Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate, which has led to a lapse in appropriations,” read one version of the message. Matthew Lawrence, a law professor at Emory University, said Trump’s response to the shutdown was unprecedented: “I can’t think of a historical parallel of an administration cutting funds in a shutdown like this,” added Don Kettl, an emeritus professor at the University of Maryland, “We have had lots of shutdowns … [but] never before have top officials tried to use their employees as human shields in a partisan battle.”
– October 2, 2025 – The New York Timesreported that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. fired Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo from the NIH three weeks after Marrazzo filed a whistle-blower complaint. In her whistle-blower complaint, Dr. Marrazzo, who had directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had claimed she was demoted after objecting to Trump administration actions that endangered research subjects, defied court orders, and undermined vaccine research. “The Trump administration terminated Dr. Marrazzo for her advocacy on behalf of critical health research and for her support of the overwhelming body of evidence that shows vaccines are safe and effective,” said Debra S. Katz, a lawyer for Dr. Marrazzo, who argued that her client’s removal was retaliatory. Three other NIH directors and one NIH deputy director—Diana Bianchi, Eliseo Pérez-Stable, Shannon Zenk, and Tara Schwetz—were first placed on administrative leave and then fired. Some of the fired directors claimed they were targeted because their institutions funded studies related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as HIV.
– October 2, 2025 – Facing pressure from the Trump administration, Apple removed ICEBlock and similar apps that alert people about ICE sightings in their area. Apple told ICEBlock’s creator, Joshua Aaron, that the app violated app store guidelines and that its “purpose is to provide location information about law enforcement officers that can be used to harm such officers individually or as a group,” a claim Aaron called “patently false.” Aaron has said that the app, which had over 1 million users, was instead intended to help people avoid contact with ICE. “Our mission has always been to protect our neighbors from the terror this administration continues to (rain) down on the people of this nation,” said Aaron. “ICEBlock is no different from crowdsourcing speed traps, which every notable mapping application, including Apple’s own Maps app, implements as part of its core services. This is protected speech under the First Amendment.”
– October 2, 2025 – President Trump referred to Project 2025, a radical right-wing policy plan he claimed he “had nothing to do with” and had not read while running for office. “I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” Trump wrote on social media. Although the president appointed Vought to lead his budget office and quickly began implementing a number of Project 2025 proposals, he never directly admitted he was involved with Project 2025 until the social media post. “This was always the plan. Project 2025 was Donald Trump’s blueprint to seize unchecked power within the federal government and restrict Americans’ freedoms. And he is implementing it right in front of our eyes,” Kamala Harris wrote on social media.
– October 2, 2025 – The Trump administration sent letters to nine universities asking them to pledge support for Trump’s political agenda in exchange for access to federal research funds. A “compact” attached to the letters outlined the administration’s education policy goals, including freezing tuition, providing free tuition to students studying “hard sciences” at select schools, capping international student enrollment, committing to binary definitions of gender, and prohibiting pushback against conservative ideas on campus. “This is a power play, and it’s designed to divide the higher education community,” said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education. “I hope institutions do not sign this compact. I do not think it’s in their best interests individually, and collectively, it’s a horrible precedent to cede power to the federal government.”
– October 2, 2025 – Todd Arrington, the head of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, resigned following a fight with the Trump administration over a sword. State Department officials wanted to gift King Charles III an original Eisenhower sword from the library, but Arrington pushed back, arguing that the sword had been donated and was the property of the American people. He offered to find an alternative gift or a replica, but was eventually told to “resign or be fired.” “Apparently, they believed I could no longer be trusted with confidential information,” said Arrington, who previously worked for the National Park Service and National Archives and Records Administration.
– October 2, 2025 – The Trump administration sent a confidential notice to Congress stating that the United States was engaged in a formal “armed conflict” with “terrorist” drug cartels and that it considered suspected smugglers for such groups to be “unlawful combatants.” The notice set the stage for Trump to claim extraordinary wartime powers as a legal rationale for the American strikes on three Venezuelan boats that killed seventeen people. Geoffrey S. Corn, who formerly served as the Army’s senior advisor for law-of-war-issues, said drug cartels were not engaged in “hostilities,” the legal standard for an armed conflict, because selling dangerous drugs is not the same as an armed attack; Corn also noted that it was illegal for the military to deliberately target civilians, even suspected criminals, not directly participating in hostilities. “This is not stretching the envelope,” said Corn. “This is shredding it. This is tearing it apart.”
– October 3, 2025 – The United States struck a fourth Venezuelan boat allegedly carrying drugs, killing four. “The strike was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics—headed to America to poison our people,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on social media without providing evidence for his claims. “Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking route. These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!” In his own social media post, Trump also claimed without evidence that the boat was carrying enough drugs “to kill 25 to 50 thousand people.” Former government officials and legal experts have questioned the legality of the deadly strikes.
– October 3, 2025 – The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration was offering migrant children $2500 to self-deport. Although DHS officials defended the program as “strictly voluntary,” immigration rights advocates swiftly pushed back, arguing that the administration was violating federal law by pressuring minors to surrender their rights to immigration proceedings and humanitarian protections; further, many of the children had fled oppressive regimes, violence, or hunger in their home countries. “Safe voluntary departure requires legal counsel—not government marketing or what amounts to cash bribes for kids,” said Melissa Adamson, senior attorney at the National Center for Youth Law. “This administration’s actions again prove it cannot be trusted to protect children.” During Trump’s first term, more than 4,000 migrant children were separated from their parents, and over Labor Day Weekend, the administration attempted to deport dozens of Guatemalan children in the middle of the night.
