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.
- - -
These lists, along with everything McSweeney’s publishes on this site, are offered ad-free and at no charge to our readers. If you are moved to make a donation in any amount or subscribe to our website’s Patreon, please do. This will help support this project and our other work.
- - -
ATROCITYKEY
– Authoritarianism – 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
– April 1, 2026 – Donald Trump, who has frequently threatened and criticized Supreme Court justices, became the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the Supreme Court. He listened to the government make its case against birthright citizenship, but left when the ACLU presented opposing arguments, defying a longstanding tradition that spectators remain seated and silent. Steven Lubet, an emeritus professor at Northwestern University’s School of Law, characterized Trump’s presence during oral arguments as “an attempt to intimidate the justices” and “a challenge to the Supreme Court’s independence.”
– April 2, 2026 – Luanne James, 57, a library director in Tennessee, was fired from her office after she refused to move LGBTQ+ books from the children’s shelves. Last year, Trump signed an executive order targeting “gender ideology,” and Tennessee has also passed anti-DEI laws. “As a librarian, I knew [the library board’s order to move the books] was wrong, and I had to say something,” James said.
“I Had No Choice”: Ousted TN Library Director Addresses Firing over LGBTQ Books Removal (WSMV Nashville).
– April 2, 2026 – The Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled that the death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, 56, was a homicide. Alam, a refugee from Myanmar with severe visual impairment, was found dead on a Buffalo street in February, five days after Border Patrol agents dropped him off at a closed Tim Hortons. “This tragedy was entirely preventable, and it reflects a serious failure in the systems meant to protect vulnerable people,” said Imran Fazal, a friend of the Alam family.
– April 2, 2026 – Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, frustrated over her handling of the Epstein files and her unwillingness to investigate or prosecute enough of his opponents, even though she had overseen multiple politically motivated investigations against his foes. During Bondi’s tumultuous tenure, the Justice Department surrendered some of its independence, and many of its career officials resigned. Bondi became the second cabinet member, after Kristi Noem, to be fired.
– April 2, 2026 – After Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed the Iran war was being fought “in the name of Jesus Christ,” Pope Leo XIV offered a different take. “We tend to consider ourselves powerful when we dominate, victorious when we destroy our equals, great when we are feared. God has given us an example—not of how to dominate, but of how to liberate; not of how to destroy life, but how to give it,” Pope Leo said in a homily during Mass.
– April 3, 2026 – New figures showed that ICE, despite claims to the contrary, was still arresting many immigrants with no criminal history. After Alex Pretti and Renee Good were killed in Minneapolis, White House border czar Tom Homan said that “all operations will be targeted” and that the agency would prioritize “criminal aliens, public safety threats, and national security threats.” Trump also claimed he wanted a “softer touch.” However, a Washington Post analysis of ICE data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit found that people with no criminal record still made up 42 percent of those detained.
– April 5, 2026 – On Easter morning, Trump posted a profanity-laden threat to Iran on Truth Social, demanding that the country reopen the Strait of Hormuz. “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell,” he wrote, adding, “Praise be to Allah.” Just days earlier, Trump had declared Iran effectively defeated, claiming its navy and air force were “gone,” its missiles were “just about used up,” and its radar systems were “100 percent annihilated.” He had also dismissed concerns about the Strait of Hormuz closing, saying, “When this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally.” Two days after those remarks, Iran shot down two American military planes. Hours before Trump’s Easter post, Pope Leo XIV had delivered his first Easter address, warning against “the many conflicts raging in different parts of the world” and lamenting “what a great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day.”
– April 5, 2026 – After Iran shot down an American aircraft and US forces carried out a rescue mission for a stranded airman, Trump threatened to attack Iranian infrastructure, including bridges and power plants. “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Experts warned that intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure could constitute a war crime and trigger wider attacks across the region. Iran later threatened retaliation against infrastructure in Gulf states.
– April 6, 2026 – The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to move forward with efforts to erase Stephen Bannon’s contempt of Congress conviction stemming from his refusal to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Bannon, a longtime Trump ally, served only four months in prison after a jury convicted him in 2022. The Trump administration asked the court to help remove the conviction from Bannon’s record, arguing that dismissing the case was “in the interests of justice.” During Trump’s first term, Bannon was also pardoned after being indicted on charges that he defrauded donors to a group raising money for Trump’s border wall.
– April 6, 2026 – The Trump administration terminated multiple civil rights settlements aimed at protecting transgender students from discrimination in schools, including agreements involving school districts in California, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Some of the settlements had required schools to respect students’ preferred names and pronouns or allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity. Education Department officials said there was no precedent for the federal government revoking civil rights agreements of this kind that had been previously negotiated. The Education Department told one Pennsylvania school district it could face an investigation and potential federal funding cuts if it did not reverse protections for transgender students.
