Did that basically occur? Four outrageous tales from Trump’s first yr again that you might have forgotten about | EUROtoday

In 2019, former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon instructed PBS’ Frontline program how President Donald Trump was engaged in a deliberate technique to overwhelm the press and his critics by rolling out huge and controversial coverage modifications whereas distracting them with trolling to maintain them from ever specializing in anybody factor that would matter.

He described the tactic as “flooding the zone.”

“Every day, we hit them with three things. They’ll bite on one, and we’ll get all of our stuff done, bang, bang, bang,” he stated.

Nearly a yr into Trump’s second time period, their “flood the zone strategy” has been in full impact.

His administration has unveiled sweeping modifications to how America’s authorities operates in ways in which have had and could have dramatic results on how on a regular basis folks reside for years to come back. But these modifications have are available such rapid-fire succession that just about twelve months after Trump was sworn in on a freezing January day final yr, it’s arduous to even start to recollect what he’s carried out.

Here are among the wildest tales from the White House in 2025:

The Purge of the Watchdogs

Five days after his swearing-in, Trump dedicated a Friday-night bloodbath of the unbiased inspectors common who root out waste, fraud and abuse inside federal businesses and departments.

The late-night purge eliminated the inspectors common at practically each Cabinet-level company with out warning and in violation of a longstanding legislation requiring the president to inform Congress of his intent to fireside any such official 30 days earlier than truly doing so.

Only the watchdogs on the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security had been permitted to stay of their jobs.

Trump, who fired quite a few inspectors common throughout his first time period in an effort to kneecap their skill to analyze wrongdoing by his appointees, defended the unlawful transfer as “very common” whereas talking to reporters aboard Air Force One en path to the primary weekend golf outing of his second time period.

“I don’t know them … but some people thought that some were unfair or some were not doing their job. It’s a very standard thing to do,” he stated.

The purge took out Senate-confirmed watchdogs on the departments of Defense, State, Transportation, Labor, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Energy, Commerce, Treasury and Agriculture, in addition to the Environmental Protection Agency, Small Business Administration and the Social Security Administration. The transfer allowed Trump fill the positions with loyalists.

The U.S. Takeover of Gaza that by no means occurred

Less than a month within the White House, Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for an official go to.

Netanyahu’s journey was his first look there in fairly a while, as Trump’s predecessor, former president Joe Biden, had declined to ask the Israeli chief on account of election-year sensitivities round Israel’s brutal marketing campaign of bombing civilian targets in Gaza to retaliate for the October 7, 2023, terror assaults by Hamas.

Just weeks earlier, the Biden and Trump groups had shared credit score for what was billed on the time as a ceasefire and hostage alternate deal between Israel and Hamas, although the settlement rapidly collapsed.

But as Netanyahu stood beside him within the East Room, Trump supplied up one other plan for the war-torn territory that despatched Middle East specialists’ heads spinning because the president claimed the U.S. would “take over” Gaza, displacing the two.1 million Palestinians residing there whereas the territory is rebuilt as “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

The president’s stunning proposal to place the Gaza Strip — territory that Israel has occupied for the reason that finish of the 1967 Six-Day War — underneath American management got here firstly of a madcap marathon press convention within the East Room following a bilateral assembly with Netanyahu, the primary international chief Trump has hosted since returning to the White House final month.

He claimed that “everybody” he had spoken to concerning the plan “loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent.”

“I’ve studied this very closely over a lot of months, and I’ve seen it from every different angle, and it’s a very, very dangerous place to be, and it’s only going to get worse. And I think this is an idea that’s gotten tremendous … praise. And if the United States can help to bring stability and peace in the Middle East, we’ll do that,” Trump added.

His feedback drew widespread criticism world wide, with Saudi Arabia saying it “unequivocally rejected” the compelled displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, and Hamas branding the concept “ridiculous and absurd.”

The White House walked again the concept lower than a day later, and the president’s aborted plan was later outmoded by the ceasefire settlement negotiated between Israel and Hamas with assistance from Egypt, Qatar and different regional powers in October.