– October 3, 2025 – FEMA said it was withholding more than $300 million in grants from states until they could verify their population estimates accounted for recent deportations. “This grant is awarded based solely on population data, and FEMA must ensure it is awarding the corrected funding levels,” wrote Daniel Llargues, a FEMA spokesman. It is unclear whether deportations have led to meaningful population changes or how states will confirm the number of deported immigrants. A group representing state emergency management agencies said the move would result in “further delaying resources intended to strengthen disaster preparedness and emergency response.”
– October 4, 2025 – A Chicago woman was shot by federal agents during an immigration enforcement operation in Brighton Park, where agents also fired chemical irritants and stun grenades into a crowd of protesters. Many of the agents had arrived in unmarked cars without license plates. After driving herself to a hospital, the woman, a U.S. citizen, was taken into custody by the FBI. Several hours later, against Illinois Governor JB Pritzker’s wishes, Trump authorized the activation of 300 National Guard troops in Chicago. “President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities,” a White House spokesperson said. Pritzker pushed back against that narrative, arguing that the move was more about “control” than “safety.” “They will pull hardworking Americans out of their regular jobs and away from their families all to participate in a manufactured performance—not a serious effort to protect public safety,” said Pritzker.
– October 5, 2025 – A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from deploying hundreds of out-of-state National Guard troops to Oregon. The Trump administration had previously tried to send hundreds of California National Guard troops to Portland. California and Oregon quickly filed lawsuits to stop the administration’s move. Immergut told Justice Department lawyers that “The relocation, federalization or deployment of members of the National Guard of any state or the District of Columbia in the state of Oregon … was in direct contravention” of her order. California attorney general Rob Bonta, told reporters, “It’s our National Guard—California’s National Guard. Not Trump’s Royal Guard, as he seems to think.”
– October 6, 2025 – Trump told reporters that he would consider invoking the Insurrection Act. “I’d do it if it was necessary,” he said. “If I had to enact it, I’d do it, if people were being killed and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up.” The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows the president to mobilize the U.S. military to conduct civilian law enforcement activities under certain circumstances. Trump stated, “If you take a look at what’s been going on in Portland,” Trump said. “it’s been going on for a long time, and that’s insurrection. I mean, that’s pure insurrection.” Outside the Portland ICE facility the previous day, about seventy protesters chanted, barbecued, and passed out bottled water as passing motorists honked in mutual disapproval of the Trump administration.
Protests outside Portland ICE building (KATU News)
– October 6, 2025 – According to a report from consumer advocacy and ethics nonprofit Public Citizen and corporate watchdog group The Revolving Door Project, the Trump administration placed 111 employees deemed “fossil fuel insiders and renewable energy opponents” in his administration. Among them are senior officials such as Energy Secretary Chris Wright, the former CEO of the fracking company Liberty Energy. Report author and Revolving Door Project senior researcher Toni Aguilar Rosenthal said, “It is often specific actors coming from specific moneyed interests that are carrying out this disastrous deregulatory agenda.” Interior Department spokesperson Aubrie Spadie said of the report: “it’s clear that this progressive group pushing an entire climate cult program, among other radical policies, would like to see American taxpayer dollars wasted on the Green New Scam.” Fossil fuel donors poured $96 million into Trump’s 2025 presidential campaign and contributed $11.8 million to Trump’s second inauguration.
– October 8, 2025 – Trump said that Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats, should be jailed for their opposition to his deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago. Johnson declared, “This is not the first time Trump has tried to have a Black man unjustly arrested. I’m not going anywhere.” On X, Pritzker wrote, “Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power. What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?” When asked what crimes the president believed Pritzker and Johnson had committed, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson failed to identify any.
– October 9, 2025 – A federal grand jury charged New York Attorney General Letitia James with bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution in connection with a home purchase in Norfolk, Virginia in 2020. The indictment came after steady pressure from Trump to prosecute one of his longtime political foes. James denied any wrongdoing and said the charges were “baseless.” In 2022, James investigated and sued Trump and his company for inflating the value of some of its properties. The civil business fraud case jury awarded New York over $450 million. While the conviction was upheld, the financial penalty was later thrown out on appeal. Since taking office, Trump has been persistent in his calls that James “be arrested and punished accordingly.” In a recent Truth Social post directed at U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump wrote, “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED.”
– October 10, 2025 – Despite Trump’s lobbying, his bid for a Nobel Peace Prize fell short. The Nobel committee awarded the prize to the Venezuelan opposition politician María Corina Machado. On hearing the news, Trump said, “The person who actually got the Nobel Prize called me and said, ‘I’m accepting this in honor of you because you really deserved it.’” He added, “I didn’t say, ‘Then give it to me.’ I think she might have. She was very nice.” Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., said he would introduce a resolution in Congress saying Trump deserves the honor in 2026. Carter said, “He’ll be a strong candidate, and he should have been a slam dunk this year, but unfortunately, the committee got it wrong.” Foreign policy analysts weren’t so sure about Trump’s chances. Nina Graeger, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, said if the recent peace deal in Gaza doesn’t hold, Trump isn’t likely to get credit for raising false hopes. She also said it didn’t help Trump that he threatened to acquire Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal.
