Many conversations about this administration devolve into arguments about interpretation, intent, or whether things are really as bad as they seem. This is not that conversation.
This is documentation of policies implemented between January 20 and October 29, 2025 that caused measurable harm to Americans' health, safety, economic security, or civil rights. Not proposals. Not threats. Not speculation about what might happen. Implemented policies with specific dates, dollar amounts, affected populations, and citations to government sources, major news outlets, and peer-reviewed research.
The list includes $1.5 trillion cut from healthcare, 300,000 federal workers terminated, $90 billion in grants and foreign aid cancelled, and 360,000 deaths attributed to foreign aid cuts by July 2025. It documents the systematic elimination of oversight capacity across every federal agency, then the harmful policies implemented after that oversight disappeared, then the destruction of the systems that might have documented the harm.
This is not journalism in the traditional sense. There is no analysis of competing perspectives or attempts to look at "both sides.". This is the documented record of what happened, item by item, source by source. When someone says "it's not that bad" or "you're overreacting" or "both sides do this," this is the response. Here are the specific things that happened. Here is what they did.
The value of this document is its completeness and its specificity. Each item can be verified independently. Each source can be checked. The accumulation of facts does the argumentative work. By item 30, you should understand the scale. By item 60, you will understand the pattern. By the end, you understand how much has truly been burned and razed.
HHS announced restructuring on March 27, 2025 cutting 20,000 full-time employees from 82,000 to 62,000, including 3,500 FDA jobs, 2,400 CDC jobs, 1,200 NIH jobs, and 300 CMS jobs
CDC eliminated entire divisions in March 2025: all 300 Environmental Health Science and Practice employees, all 150 tobacco and smoking cessation staff, all 50 first-year Epidemic Intelligence Service officers who investigate disease outbreaks, 180 HIV Prevection employees (half the division), and the entire human resources department.
CDC lost 600 additional employees through September 2025 reduction-in-force, decimating the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey that had operated continuously since the 1960s, eliminating critical data on lead exposure, obesity, and chronic disease.
NOAA laid off 880 employees on February 27, 2025, including meteorologists, climate scientists, radar specialists, and Hurricane Hunters crew, degrading weather forecast accuracy during hurricane season.
Interior Department fired more than 2,000 staff in the administration's first month, including 1,000 National Park Service employees.
State Department fired 1,353 employees on July 11, 2025, including 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service officers working on counterterrorism, drug trafficking, energy diplomacy, and consular services.
DOJ Civil Rights Division lost 250 attorneys, representing 70 percent of its staff, eliminating federal capacity to investigate voting rights violations, police misconduct, and discrimination cases.
Communications freeze on January 21-22, 2025 prevented CDC from issuing health advisories during bird flu and measles outbreaks.
HHS, FDA, and CDC faced communications restrictions preventing them from warning the public about active health threats in January 2025.
DOGE eliminated or dramatically reduced FOIA staff at CDC, FDA, NIH, Education Department, USAID, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in April 2025.
CNN FOIA request to Office of Personnel Management in April 2025 received response "Good luck with that" because entire FOIA staff had been fired.
Trump fired Hampton Dellinger, head of Office of Special Counsel, on February 7, 2025 without required "for cause" showing while Dellinger was investigating Trump's mass firing of probationary employees.
Seventeen inspectors general were illegally fired in violation of statutory protections requiring 30-day congressional notice.
90 percent of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau staff (1,500 positions) were targeted for elimination in proposed FY2026 budget.
Education Department staff reduction of 50 percent was proposed in FY2026 budget.
Veterans Affairs targeting 80,000 employee reductions in proposed cuts.
HHS issued 10,000 layoff notices for additional cuts beyond the initial 20,000.
Agriculture Department saw 15,182 employees accept resignation offers.
More than 300,000 federal workers departed across all agencies between January and October 2025.
One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed July 4, 2025 cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid over 10 years, including 15 percent reduction in federal spending.