– April 7, 2026 – Annie Ramos, the undocumented wife of an Army staff sergeant, was released from ICE detention. She spent five days in custody following her arrest at Fort Polk, Louisiana, where she and her husband had gone to complete paperwork so they could move in together. Ramos, 22, who was brought to the United States as a toddler and had no criminal record, was detained after authorities cited a deportation order issued when she was twenty-two months old. Her case drew widespread media attention and intervention from Senator Mark Kelly, who said he contacted Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin about the case. Legal experts said military spouses in similar situations were typically allowed to pursue legal status while remaining with their families. While in detention, Ramos was prohibited from wearing her wedding ring.
– April 7, 2026 – President Trump and Vice President JD Vance publicly endorsed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban just days before a national election that polls had predicted his party could lose. Speaking by phone to a rally in Budapest, Trump declared, “I love Hungary, and I love Viktor,” and praised Orban for preventing migrants from “storm[ing] your country and invad[ing] your country.” At the same event, Vance called Orban “one of the only true statesmen in Europe” and said Hungary under Orban could serve as “a model to the continent.” Five days later, Orban lost in a landslide to opposition leader Péter Magyar, who had criticized Vance’s visit by warning that “no foreign country may interfere in Hungarian elections.”
– April 8, 2026 –EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin headlined a climate-change denial conference in Washington hosted by the Heartland Institute, a group that has spent decades attacking mainstream climate science. Attendees gave Zeldin a standing ovation before he spoke. Speakers at the event falsely claimed that climate change was a hoax, that rising carbon dioxide levels posed little danger, and that fossil fuels were environmentally beneficial. Zeldin told attendees that the Trump administration would not follow “doom-and-gloom prediction[s]” about global warming and boasted that the EPA was “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.” One pamphlet distributed at the conference read: “Fossil Fuels Are the Greenest Energy Sources.”
– April 8, 2026 – Trump lashed out at NATO after members of the alliance refused to participate in the US-Israeli war against Iran or help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Following a tense White House meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, whom some allies have nicknamed the “Trump whisperer” for his attempts to flatter and manage the president, Trump posted: “NATO WASN’T THEREWHEN WE NEEDEDTHEM, ANDTHEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEEDTHEMAGAIN.” He added: “REMEMBER GREENLAND, THATBIG, POORLYRUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!” Rutte later acknowledged that Trump was “clearly disappointed” with many NATO allies and described the meeting as “very frank” and “very open.”
– April 9, 2026 – Trump turned on several prominent conservative media figures who criticized his handling of the war with Iran, including Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones. In a 482-word Truth Social post, Trump called the commentators “stupid people” with “low IQs” and said they were “LOSERS.” The attacks came after Carlson called Trump’s threats toward Iran “evil” and Jones said the president sounded “like an unhinged super villain from a Marvel comic movie.” Trump also targeted Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, once one of his closest allies in Congress, calling her “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown.” Greene responded that Trump had “gone mad as he wages war against Iran.”
– April 9, 2026 – Trump met privately at the White House with leaders of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement as administration officials tried to calm frustrations among MAHA supporters ahead of the midterm elections. Some movement leaders, many of whom had abandoned the Democratic Party to support Trump after Kennedy endorsed him, had recently criticized the president for siding with Bayer in litigation over the weedkiller Roundup. The same day, the administration published a new charter for a federal vaccine advisory committee that could allow Kennedy to revive vaccine policy changes that had recently been blocked by a federal judge. The revised charter expanded eligibility for committee membership to include people with experience in “recovery from serious vaccine injuries.”
– April 9, 2026 – Melania Trump delivered a surprise statement from the White House denying any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell and declaring that “the lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today.” She did not specify which reports she was referring to. The remarks stunned even some White House officials and reignited scrutiny of Donald Trump’s longtime association with Epstein, which the administration had spent months trying to contain. Afterward, Trump contradicted earlier White House accounts by saying he had known his wife planned to speak about Epstein and that “she had a right to talk about it.” The speech also renewed public interest in Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent who introduced Melania to Trump and later appeared in documents related to Epstein. Zampolli recently soughtICE intervention against the mother of his child during a custody dispute.
Melania Trump Makes White House Statement Denying Ties to Jeffrey Epstein (Bloomberg News).
