February 19, 2025​

On his 31st day in office, Donald Trump...

• went GOLFING.

  • HuffPost calculated the cost based off of a 2019 report from the Government Accountability Office that broke down the cost of Trump’s trips to Mar-a-Lago. That report, HuffPost said, said it cost taxpayers $3,383,250 for each trip. (Penn Live)

  • Trump has spent an estimated $10.7 million playing golf in the first month of his return to office. (Penn Live)

• Blamed Zelensky instead of Putin for the Ukraine war. Trump repeated false claims about President Volodymyr Zelensky’s approval. Read More 

• Issued guidance recognizing only two sexes.
  Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the Trump administration had adopted a set of official government “sex-based definitions.” Read more

• Posted “LONG LIVE THE KING!” on Truth Social. The White House then reinforced the message, recirculating it on Instagram and X with an illustration of Trump wearing a crown. Read more

• Moved to kill New York’s congestion pricing program. Read more

• Ordered the Pentagon to draw up plans for cuts. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered senior military and Defense Department officials to draw up plans to cut 8 percent from the defense budget over each of the next five years.  Read more

• Suggested that the federal government take over Washington, D.C. Trump’s comments put him in the camp of Republicans who want to end the local government system in Washington. Read more

• Ordered federal agencies to run regulations past the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Read more

• Eliminated federal benefits for undocumented immigrants. Read more

• Marked 80th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima. Read more

• Moved to shrink Inter-American Foundation, United States African Development Foundation, Presidio Trust and the United States Institute of Peace.
  The move to weaken these independent agencies is the latest in President Trump’s effort to shrink government spending. 
  Read more

• Remarked on the “very nasty life” that would have come with an election loss. Trump made a surprisingly public acknowledgment that his legal challenges could have consumed his life and brought jail time. Read more

• Rebuffed Senate G.O.P. and backed House budget plan. Trump endorsed House Republicans’ proposal to move forward with one all-encompassing policy and tax-cut plan, dismissing Senate Republicans’ efforts to break up his agenda into smaller pieces that would have more easily moved through the chamber. Read more

• Exploited loopholes to continue to freeze government funding despite court orders

• Fired health inspectors at some border stations. Scientists worry that the losses may open the door to human, plant and animal diseases that would otherwise have been caught. Read more

• Opted to skip the Group of 20 finance ministers meeting in South Africa. Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, made the highly unusual decision to forgo the major economic gathering after a boycott of a similar meeting of foreign ministers in Johannesburg by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Read more

• Picked former aide for top national security job at the Justice Department. John A. Eisenberg is a former White House lawyer who played a key role in some of the most high-profile battles of the first Trump term. Read more​