Congressional Budget Office estimates OBBB Act will cause 10 million Americans to lose health insurance by 2034.
OBBB Act imposes 80-hour monthly work requirements for Medicaid enrollees in 40 expansion states, with research showing coverage loss occurs through paperwork burdens rather than employment status.
OBBB Act triggered $536 billion in automatic Medicare cuts over nine years (fiscal years 2026-2034) under Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act by adding $3.4 trillion to the deficit.
Medicare cuts start at $45 billion in 2026 and grow to $76 billion by 2034, representing 4 percent sequestration of Medicare payments.
OBBB Act allowed enhanced premium subsidies for ACA marketplace plans to expire at end of 2025.
Congressional Budget Office estimates ACA premium increases will average 75 percent after subsidy expiration.
Congressional Budget Office estimates 4.2 million additional people will become uninsured when enhanced ACA premium subsidies expire December 31, 2025, bringing total 2025-2034 coverage losses to 14 million.
CMS finalized rule on June 25, 2025 shortening ACA open enrollment by one month (ending December 15 instead of January 15), ending monthly special enrollment for people below 150 percent of poverty level, requiring advance income verification, and eliminating automatic re-enrollment, affecting 725,000 to 1.8 million people.
OBBB Act rescinded Biden-era rule easing Medicaid enrollment for seniors and people with disabilities for premium assistance, dental, vision, and long-term care.
Congressional Budget Office estimates 1.4 million seniors and people with disabilities will lose Medicaid benefits from rescission.
CBO estimates the Medicaid dual coverage change alone reduces costs by $66 billion over 10 years by eliminating coverage.
OBBB Act phases down Medicaid provider taxes and state-directed payments that states use to fund their share of program costs.
Researchers at Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research concluded more than 300 rural hospitals in Kentucky, Louisiana, California, and Oklahoma could face service reductions or closure.
$50 billion rural hospital fund in OBBB Act was deemed insufficient by researchers to prevent widespread closures.
Executive Order 14182 signed January 24, 2025 revoked Biden orders protecting reproductive healthcare access.
Department of Defense rescinded policy providing travel allowances and leave for servicemembers seeking abortion care off-base.
Veterans Affairs hospitals stopped providing abortions in January 2025.
Reinstated expanded Mexico City Policy and broader foreign aid cuts will cause 47.6 million people globally to lose access to reproductive healthcare, according to Guttmacher Institute projections.
Guttmacher Institute projects foreign aid cuts will result in 17.1 million more unintended pregnancies and 34,000 maternal deaths globally.
Executive order on January 20, 2025 immediately withdrew United States from Paris Agreement for the second time.
Executive order on January 20, 2025 revoked U.S. International Climate Finance Plan.
U.S. joins only Libya, Yemen, and Iran as non-participants in Paris Agreement while being responsible for 20 percent of all CO2 emissions since 1850.
EPA froze then terminated $20 billion in grants for National Clean Investment Fund and Clean Communities Investment Accelerator in February-March 2025.
Climate United Fund became unable to make payroll after EPA grant termination.
Projects for tribal lands, affordable housing, and disadvantaged communities were cancelled after clean energy grant termination.
EPA announced 31 deregulatory actions on March 12, 2025 in what officials called "biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history."
EPA moved to dismantle Biden rule limiting vehicle pollution on March 12, 2025, eliminating standards that could save drivers up to $6,000 in fuel and maintenance costs over vehicle lifetime.
Vehicle emissions standards rollback eliminates $2.1 trillion in net benefits over 30 years according to NRDC analysis.
EPA announced intention on March 12, 2025 to dismantle Biden rule requiring coal and natural gas plants to cut or capture 90 percent of climate pollution by 2032.
Presidential proclamation on April 8, 2025 exempted 148 electric-generating units at 68+ coal plants from updated mercury limits for two years.
EPA proposed full repeal of mercury standards on June 17, 2025.