Trump Says Nobel Peace Prize Winner Machado Accepted the Award for Him (NBC News)
– October 10, 2025 – According to a court filing, more than 4,000 federal employees received layoff notices as part of the Trump administration’s effort to reshape the government during the shutdown. On X, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought posted, “The RIFs (Reductions in Force) have begun.” According to department spokespeople and union representatives, RIF notices had gone out to employees at the departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security and Treasury. Trump said that he planned to fire “a lot” of federal workers in retaliation for the government shutdown, vowing to target those aligned with the Democratic Party. “We figure they started this thing, so they should be Democrat-oriented,” he said without providing details on what qualified the affected workers as “Democrat-oriented.”
– October 11, 2025 – Trump said that he had “identified funds” that would allow the government to pay members of the military during the federal shutdown. Congress did not approve additional money for the troops. Pentagon officials said that they planned to tap $8 billion in unspent research, testing, and evaluation money from the prior fiscal year. Timothy Mellon, a reclusive billionaire and Trump supporter, later contributed $130 million to pay the troops. In a post on Truth Social, Trump blamed Democrats for his unorthodox budgetary move. He wrote, “I will not allow the Democrats to hold our Military, and the entire Security of our Nation, HOSTAGE, with their dangerous Government Shutdown.” No similar financial action was forthcoming for other federal employees
– October 13, 2025 – In a speech to the Israeli Knesset celebrating the US-brokered cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, President Trump announced the “historic dawn of a new Middle East,” and declared “not only the end of a war … [but] the end of the age of terror and death,” while avoiding answering tougher questions about the region’s future. Although Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees were exchanged as part of the ceasefire, violence continued. After Hamas failed to turn over the corpses of deceased hostages on time, claiming they were difficult to recover due to the mass destruction in Gaza, Israel threatened to restrict aid and not re-open the Rafah crossing. Earlier, Israel killed at least nine people, including four children, in a northern Gaza vehicle, claiming the vehicle had crossed over the demarcation line. Just two days later, after Palestinian militants fired on Israeli soldiers, killing two, Israel launched new strikes in Gaza, killing forty-four people, and halted aid. Meanwhile, though Trump’s peace plan called for Hamas to give up power and disarm, the group instead attempted to consolidate power by executing its enemies in Gaza.
– October 14, 2025 – The U.S. military struck a fifth boat near Venezuela, killing six. “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks, and was transiting along a known smuggling route,” President Trump posted on social media, without providing any evidence that the boat was transporting drugs. The following day, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration had also secretly authorized covert CIA action in Venezuela, prompting Venezuela to accuse Trump of attempting “to legitimize regime change with the ultimate goal of appropriating Venezuela’s petroleum resources.” Legal experts have argued that the Venezuelan boat strikes, in treating alleged criminal suspects as enemy soldiers, are illegal. The military cannot lawfully target civilians who do not pose an immediate threat and are not directly participating in hostilities.
– October 14, 2025 – President Trump lashed out against Time magazine over an unflattering photo: “Time magazine wrote a relatively good story about me, but the picture may be the Worst of All Time. They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had something floating on the top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an extremely small one. Really weird. I never liked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture, and deserves to be called out. What are they doing and why?”
– October 14, 2025 – Trump posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to Charlie Kirk, the assassinated founder of Turning Point USA. The president described Kirk as a “fearless warrior for liberty,” “an American patriot of the deepest conviction,” and “a martyr for truth and freedom” and compared him to Socrates, St. Peter, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Kirk had previously called King an “awful” person, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 a “mistake,” and George Floyd, a Black man murdered by police officers, a “scumbag.” Kirk also believed women should “submit” to their husbands, that Black people in positions of power did not have the “brain processing power” necessary for their jobs, that raped ten-year-olds should not be permitted to have abortions, and that Islam was “not compatible with western civilization,” among other hateful views.
– October 14, 2025 – Amid sweeping layoffs intended as retaliation for the government shutdown, the Trump administration gutted the Department of Education office responsible for overseeing special education. Almost the entire staff of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, which handles $15 billion in special education funding serving 7.5 million children with disabilities, was cut. “This is decimating the office responsible for safeguarding the rights of infants, toddlers, children and youth with disabilities,” said one department employee, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution. Given the layoffs, it was unclear how the federal government would force states to comply with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which guarantees a free and appropriate education to children with disabilities. In total, 466 Department of Education employees and 4,200 federal workers were laid off. Current and former federal officials warned that the layoffs would especially hurt low-income families, homeless people, and seniors, among others.
– October 14, 2025 – President Trump said his administration’s $20 billion bailout for Argentina was contingent on his political ally, President Javier Milei, remaining in power after the next month’s elections. Milei was one of only two world leaders on stage at Trump’s inauguration, and Trump previously called Milei his “favorite president.” “If [Milei] loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina,” Trump said, making it clear that the funds were intended to support a leader who would spread a pro-Trump, pro-capitalism message. “I think he’s going to win. And if he wins, we’re staying with him, and if he doesn’t win, we’re gone.” According to economists, conditioning financial support on the electoral success of a political ally is highly unusual.
– October 15, 2025 – In a move widely criticized by free speech advocates and civil liberties organizations, the State Department revoked at least six visas from people who criticized Charlie Kirk on social media. “The United States has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans. The State Department continues to identify visa holders who celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk,” the department said, which included redacted examples of the social media posts that had resulted in the visa revocations. “Mere ‘mockery’ can’t be grounds for adverse government action—whether revocation of broadcast licenses or revocation of visas. While the government can revoke visas for many reasons, the First Amendment forbids it from doing so based on viewpoint,” said Carrie DeCell, a lawyer with the Knight First Amendment Institute who added that the revocations were “censorship, plain and simple.”