Trump targets a critic along with his very personal govt order

During his 2024 marketing campaign in opposition to former Biden, and later former vice chairman Kamala Harris, Trump was keen on telling supporters that he could be their “retribution” if he was elected once more.

Since taking workplace, he’s made good on that promise in ways in which critics say have strained the rule of legislation and undermined the independence of the Department of Justice.

But Trump took an unprecedented step on his “retribution” tour in April by ordering the Department of Justice to analyze one in every of his most outstanding first-term critics — for something that may be discovered to analyze.

The order singled out Miles Taylor, a veteran of a number of Republican administrations who served as chief of workers to then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly throughout the president’s first time period. During that point, Taylor infamously penned an nameless New York Times op-ed — and later a guide — describing efforts by Trump administration personnel to protect the federal government from Trump’s worst instincts.

White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf stated on the time that the order stripped Taylor “of any active clearance that he has in light of his past activities involving classified information” despite the fact that Taylor’s writings weren’t alleged to have included something labeled in any respect.

“It’s also going to order the Department of Justice to investigate his activities, to see what else might come up in that context, given his egregious behavior during your previous administration,” Scharf added.

The similar day, Trump signed the same order directing a probe of Chris Krebs, the safety professional who headed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency throughout his first time period. Krebs had incurred Trump’s ire within the instant wake of the 2020 election — which Trump misplaced to Joe Biden — by stating publicly that the election was essentially the most safe within the nation’s 250-year historical past.

He additionally stated there was “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised” throughout the 2020 election, instantly contradicting Trump’s false claims of fraud.

That order additional focused Krebs’ employer, the cybersecurity agency SentinelOne, by ordering the stripping of safety clearances “held by individuals at entities associated with Krebs, including SentinelOne, pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest.”

Eight months later, neither Taylor nor Krebs has been accused of any crime, however Trump has continued to escalate his marketing campaign of revenge in opposition to critics and adversaries by ordering the Justice Department to prosecute ex-FBI director James Comey and New York State Attorney General Letitia James, amongst others.

Those efforts have so far been stymied by federal judges who dismissed a pair of indictments in opposition to each Comey and James on the grounds that the ex-White House official who Trump put in as a prosecutor in Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, had been unlawfully appointed.

Trump suggests he’s above the legislation with doubtful Napoleon quote

Less than a month after he swore to “preserve, protect and defend” the U.S. Constitution, Trump took to social media to push again in opposition to the myriad challenges to his blitzkrieg of govt actions and threats to federal businesses from the then-Elon Musk-ed Department of Government Efficiency by invoking a film quote from a movie about Napoleon, who justified his despotic regime as the need of the folks of France.

Writing on X and Truth Social on February 15, Trump stated: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

Trump, whose efforts to intestine federal funding, hearth hundreds of assist staff and unilaterally redefine the 14th Amendment had been swiftly blocked by federal courts throughout the nation within the opening salvos of what has turn out to be a sequence of months-long authorized battles, gave the impression to be lifting a line 1970 movie Waterloo, through which actor Rod Steiger’s Napoleon states that he “did not ‘usurp’ the crown.”

“I found it in the gutter, and I picked it up with my sword, and it was the people … who put it on my head,” he says. “He who saves a nation violates no law,” Steiger stated.

Four days later, Trump went even additional by crowning himself “king” of his former dwelling, New York City, after the Department of Transportation presupposed to order the withholding of federal funds to New York except it nixed the congestion pricing plan that the Democratic-led metropolis authorities applied.

“CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD,” he wrote February 19 on Truth Social. “Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”

The White House’s X account then shared his assertion with a mock cowl of Time journal that includes a portrait of the president sporting a crown with the caption “long live the king.”

Then-White House Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich additionally shared an AI-generated picture of the president sporting a crown and regal cape.

In response, ​​New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority sued Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and federal transportation officers, arguing the Trump administration unlawfully and “precipitously — and for blatantly political reasons— purported to ‘terminate’ the program, as then-candidate Trump proclaimed he would do in his first week in office.”

A federal decide later blocked the Trump administration from withholding funds in retaliation for the congestion pricing scheme, and the MTA’s lawsuit in search of to completely enjoin the administration from doing so stays ongoing.