Mercury standards could have prevented 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, 2,800 cases of chronic bronchitis, and 130,000 asthma attacks annually according to EPA's own analysis.
EPA announced intent on March 12, 2025 to reconsider 2009 endangerment finding that defines six climate pollutants as air pollution under Clean Air Act.
EPA formally proposed eliminating endangerment finding on July 29, 2025, which would invalidate legal basis for all federal climate change regulations.
USDA rescinded 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule on June 23, 2025, opening 58 million acres across 39 states to logging and road construction, including 9 million acres of Alaska's Tongass rainforest, 28 million acres in high wildfire risk areas, and land that provides drinking water for 60 million Americans.
Interior Department finalized plan on October 24, 2025 opening entire 1.5-million-acre coastal plain of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing.
Arctic Refuge plan mandates four lease sales over 10 years on sacred Gwich'in Indigenous lands.
Arctic Refuge drilling threatens Porcupine caribou herd birthing grounds in region experiencing Arctic warming 3-5 times faster than global average.
Interior Department proposed on June 2, 2025 eliminating safeguards for 13 million acres of "special areas" in National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
Transportation Department memo on February 6, 2025 suspended National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program, freezing $5 billion for EV charging stations across all 50 states.
Interior Secretary ordered review in February-June 2025 to potentially reduce Bears Ears National Monument (1.35 million acres) and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (1.87 million acres), with DOJ opinion on June 11, 2025 claiming president can abolish national monuments.
OSHA enforcement effectively suspended when Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission lost quorum; last commissioner's term expired April 2025 with no contested citations able to be adjudicated.
More than 1 million federal workers lost collective bargaining rights through executive actions in first 100 days.
4 million workers lost expanded overtime eligibility when Trump administration declined to defend Biden overtime rule in court.
Trump administration gutted Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in February 2025, shutting down an agency that had obtained $21 billion in consumer restitution since 2011 and abandoning pending enforcement cases including Capital One's $2 billion potential recovery.
$5 billion in annual consumer losses resulted from overdraft fee cap repeal in March 2025.
Trump administration imposed tariffs causing $1,300-$2,000 per household in additional costs according to economic analyses.
FDA fired probationary employees on February 15-17, 2025, including staff reviewing food additive safety, medical devices, and tobacco products.
SAVE Act, which passed House 220-208 on April 10, 2025 and remains pending in Senate, would disenfranchise 21.3 million Americans who lack ready access to citizenship documents required to register to vote.
20-23 people died in ICE custody in 2025.
ICE detention facilities held 46,000 people in March 2025, rising to approximately 60,000 by September-October 2025, operating at 50 percent over capacity.
7.5 million students with disabilities lost federal oversight protections when Education Department civil rights enforcement was gutted.
Day one executive order on January 20, 2025 reinstated Schedule F, stripping civil service protections from estimated 50,000 federal employees.
Schedule F makes tens of thousands of career federal employees "at-will" and fireable for political reasons, eliminating merit-based hiring system in place since 1883 Pendleton Act.
Day one executive order on January 20, 2025 rescinded Biden's ethics requirements including ban on accepting gifts from lobbyists, ban on working on issues appointees lobbied on in prior two years, and two-year ban on lobbying after leaving government; Trump has not issued replacement ethics pledge.
At least 8 Trump nominees would have been banned or limited under previous ethics rules.
On April 4, 2025, President Trump fired NSA Director Gen. Timothy Haugh and Deputy Director Wendy Noble without advance notice to military leadership, disrupting leadership of both National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command during what former NSA officials called an "alarming" situation exposing the country to "new risk."
CIA eliminated 1,200 positions (5.5% of its 22,000 workforce) on May 2, 2025, during critical hiring surge intended to expand collection capabilities against China, Russia, Iran, and terrorist groups.
NSA announced cuts of thousands of positions including approximately 2,000 civilian roles on May 2, 2025, with former NSA cybersecurity director warning the cuts "will destroy a pipeline of top talent."