– October 15, 2025 – While three of the nation’s most powerful law enforcement officials looked on, President Trump name dropped three foes he wanted to have investigated: Jack Smith, the special counselor who indicted Trump on two criminal counts; Andrew Weissman, the lead prosecutor for the team that investigated the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia during the 2016 election; and Lisa Monaco, the deputy attorney general during the Biden administration. “Deranged Jack Smith, in my opinion, is a criminal. … his interviewer was Weissman—I hope they’re going to look into Weissman, too—Weissman’s a bad guy. And he had somebody, Lisa, who was his puppet, worked in the office, really, as the top person. I think she should be looked at very strongly,” said Trump as Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and FBI Director Kash Patel—whose departments and agencies are supposed to remain independent from the executive branch—smiled and nodded.
– October 15, 2025 – Vice President JD Vance brushed off hundreds of racist, homophobic, and antisemitic messages sent by members of the Young Republicans in a leaked group chat. “The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys,” said Vance, referring to adults in their twenties and thirties. “They tell edgy, offensive jokes. That’s what kids do. And I really don’t want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke—telling a very offensive, stupid joke—is cause to ruin their lives.” The leaked messages included racial and homophobic slurs, referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people,” called rape “epic,” discussed raping enemies or driving them to suicide, mused about putting their opponents in gas chambers, and expressed support for slavery and Hitler.
– October 17, 2025 – Federal prosecutors filed the first “antifa” terrorism charges against two Texas men in connection with a shooting that took place outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas on July 4, 2025. Authorities alleged that “a North Texas Antifa Cell of at least eleven operatives” set off fireworks outside the facility and that, when DHS and Alvarado Police arrived to investigate, members of the “cell” shot a police officer in the neck. The indictment accused Cameron Arnold and Zachary Evetts of providing material support to terrorists, among other charges, and defined antifa as a “militant enterprise” that explicitly calls for “the overthrow of the United States government, law enforcement authorities, and the systems of law.” Experts speculated that the term “enterprise” may indicate the FBI was opening an enterprise investigation, which might lead to federal authorities targeting not only those accused of committing actual violence but also those adjacent to them who believe in similar ideas. In September, President Trump signed an executive order designating antifa a terrorist organization, although no such formal group exists, and the U.S. does not currently have any mechanism for formally designating domestic terrorist organizations.
– October 17, 2025 – Elizabeth Yusi, a federal prosecutor who rejected pressure from the Trump administration to charge Letitia James, was fired along with her deputy, Kristin G. Bird. Yusi, who worked in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia, had told colleagues that she had not found probable cause to file charges against James, the New York state attorney general who won a civil fraud case against Donald Trump. The month prior to Yusi’s dismissal, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, resigned under pressure from the Trump administration to charge Trump foes Letitia James and James Comey. After Siebert was forced out, Trump appointed Lindsey Halligan, who had no prior prosecutorial experience, to fill the position, and she subsequently did his bidding, indicting both James and Comey.
– October 17, 2025 – As Congress continued to debate whether to extend health insurance subsidies—the core issue at the heart of the government shutdown—higher Affordable Care Act prices became public in a dozen states. The new information showed that a family of four making $130,000 in Maine would face an increase of $16,100 in annual premiums for 2026 because they would no longer qualify for subsidies. According to estimates, a 60-year-old couple making $85,000 would see their annual premiums rise by $23,700 in Kentucky, $18,100 in Nevada, $15,500 in Minnesota, and $13,700 in Maryland. A health research group concluded that the average consumer’s out-of-pocket payments could more than double, and the Congressional Budget Office estimated that two million people could become uninsured due to the higher prices. President Trump, who previously called the ACA subsidies wasteful, said he would not discuss extending them until the federal government reopened.
– October 17, 2025 – Trump commuted the prison sentence and restitution of Trump supporter and former Republican congressman George Santos, who had served less than three months of a seven-plus-year sentence for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. After Santos was elected in 2022, it was revealed that he had fabricated much of his life story on the campaign trail, lying about his education, employment, and upbringing. In 2023, the House voted to remove him from office after he was charged with stealing from donors and his campaign, lying to Congress about his finances, and fraudulently collecting unemployment benefits. “Good luck George, have a great life!” Trump posted on Truth Social.
George Santos Learned of His Sentence cCommutation from Prison TV (CNN)
– October 18, 2025 – Nearly seven million Americans peacefully demonstrated against Trump administration policies in “No Kings” protests held across the country. Over 2,700 protests were held in all 50 states, and some experts speculated that the protests were possibly the largest in modern American history. The day before the protests began, Trump told Fox News, “They say they’re referring to me as a king. I’m not a king,” despite repeatedly comparing himself to a monarch in the past. On the day of the protests, Trump posted an AI-generated video depicting himself riding in a “King Trump” fighter jet, wearing a crown, and taking a large, steaming dump on protestors.
No Kings protests from New York to Chicago to Seattle (USATODAY)
– October 19, 2025 – Trump announced the United States would slash assistance to Colombia and enact tariffs on its exports because the country’s leader, Gustavo Petro, “does nothing to stop” drug production. In a Truth Social post, Trump referred to Petro as “an illegal drug leader … [who is] low rated and very unpopular.” He added that Petro “better close up” drug operations, or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely.” Petro accused the U.S. government of assassination, pointing to a September 16 strike that he said killed a Colombian man named Alejandro Carranza. Petro said Carranza was a fisherman with no ties to drug trafficking. Trump defended the ongoing boat attacks and said they were aimed at stemming the flow of drugs from Latin America into the US. UN-appointed human rights experts have described the US strikes as “extrajudicial executions.”