– April 9, 2026 – After Trump administration officials pushed for greater American access to the country’s gold and mineral reserves, Venezuela’s National Assembly approved a new law opening the country’s mining sector to foreign investors. The move came after the Trump administration used criminal charges and extradition threats to pressure Venezuela’s new leadership following the US capture of Nicolás Maduro. Trump had previously declared that the United States was “in charge” of Venezuela and said American oil companies would “take our oil back.” Despite years of US sanctions targeting Venezuela’s mining industry and warnings linking mining operations to human rights abuses and deforestation, the law is expected to expand mining in regions already controlled by armed groups and corrupt military officials.
– April 9, 2026 – Trump shared graphic security footage of a fatal hammer attack in Florida involving a Haitian immigrant and used the killing to attack protections for Haitian migrants. “I don’t recommend you watch this tape, because it is so terrible, but felt I had an obligation to put it up so that people can see what Democrats are protecting,” he wrote on Truth Social. Trump and his aides have increasingly used individual crimes committed by immigrants to argue that immigration drives violent crime, despite studies consistently finding that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans.
– April 10, 2026 – The Trump administration released plans for a 250-foot triumphal arch near the Lincoln Memorial as part of the president’s effort to reshape Washington and celebrate America’s 250th anniversary. Trump said the proposed monument, which resembles the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and is topped with giant eagles and a golden angel, would be privately funded. Asked last year whom the arch would honor, Trump replied: “Me.” The proposal advanced through a federal arts panel that Trump had recently stacked with allies, including a former White House receptionist.
More Details on Trump’s Proposed “Triumphal Arch” (ABC 7 Chicago).
– April 11, 2026 – Alejandro Cabrera Clemente, 49, died in ICE custody at Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana. ICE claimed Clemente, who had lived in the US for more than twenty-five years, was found unresponsive in his cell.
– April 11, 2026 – The US military struck two alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Pacific, killing five and leaving one survivor. Similar strikes killed two people on April 13, four people on April 14, and three people on April 15.
– April 12, 2026 – Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt, 27, died in ICE custody at the Federal Detention Center in Miami, Florida. ICE claimed that Carbonell-Betancourt, who immigrated to the US from Cuba in 2024, died of a presumed suicide, but the cause of death was still under investigation. Carbonell-Betancourt was arrested in November 2025 after a police officer observed him wandering around an “abandoned farmer’s market,” warned him against trespassing, and patted him down. When the officer asked Carbonell-Betancourt for ID, he ran. The officer then ran after him, tased him, and took him to a hospital. Carbonell-Betancourt was charged with resisting an officer with violence and transferred into ICE custody in February 2026. The charge was eventually dropped.
– April 12, 2026 – In a lengthy Truth Social post, Trump called Pope Leo XIV “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.” Later, while answering a question from a reporter, Trump also criticized the pope for being “very liberal” and accused him, without evidence, of supporting nuclear weapons. Pope Leo has criticized the Iran war and the American abduction of Venezuela’s president. A day after Trump’s social media post, Leo responded that he had “no fear of the Trump administration.”
Pope Leo XIV Responds to Trump’s Comments Against Him in Feud over Iran War (AP).
– April 13, 2026 – Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus to Truth Social. The image depicted Trump in a white and red robe, touching the forehead of a sick man on his deathbed as light radiates from Trump’s hands. Following criticism, Trump deleted the image. “I thought it was me as a doctor,” he said. “I make people better.” Later, Trump added, “I viewed that as a picture of me being a doctor in fixing—you had the Red Cross right there, you had, you know, medical people surrounding me. And I was like the doctor, you know, as a little fun playing the doctor and making people better.”
– April 13, 2026 – A day after Trump lashed out against the pope on social media, JD Vance, a Catholic, said the pope should stay out of American affairs. “In some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality,” said Vance. “Stick to matters of, you know, what’s going on in the Catholic Church. And let the president of the United States stick to dictating American policy.” A day later, Vance also criticized Leo’s statement. “Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated France from the Nazis? I certainly think the answer was yes,” said Vance. “In the same way that it’s important for the vice president of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy, I think it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”
– April 14, 2026 – Trump received a DoorDash McDonald’s delivery at the White House from “DoorDash Grandma” Sharon Simmons and tipped her one hundred dollars. The White House’s rapid-response X account then quoted Simmons as saying she had saved more than $11,000 in tips by not having to claim them on her taxes, though this would not be possible under the current policy, which labor advocates have heavily criticized. Simmons had previously lobbied for Trump’s “no tax on tips” policy, testifying before Congress in July 2025. DoorDash later admitted the delivery was a stunt.
President Trump Receives DoorDash McDonald’s Delivery at the Oval Office (C-SPAN)
– April 14, 2026 – At the direction of DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, the Department of Justice moved to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions of twelve Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who helped plan and lead the January 6, 2021, attacks on the...