On July 20, 2025, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard ordered all intelligence related to Russia-Ukraine peace talks compartmentalized as "NOFORN" (no foreign dissemination), cutting America's closest intelligence partners out of information sharing that had operated seamlessly for decades, leading Western officials to conclude of the Five Eyes alliance: "I don't think that's reliable anymore."
On January 20, 2025, Trump signed executive order granting immediate interim Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information clearances to select White House personnel without FBI background investigations, giving highest-level clearances to individuals who "never had access to classified information before," with former clearance officials calling the decision "unprecedented," "dangerous," and "stupid."
In March 2025, U.S. Coast Guard Counterintelligence Service and Naval Criminal Investigative Service distributed intelligence assessments warning with "high confidence" that China, Russia, and other countries were actively recruiting fired and at-risk U.S. government employees with security clearances through LinkedIn, TikTok, Reddit, and fake company profiles.
Defense Department implemented workforce reductions targeting 50,000-60,000 civilian positions who perform mission-critical tasks spanning logistics, equipment maintenance, aircraft repair, and information security, with more than 20,000 employees placed on administrative leave by March 18.
Beginning in January 2025, approximately 16,000 healthcare providers on the East Coast were not paid for months due to TRICARE contractor transition issues, leading providers to drop patients, reduce hours, and consider clinic closures, with one 16-year service member considering early separation because his son's autism therapy provider threatened to terminate services.
On October 29, 2025, the U.S. Army announced the 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division would return from Romania with no replacement, reducing U.S. troops in Romania by 700 (from 1,700 to 1,000), marking the first announced drawdown from NATO's eastern flank.
In March 2025, the U.S. notified NATO allies it would not participate in military exercises in Europe beyond those already scheduled for 2025, forcing NATO countries to plan future exercises without the alliance's largest military.
In summer 2025, Trump declined to approve more than $400 million in military aid to Taiwan including munitions and autonomous drones during negotiations for a trade deal with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Trump administration's FY2026 budget proposal eliminated all funding for the Baltic Security Initiative, which had provided over $1 billion to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania between 2021-2025 for training, exercises, equipment transfers, and cyber defense.
FBI reassigned 2,840 special agents (20% of approximately 13,800 agents) to immigration enforcement beginning in February 2025, abandoning 764 domestic terrorism cases investigating violent child predators as public corruption, complex fraud, and malign foreign influence investigations were deprioritized.
Justice Department's FY2026 budget proposed eliminating 1,500 FBI positions and cutting $545 million from FBI operations, with 5,800 total FBI employees slated for downsizing (approximately 15% of the 37,000-person workforce).
FY2026 budget proposal cut ATF's workforce 29% from 5,136 positions to 3,671 employees (reduction of 1,465 positions), with DOJ analysis concluding the cuts would result in "40% reduction in ability to regulate firearms and explosives industries" and threatening crime gun tracing capacity that only ATF possesses.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency lost approximately 1,000 employees (one-third of workforce) through voluntary buyouts, early retirement, and layoffs between January and October 2025, with entire 95-person Stakeholder Engagement Division eliminated in mid-October, ending support for all 16 critical infrastructure sectors.
CISA eliminated its Election Security Program in March 2025, cutting 14 positions and $39.6 million in funding, leaving thousands of state and local governments without federal election security support.
On September 29, 2025, Justice Department eliminated all 56 positions at the Community Relations Service, closing the office created by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and known as "America's Peacemaker" that deployed after high-profile killings to prevent racial tensions from escalating.
SEC reduced total staffing by 15% between February and May 2025, from 5,000 employees and 2,000 contractors to 4,200 employees and 1,700 contractors, with enforcement actions dropping 47% from 127 in February-July 2024 to just 67 in February-July 2025.
FDIC announced plans on April 21 to eliminate 1,250 positions (20% reduction), with Office of Inspector General warning it "may be difficult for the FDIC to complete statutorily required examinations by the end of the year" with fewer examiners.