White House Begins Demolishing Part of East Wing for Trump Ballroom (The Hill)
– October 21, 2025 – Trump demanded that the Justice Department pay him almost $230 million in compensation for past federal investigations. His complaints stemmed from the special counsel investigation into Russian election tampering in 2016 and the F.B.I. search for classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and residence in 2023. Trump said, “I’m the one that makes the decision, and it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.” Lawyers said the president’s legal claims posed undeniable ethics challenges. Bennett L. Gershman, an ethics professor at Pace University, said, “What a travesty. The ethical conflict is just so basic and fundamental.” He added, “To have people in the Justice Department decide whether his claim should be successful or not, and these are the people who serve him deciding whether he wins or loses. It’s bizarre and almost too outlandish to believe.”
– October 21, 2025 – Paul Ingrassia, Trump’s nominee to oversee federal whistleblower protections, dropped out after racist text messages he sent were published in Politico. The report featured messages where Ingrassia allegedly described himself as having “a Nazi streak” and suggested Martin Luther King, Jr. Day should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell.” Ingrassia’s lawyer, Edward Andrew Paltzik, initially questioned the authenticity of the messages but added that if authentic, they were meant satirically. CNN’s KFile previously reported on Ingrassia’s history of racist invective and conspiratorial rants. His nomination had drawn scrutiny over his past promotion of conspiracy theories and tweets from his podcast that included calls for martial law following Trump’s 2020 election loss and claims that “straight White men” were the most intelligent demographic group and should be prioritized in education.
– October 23, 2025 – Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the U.S. military launched its ninth strike against an alleged drug-carrying vessel. The attack killed three people in the eastern Pacific Ocean and brought the death toll to at least 37 from attacks that began the previous month. Hegseth’s social media posts drew a direct comparison between the war on terrorism that the U.S. declared after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the Trump administration’s crackdown. He said, “Just as Al Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people.” He added, “There will be no refuge or forgiveness—only justice.” Claire Finkelstein, a professor of national security law at the University of Pennsylvania, commented, “You just can’t call something war to give yourself war powers.”
– October 23, 2025 – Trump said he was terminating all trade negotiations with Canada. The move was prompted by a video ad, paid for by the province of Ontario, that featured audio from a 1987 radio address by former President Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about tariffs. “TARIFFS AREVERYIMPORTANT TO THENATIONALSECURITY, ANDECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A.,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Based on their egregious behavior, ALLTRADENEGOTIATIONSWITHCANADAAREHEREBYTERMINATED.” The president claimed the ad was fake and said that it had been placed “to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court” while it considered legal challenges to many of Trump’s tariffs. Canada is America’s second-biggest trading partner.
How Ontario’s Tariff Ad Compares to Reagan’s Original Speech (CBC News)
– October 24, 2025 – The Trump administration announced that it wouldn’t tap emergency funds to cover food stamp benefits during the government shutdown. The decision imperiled nearly 42 million Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The White House blamed Democrats for the lapse in funding. The USDA said in a memo, “This Administration will not allow Democrats to jeopardize funding for school meals and infant formula in order to prolong their shutdown.” The top Democrats on the House Agriculture and Appropriations committees, Reps. Angie Craig of Minnesota and Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, said in a joint statement, “This is perhaps the most cruel and unlawful offense the Trump administration has perpetrated yet—freezing funding already enacted into law to feed hungry Americans while he shovels tens of billions of dollars out the door to Argentina and into his ballroom.” Over two dozen states later sued the Trump administration. A federal judge ruled that the administration had broken the law and ordered it to continue paying for food stamps during the government shutdown.
– October 25, 2025 – Josué Castro Rivera, a 24-year-old Honduran man, died after being struck by a vehicle while fleeing ICE agents in Virginia. According to Castro Rivera’s brother, Josué was headed to a gardening job with three other passengers when his vehicle was pulled over by ICE agents. A spokesperson for DHS said that officers had stopped Mr. Castro-Rivera’s vehicle as part of a targeted operation. The spokesperson added, “One of our ICE officers administered CPR to Castro-Rivera in an attempt to keep him alive. Unfortunately, Castro-Rivera perished. The officer then informed the three detained aliens that their friend was deceased. He then grieved and prayed with them.” The episode was at least the fourth instance in which an immigration enforcement operation ended in death under the current Trump administration.
– October 26, 2025 – Vice President JD Vance mocked comments made by Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim, about how his aunt felt unsafe after September 11, 2001 due to Islamophobia. In an emotional speech, Mamdani said that his aunt stopped taking the subway after 9/11 “because she did not feel safe in her hijab.” “According to Zohran, the real victim of 9/11 was his auntie who got some (allegedly) bad looks,” wrote Vance on X. “This is all the Republican Party has to offer,” Mamdani replied. “Cheap jokes about Islamophobia so as to not have to recognize what people are living through, attempts to pit peoples’ humanity against each other.” Hate crimes against Muslims increased by 500 percent from 2000-2009.
– October 26, 2025 – With help from President Trump and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Cambodia and Thailand signed a joint declaration agreeing to resolve a long-standing border dispute. Although significant obstacles remained between the two countries achieving lasting peace, President Trump wasted no time in brandishing his image as a peacemaker, calling the joint declaration “the Kuala Lumpur peace accords,” claiming the agreement as “one of eight wars that my administration has ended in just eight months,” and describing his role in brokering the cease-fire as “much more fun for me than anything.” In mid-November, Thailand ended the peace talks after two Thai soldiers were injured by a land mine in the disputed area.
