It’s been a whirlwind year for President Donald Trump since reentering the White House in January after winning the 2024 presidential election.
From the get-go, his second administration garnered headlines about who he’d appoint to Cabinet positions and whether he’d follow up on his campaign promises. In the months since his inauguration, Trump has drastically changed the federal government in Washington, D.C., and beyond, while also pressuring
Congress to pass his signature “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which will permanently extend the tax cuts passed in his first term.
Here’s a look at some of the other Trump administration actions that made 2025 a year of federal transformation.
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January: DOGE demolition
Trump promised to downsize the federal government in an attempt to manage the country’s spending. On his first day back in office, he signed an executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and appointed tech billionaire Elon Musk to be its leader.
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From there, Musk moved quickly to overhaul government positions with a promise to reduce wasteful spending. Deemed a “special government employee,” he enacted changes across federal agencies and departments.
Thousands of government employees were laid off, including at the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services, leaving workers wondering whether they would be cut next - or potentially hired back.
The cuts also included the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, a move criticized by many who supported its aid efforts around the world. Federal research and grants were also cut, including at universities.
Before leaving the administration, DOGE said Musk was able to save the government an estimated $175 billion through a combination of asset sales like buildings, contract and lease cancellations, fraud and improper payment deletion, program changes, workforce reductions and more.
Still, DOGE’s reductions in the federal workforce amounted to the leading cause for layoffs in 2025 and there are more than 290,000 people who are feeling the effects.
Those who remain are now working in-person. Trump issued a presidential memorandum for a return to in-person work in January, ordering the heads of all departments to terminate remote work arrangements and end their COVID-19-era work exceptions.
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March: Alien Enemies Act and immigration crackdown
On March 15, Trump issued a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century wartime law that allowed him to deport alleged members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang. It’s the first time the act has been used since World War II and allowed the president to have sweeping powers to deport people.
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The administration insisted that it was deporting violent criminals, but some believe it swept up people who should not have been deported, including
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was sent to El Salvador in March. He gained national attention as his continuing legal battle has dragged on for months.
It was a flashpoint in the administration’s ongoing efforts to overhaul the country’s immigration system. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has spent the year enforcing strict immigration laws and the administration has touted that, for many months, not one immigrant has crossed the U.S. border illegally.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have gone into American suburbs and cities at the direction of the administration in an effort to round up criminals. The effort has been met with resistance by opponents who say they don’t want officers in their neighborhoods and that innocent people who have not committed crimes are being detained.
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April: Liberation Day and tariffs
In April, Trump announced that “Liberation Day” was here after teasing a rollout of tariffs. The reciprocal tariffs were implemented when Trump declared a national emergency over the country’s trade deficit and invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
The executive order imposed a 10% baseline tariff on imports from nearly all countries, and there were many country-specific tariffs, too.
Over the next several months, Trump participated in negotiations with several countries, including the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and the European Union.
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In January, he first added tariffs targeting China, Canada and Mexico.
The Liberation Day announcement led to a global market crash in early April and sparked a volatile market as China placed reciprocal tariffs on the U.S. Trump later announced that the country-specific reciprocal tariffs would be paused for 90 days, leading the market to rebound.
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June: National Guard deployment and anti-immigration protests
Trump first deployed the National Guard to quell anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles, California. In doing so, he overrode Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
He was able to send troops in June deployment because he declared anti-immigration enforcement protests as an emergency. Several weeks later, in mid-August, Trump deployed more National Guard members to Washington, D.C. He was able to do so under
the district’s Home Rule Act, which allows the president to put the city’s law enforcement under “federal control.” Trump said he would bring National Guard troops to Washington to clean up crime in the nation’s capital.
Since then, efforts to send troops into other U.S. cities have continued.
He announced in September that Memphis, Tennessee, would be the next city to see troops on the ground. It was the first city in a Republican-led state to see the attention from the president after he battled with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, and ultimately opted to avoid legal battles and set his sights elsewhere. Despite criticism from local Democrats in Memphis, Trump was able to
move forward with his plans for troops in the city because he had the blessing of Republican Gov. Bill Lee.
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Trump in September said he was directing the Department of War to provide necessary troops to protect “War ravaged Portland.” Portland and the state of Oregon pushed back on his efforts. He also claimed that San Francisco, New York and other Democratic-led cities are “very unsafe” and his administration would “straighten them out one by one.”
The president has justified his actions by saying previous leaders used armed forces to keep domestic order and peace, but the deployment of troops in American cities has sparked legal battles and questions over his executive authority and potential federal overreach.
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August: Court battles and executive authority
Trump is no stranger to legal battles during his second term. Several federal court judges have issued rulings against his policies, although some of those decisions were overturned by the nation’s highest court.
In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled in a case involving Trump that ultimately granted presidents broad, near absolute immunity for “official acts” taken while in office. The ruling was essentially a precursor for
what was to come when Trump was challenged in lower courts.
Although the 2024-25 term was relatively less controversial than recent terms, several big decisions were made via a rise in the use of the emergency docket, also commonly known as the court’s shadow docket.
This is changing the way the federal government operates, experts say.
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Congress is legislating less and less in recent years, while governing by executive action has increased under both Democratic and Republican presidents. This leads to legal challenges and the administration looking for emergency action to protect its agenda.
“These rulings have enormous impact. They affect a ton of people,” Steven Vladeck, a Supreme Court expert at George Washington University, said, noting that the emergency docket gives the public less explanation as to why a ruling was being made in a certain direction.
With an administration like Trump’s that tests legal boundaries, and a court that doesn’t always provide the reasons behind decisions, it can further divide an already-split democracy, experts told the Deseret News.
And with another major case on the horizon, the court will again be under the spotlight. Trump issued an order ending birthright citizenship in the country and the justices decided to hear oral arguments in the case this spring.
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October: New U.S. roles in the Middle East
In October, Trump achieved one of his biggest wins. He successfully negotiated a ceasefire to end the war between Israel and Hamas, about two years after it began on Oct. 7, 2023.
He and others championed other
war-ending efforts throughout the year,
including with Iran, but his action in Gaza was seen as a milestone of his first term. All of the remaining hostages, alive and dead, held in Hamas captivity were returned to Israel as part of the deal and Israel agreed to partially withdraw from Gaza.
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The situation remains tenuous, but Trump’s negotiation opened the door to more U.S. involvement in the Middle East.
In Trump’s plan, Gaza would be temporarily governed by an international committee and supervised by a “Board of Peace” that is headed by Trump. It’s also an idea he has proposed in ending the war
between Russia and Ukraine. The committee would oversee the day-to-day public services and rebuild in Gaza.
The U.S. also will work with Arab countries to create an International Stabilization Force to be deployed in Gaza, to provide support for Palestinians by facilitating aid and infrastructure, securing borders and more.
December: Transparency and Trump in the Epstein files
The Trump administration faced a rocky several months in terms of public opinion related to the release of the files in the case of sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein. Trump promised while campaigning last year to make the files available to the public, yet after taking office, his administration appeared to skirt responsibility for releasing them.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in July that Epstein
did not have a “client list” and was not murdered while he was in a New York City federal prison. The announcement came after months of promises from Bondi and the Justice Department that transparency was coming about the alleged list of 200 names of prominent figures associated with Epstein. The department said while they wanted to keep the public informed about Epstein’s crimes and the federal investigation, no further information would be disclosed because it was inappropriate for the victims.
President Trump had a busy year after returning to the White House. Take a look at some of the biggest changes.
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