On February 17, 2025, FAA fired approximately 400 employees including 132 Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, eliminating maintenance mechanics at 18 air traffic control facilities and 26 aviation safety assistants who each typically support 10 safety inspectors, while only 2 of 313 airports met FAA staffing targets with 3,833 controller shortfall.
Between February and October 2025, FEMA lost 2,450 employees (9.5% of total workforce), including approximately 1,000 permanent employees (20% of permanent workforce) who accepted voluntary buyouts in April 2025, losing one-third of its permanent workforce during active hurricane season.
On April 4, 2025, FEMA canceled the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, eliminating $750 million planned for FY2025 and stopping funding for previously approved hazard mitigation projects including tornado safe rooms, flood control, and wildfire prevention.
On July 4-5, 2025, catastrophic flash flooding in Central Texas killed approximately 120 people with 160+ missing as FEMA response failures directly attributable to workforce cuts and new bureaucratic requirements prevented deployment of urban search and rescue teams for more than 72 hours after flooding began.
Between July 6-10, 2025, approximately 55,000 calls came in from Texas flood survivors but only 15,000 were answered (27% answer rate versus normal 99.9%) because FEMA's disaster call center staffing contract funding lapsed on July 5, the day after flooding began, with Acting Administrator Richardson not requesting approval to restore funding until July 10.
Kash Patel ordered firing of FBI agents who worked on Trump investigations in August 2025; Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll, Assistant Director in Charge Steven Jensen, and Special Agent in Charge Spencer Evans were fired August 6-8, 2025.
Patel told Driscoll "all FBI employees who they identified who had worked on the cases against President Trump would be removed from their jobs."
In March 2025, NSF terminated approximately 1,040 grants worth $739 million for research projects already underway, followed by termination of 344 additional grants on May 2, paralyzing research labs and forcing students to lose funding.
On October 2, 2025, Department of Energy terminated 223 energy projects totaling $7.6 billion in funding, with 33 universities losing $620 million in research funding, forcing research positions to be eliminated and university labs to lay off staff.
NASA lost approximately 3,870 employees (19% reduction) through two waves of deferred resignation programs closing July 25, 2025, reducing workforce from 17,391 to approximately 14,000, with Goddard Space Flight Center projecting 18% federal staff losses over two years.
NOAA lost approximately 11% of total staff in early 2025, with National Weather Service specifically losing 600 employees (17% of headcount), while Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research was cut $100 million (14% reduction) and climate research specifically cut from $219 million to $165 million (25% cut).
Executive order froze all foreign aid on January 20, 2025; by February 26, 2025, 92 percent of USAID programs (9,800+ grants) were terminated, eliminating $60 billion in foreign aid assistance, with study in The Lancet projecting 8-19 million preventable deaths (including 4.5 million children) by 2030 if USAID cuts are permanent, and 360,000 deaths attributed to foreign aid funding cuts by July 2025.
Between January 20 and October 29, 2025, these documented policies eliminated $1.5 trillion in healthcare funding, terminated employment for more than 300,000 federal workers, froze or canceled more than $90 billion in grants and foreign aid, stripped civil service protections from 50,000 employees, and eliminated oversight capacity across every major federal agency. By July 2025, 360,000 people had died from foreign aid cuts. At least 120 people died in a single preventable disaster when FEMA could not answer calls or deploy rescue teams because its workforce had been gutted and bureaucratic approval requirements prevented response. Intelligence partnerships with America's closest allies suffered their worst degradation in 80 years. The FBI abandoned 764 investigations into violent child predators to chase immigration cases. Federal air traffic control operates with a 3,833 controller shortfall while safety specialists who supported them were fired. The nation's ability to examine banks, investigate financial crimes, trace crime guns, respond to cyberattacks, monitor elections, mediate civil rights conflicts, forecast weather, research climate change, develop new energy technologies, and conduct scientific research was materially degraded in ways that will take decades to rebuild.
This is what they did.
Read this article to find out.
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