– October 27, 2025 – Trump confirmed that he had received an MRI earlier in the month and claimed the results were “perfect” without providing evidence or an explanation for why his doctors had ordered the scan. Although Trump claimed he had given the press his MRI’s full results, his physician only released a summary with few details on the tests Trump underwent. Earlier in the month, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also claimed that Trump was examined at Walter Reed as part of a routine annual checkup, though he had already received a physical in April, and an MRI is not considered part of a routine checkup. “Even if you are [the] leader of the free world, you don’t just get an MRI without a clear reason to do so,” noted Dr. Vin Gupta on social media. “There’s no such thing as a ‘screening’ MRI.”
– October 27, 2025 – Although the Constitution expressly forbids it, the president said he would “love” to serve a third term. Two days later, Trump acknowledged that he was not eligible to serve a third term, saying it was “too bad.” “We have the greatest economy we’ve ever had, I have my highest poll numbers that I’ve ever had,” Trump lied, “And, you know, based on what I read, I guess I’m not allowed to run. So we’ll see what happens.” Speaker Mike Johnson, a former constitutional lawyer, also acknowledged that Trump could not run for a third term, but complimented the president on his “TRUMP 2028” hat and on “trolling the Democrats, whose hair is on fire about the very prospect.”
– October 27, 2025 – Newly published details in a forthcoming book revealed that Trump called former Vice President Mike Pence a “wimp” on the morning of the January 6 Capitol attacks. Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign that Changed America, by ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl, included an image of Pence’s handwritten notes from his final phone call with Trump before the Capitol attacks. Trump had been trying to persuade Pence to block certification of Joe Biden’s electoral college win. When Pence refused, saying he lacked the authority to do so, Trump responded, “You’ll go down as a wimp.” Later that day, Trump targeted Pence in a speech and falsely claimed Pence could send the election “back to the states to rectify.” About an hour later, rioters attacked the Capitol, many of them chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” as the vice president and his family were evacuated from the Senate floor.
– October 28, 2025 – Trump formally appealed his 34 felony convictions, saying that the Manhattan trial was “fatally marred.” “This case should never have seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone resulted in a conviction,” Trump’s lawyers argued in the filing, describing the case as “the most politically charged prosecution in our nation’s history.” In 2024, Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment made by his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election; Trump became the first former or sitting U.S. president convicted of a felony.
– October 28, 2025 -The Trump administration reinstalled a statue of Confederate General Albert Pike near the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Pike worked closely with slave-owning Native American tribes during the Civil War, and some historians suspect he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Before the Pike statue was toppled and set on fire during Black Lives Matter protests in 2020—an act Trump called a “disgrace to our country”—local leaders had long called for its removal. “The Trump Admin’s reinstallation of the statue of Confederate Albert Pike is an affront to DC residents,” said Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton. Pike took up arms against the US, misappropriated funds, and was captured by his own troops. He has no claim to be memorialized in the nation’s capital.”
– October 28, 2025 – Less than a month after the president made baseless claims that pregnant women should not take Tylenol because it causes autism, the state of Texas sued Tylenol’s maker, Kenvue, and its former parent company, Johnson & Johnson. “By holding Big Pharma accountable for poisoning our people, we will Make America Healthy Again,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The lawsuit argued that the companies deceptively sold the painkiller despite knowing it causes autism, though scientists have yet to find a causal connection between taking the medication prenatally and autism. Kenvue responded by calling the lawsuit “baseless” and said it was “deeply concerned by the perpetuation of misinformation on the safety of acetaminophen and the potential impact that could have on the health of American women and children.”
– October 28, 2025 – Fourteen more people were killed in American strikes on alleged drug boats in the Pacific. In a social media post that included videos of the attacks, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said without evidence that the boats “were known by our intelligence apparatus, transitioning along known narco-trafficking routes and carrying narcotics” and that those killed were “narco-terrorists.” The following day, another four people were killed in similar American strikes in the Pacific, bringing the total killed to sixty-one people since early September, when the operations against allegedly drug-smuggling ships began. Later in the week, the United Nations said the strikes were illegal and called for an independent investigation. “These attacks—and their mounting human cost—are unacceptable,” said Volker Türk, the U.N. human rights chief. “The U.S. must halt such attacks and take all measures necessary to prevent the extra judicial killing of people aboard these boats, whatever the criminal conduct alleged against them.”
– October 29, 2025 – Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh was indicted for her actions during a September anti-ICE protest outside an immigration enforcement building in suburban Chicago. Abughazalah and five others were accused of blocking a federal agent’s vehicle and preventing it from entering the facility. According to the felony indictment, the six individuals banged on the car, pushed against it, and caused light damage; Abughazaleh was accused of putting her hands on the vehicle’s hood, bracing her body against it, and standing in its way. “This is a political prosecution and a gross attempt at silencing dissent, a right protected under the First Amendment,” said Abughazaleh. “This case is yet another attempt by the Trump administration to criminalize protest and punish those who dare to speak up.”
– October 29, 2025 – Two federal prosecutors were placed on leave after requesting a twenty-seven-month sentence for Taylor Taranto, who was found guilty of showing up with two firearms and ammunition at former President Barack Obama’s house in Washington, D.C. In the sentencing documents, the prosecutors, Carlos Valdivia and Samuel White, mentioned that Taranto had participated in the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack and been charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct before President Trump granted blanket clemency to those accused of taking part in the riot. The document also mentioned that Taranto had discovered Obama’s address in a social media post by President Trump. The Justice Department subsequently withdrew the sentencing documents and re-submitted them without any references to the Capitol attack or Trump’s social media post.
– October 29, 2025 – The Department of Justice revealed that the National Guard was briefly deployed to Portland earlier in the month in defiance of court orders. A DOJ lawyer told U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut that approximately nine members of the Oregon National Guard were at an ICE building beginning on the evening of October 4th and lasting until the early morning on October 5th, a violation of Immergut’s temporary restraining order issued at 3:40 p.m. on October 4th. The DOJ admission came during a federal trial about whether the president acted lawfully or violated Oregon’s rights by trying to deploy the National Guard.
– October 29, 2025 – Following lobbying by Trump allies, sanctions were lifted on Milorad Dodik, a Serbian nationalist and Putin-backed autocrat accused of undermining the U.S.-brokered peace agreement ending fighting in the Balkans in the 1990s. Sanctions were also lifted on Dodik’s family and companies associated with them, which the Treasury Department previously accused of being part of Dodik’s “corrupt patronage network.” In a social media post, Dodik praised the decision for “correcting a grave injustice…perpetrated by the Obama and Biden administrations” and called it “a moral vindication.” Prominent Trump allies such as Rudolph Giuliani, Michael Flynn, Laura Loomer, and Rod Blagojevich had lobbied on Dodik’s behalf, and the Justice Department showed that the Dodik-ruled Srpska government paid lobbyists and lawyers with ties to President Trump approximately $300,000 per month or more to facilitate meetings with the Trump administration.
– October 29, 2025 – Minutes before a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Trump threatened to resume nuclear weapons testing. “Because of other countries [sic] testing programs,” Trump posted on social media, “I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” Trump did not explain the timing of his threat, but journalists speculated that he may have been reacting to Russia’s successful test of a nuclear-powered and nuclear-capable cruise missile as well as a nuclear torpedo just days earlier; in the past, Trump has also said he wanted to convince China to join nuclear arms control negotiations.
– October 30, 2025 – The Department of Education revised its eligibility requirements for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, saying it would disqualify employers based on ideology. Government and nonprofit employees are eligible for student loan forgiveness after 120 monthly loan repayments and ten years of service in jobs that serve the public good, such as education, public health, or public interest law. However, under the new rule, student loan payments made after a borrower’s employer is disqualified would not count toward loan forgiveness. Employers targeted for disqualification included those who worked with undocumented immigrants, transgender youth, and public protest. “This rule follows the Trump Administration’s disturbing pattern of making repayment less affordable and taking money out of the pockets of hardworking families, all while attempting to police political speech,” said Congressman Robert C. Scott.
– October 30, 2025 – The New York Times reported that Alejandro Juarez, who worked at a Trump Organization golf club for over a decade, was mistakenly deported to Mexico without a hearing before a judge in late September. In a likely violation of federal immigration law, officials placed Juarez on the wrong plane, sending him to Mexico rather than to a detention center in Arizona. The Department of Homeland Security initially told The Times that Juarez had not been deported before acknowledging the mistake, saying that Juarez was “removed to Mexico early because he was put on the incorrect transport.” “This is unprecedented in my twenty years of practice—an individual being removed without any hearing, leaving even the court and DHS confused,” said Anibal Romer, Juarez’s attorney. Kerry Doyle, a former ICE official during the Biden administration, added that the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown made such mistakes more likely: “Because the volume of detentions is so high and people are really stretched thin in the work that they’re doing, it’s not shocking or surprising that this type of mistake could happen.”
– October 30, 2025 – The Trump administration capped refugee admissions to a record low of just 7,500 for fiscal year 2026, a drastic reduction from the Biden administration’s cap of 125,000 for fiscal year 2025. The administration also said it would prioritize admissions for white Afrikaners from South Africa. “This decision doesn’t just lower the refugee admissions ceiling. It lowers our moral standing,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of Global Refuge. “At a time of crisis in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and beyond, concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the program’s purpose as well as its credibility.” Added Sharif Aly, president of the International Refugee Assistant Project, “It is egregious to exclude refugees who completed years of rigorous security checks and are currently stuck in dangerous and precarious situations.”
– October 31, 2025 – Charges were dropped against Larry Bushart, who spent over five weeks in jail for posting a meme about Charlie Kirk. After Kirk’s death, Bushart posted memes making light of Kirk’s killing, including one featuring Donald Trump saying, “We have to get over it” in reference to a school shooting last year at an Iowa high school. “This seems relevant today…” Bushart wrote above the meme. When Bushart refused to delete the post, he was arrested on a charge of threatening mass violence at a school, and his bail was set at $2 million. Free speech advocates said that Bushart’s arrest violated the First Amendment. “A free country does not dispatch police in the dead of night to pull people from their homes because a sheriff objects to their social media posts,” said Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
– October 31, 2025 Trump hosted a Great Gatsby themed Halloween party at his Mar-a-Lago Club. According to the White House, the gathering was inspired by the theme “a little party never killed nobody,” referencing the song from the 2013 film adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. The party was held on the thirty-first day of the shutdown, just hours before millions of Americans lost their SNAP benefits. Social media users shared video footage from the bash that featured a dancer in a giant cocktail glass and revelers dressed in 1920s costumes standing by a swimming pool. Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin accused Trump of not caring about Americans who could go without SNAP benefits. “Last night,” he said, “Trump made it even clearer that he doesn’t give a damn about anyone but himself and his wealthy friends.”
President Trump Great Gatsby-Themed Halloween Party at Mar-a-Lago (C-SPAN)
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November 2025 (FORTHCOMING)
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– October 1, 2025 – Vice President JD Vance laughed off two racist AI-generated videos of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that Trump posted earlier in the week. “Oh, I think it’s funny,” he said. “The president’s joking, and we’re having a good time.” The videos portrayed Jeffries, who is Black, with a mustache and sombrero while mariachi music played in the background; the first video also falsely accused Democrats of trying to give free healthcare to undocumented immigrants. When asked to respond to Jeffries’s statement that the videos were racist and bigoted, Vance responded, “I don’t even know what that means.”
– October 1, 2025 – In retaliation for the government shutdown, the Trump administration canceled over $27 billion in funds for Democratic states. The denied funds included $8 billion in climate-related funding and $18 billion for two major transportation projects primarily in New York City. Voice of America broadcasts were also suspended, and its journalists were placed on furlough. Partisan language blaming “the Radical Left Democrat Shutdown” for slow responses was also inserted onto federal agency websites and into the out-of-office email replies of furloughed federal workers, a possible violation of both the First Amendment and the Hatch Act. “Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate, which has led to a lapse in appropriations,” read one version of the message. Matthew Lawrence, a law professor at Emory University, said Trump’s response to the shutdown was unprecedented: “I can’t think of a historical parallel of an administration cutting funds in a shutdown like this,” added Don Kettl, an emeritus professor at the University of Maryland, “We have had lots of shutdowns … [but] never before have top officials tried to use their employees as human shields in a partisan battle.”
– October 2, 2025 – The New York Times reported that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. fired Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo from the NIH three weeks after Marrazzo filed a whistle-blower complaint. In her whistle-blower complaint, Dr. Marrazzo, who had directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had claimed she was demoted after objecting to Trump administration actions that endangered research subjects, defied court orders, and undermined vaccine research. “The Trump administration terminated Dr. Marrazzo for her advocacy on behalf of critical health research and for her support of the overwhelming body of evidence that shows vaccines are safe and effective,” said Debra S. Katz, a lawyer for Dr. Marrazzo, who argued that her client’s removal was retaliatory. Three other NIH directors and one NIH deputy director—Diana Bianchi, Eliseo Pérez-Stable, Shannon Zenk, and Tara Schwetz—were first placed on administrative leave and then fired. Some of the fired directors claimed they were targeted because their institutions funded studies related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as HIV.
– October 2, 2025 – Facing pressure from the Trump administration, Apple removed ICEBlock and similar apps that alert people about ICE sightings in their area. Apple told ICEBlock’s creator, Joshua Aaron, that the app violated app store guidelines and that its “purpose is to provide location information about law enforcement officers that can be used to harm such officers individually or as a group,” a claim Aaron called “patently false.” Aaron has said that the app, which had over 1 million users, was instead intended to help people avoid contact with ICE. “Our mission has always been to protect our neighbors from the terror this administration continues to (rain) down on the people of this nation,” said Aaron. “ICEBlock is no different from crowdsourcing speed traps, which every notable mapping application, including Apple’s own Maps app, implements as part of its core services. This is protected speech under the First Amendment.”
– October 2, 2025 – The Trump administration sent letters to nine universities asking them to pledge support for Trump’s political agenda in exchange for access to federal research funds. A “compact” attached to the letters outlined the administration’s education policy goals, including freezing tuition, providing free tuition to students studying “hard sciences” at select schools, capping international student enrollment, committing to binary definitions of gender, and prohibiting pushback against conservative ideas on campus. “This is a power play, and it’s designed to divide the higher education community,” said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education. “I hope institutions do not sign this compact. I do not think it’s in their best interests individually, and collectively, it’s a horrible precedent to cede power to the federal government.”
– October 2, 2025 – Todd Arrington, the head of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, resigned following a fight with the Trump administration over a sword. State Department officials wanted to gift King Charles III an original Eisenhower sword from the library, but Arrington pushed back, arguing that the sword had been donated and was the property of the American people. He offered to find an alternative gift or a replica, but was eventually told to “resign or be fired.” “Apparently, they believed I could no longer be trusted with confidential information,” said Arrington, who previously worked for the National Park Service and National Archives and Records Administration.
– October 6, 2025 – According to a report from consumer advocacy and ethics nonprofit Public Citizen and corporate watchdog group The Revolving Door Project, the Trump administration placed 111 employees deemed “fossil fuel insiders and renewable energy opponents” in his administration. Among them are senior officials such as Energy Secretary Chris Wright, the former CEO of the fracking company Liberty Energy. Report author and Revolving Door Project senior researcher Toni Aguilar Rosenthal said, “It is often specific actors coming from specific moneyed interests that are carrying out this disastrous deregulatory agenda.” Interior Department spokesperson Aubrie Spadie said of the report: “it’s clear that this progressive group pushing an entire climate cult program, among other radical policies, would like to see American taxpayer dollars wasted on the Green New Scam.” Fossil fuel donors poured $96 million into Trump’s 2025 presidential campaign and contributed $11.8 million to Trump’s second inauguration.
– October 14, 2025 – Amid sweeping layoffs intended as retaliation for the government shutdown, the Trump administration gutted the Department of Education office responsible for overseeing special education. Almost the entire staff of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, which handles $15 billion in special education funding serving 7.5 million children with disabilities, was cut. “This is decimating the office responsible for safeguarding the rights of infants, toddlers, children and youth with disabilities,” said one department employee, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution. Given the layoffs, it was unclear how the federal government would force states to comply with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which guarantees a free and appropriate education to children with disabilities. In total, 466 Department of Education employees and 4,200 federal workers were laid off. Current and former federal officials warned that the layoffs would especially hurt low-income families, homeless people, and seniors, among others.
