These included the Mueller special counsel investigation into his presidential campaign's alleged coordination with the Russian government during the 2016 election, the House of Representatives' first impeachment of Donald Trump in December 2019 for abuse of power and contempt of Congress after the Trump–Ukraine scandal, in which he solicited Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden (after the First impeachment trial of Donald Trump, he was acquitted by the Senate in February 2020), the Trump administration family separation policy for migrants apprehended at the U.S.–Mexico border, limitations on the number of immigrants permitted from certain countries (many of which were Muslim-majority), demand for the federal funding of the Mexico–United States border wall that resulted in the 2018–2019 United States federal government shutdown which was the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, and attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

[10][11] Trump nevertheless urged his supporters on January 6, 2021, to march to the Capitol while the joint session of Congress was assembled there to count electoral votes and formalize Biden's victory, leading to hundreds storming the building and interrupting the electoral vote count; as a result, the House impeached Trump for incitement of insurrection on January 13, 2021, making him the only federal officeholder in American history to be impeached more than once (the Senate would later acquit him for the second time on February 13, 2021, after he had already left office).

[15] Incumbent president Joe Biden initially ran for reelection for the Democratic nomination, becoming the party's presumptive nominee in March 2024 after comfortably winning the primaries with little opposition.

His transition team is expected to rely on the work of the America First Policy Institute, rather than The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that garnered controversy during the election for Project 2025, a set of initiatives that would reshape the federal government.

[61] Trump has repeatedly suggested that he supports outlawing political dissent that he regards as misleading or that questions the legitimacy of his presidency, for example saying that criticism of judges who ruled in favor of him "should be punishable by very serious fines and beyond that.

[75] The orders made misleading[76] accusations against the Biden administration and asserted they had committed criminal conduct against him and his supporters and demanded evidence be found to "correct past misconduct".

[95] After the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine (2024) that frozen embryos are living beings, Trump positioned himself in favor of in vitro fertilisation (IVF).

The team is preparing to withdraw from the Paris Agreement for a second time, expand drilling and mining on public land, and dismantle offices working to end pollution, while other officials have discussed moving the Environmental Protection Agency from Washington, D.C. Trump will redraw the boundaries of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monuments as he did in his first presidency, end a pause on new natural gas export terminals that began under President Joe Biden, and prevent states from setting their own pollution standards.

[99] Upon taking office, Trump appointed oil, gas, and chemical lobbyists to the Environmental Protection Agency to roll back climate rules and pollution controls.

According to The Washington Post, Special Counsel Jack Smith considered ending his prosecutions early and submitting a final report to Attorney General Merrick Garland before Trump was inaugurated.

It was also reported that career civil servants in the United States Department of Agriculture who had previously worked to implement policies intended to reduce racial, sexual-orientation, and gender-identity discrimination were "placed on leave and faced potential firing."

[145][146] On February 3, Trump announced that the tariffs on both Mexico and Canada would be paused for one month after the countries agreed to take further steps to prevent the trafficking of drugs into the United States.

[147][148] According to Kim Clausing of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the proposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China would represent the "largest tax increase [in the United States] since the 1990s.

DOGE is a unit tasked with recommending cost-cutting measures, and according to the executive order that established it, its formal purpose is to "modernize federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity".

[167] It was reported that this gave DOGE "full access" to the major U.S. Treasury database controlling the expenditure of 6 trillion dollars, as well as "the sensitive personal data of millions of Americans as well as details of public contractors who compete directly with Musk’s own businesses."

"[168] Trump and DOGE are attempting to dismantle the vast majority of USAID,[169] a 10,000-person agency originally tasked to carry-out and monitor humanitarian projects by means of quality feedback.

[171] In February 2025, it was reported that the USAID director of security and a deputy were put on administrative leave after they "blocked efforts by DOGE members to physically access restricted areas" in order to obtain sensitive information.

[176] On February 7, federal judge Carl Nichols, whom Trump nominated in his first term, delayed the placing of 2,200 employees on administrative leave pending a hearing and ordered access to their email accounts restored.

[180][181] On January 27, 2025, the Trump administration's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released memo M-25-13, which ordered the federal government to take action the next day to "temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by [Trump's] executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the Green New Deal".

"[220] Average daily border crossings were at the lowest level since summer 2020 shortly before Trump took office partly attributed to an executive order restricting asylum Biden passed the prior year.

[235] In his 2024 campaign, Trump detailed a range of proposals aimed at reversing recent LGBTQ-related policies and reshaping federal guidelines on gender identity and transgender rights.

He stated that on "day one", he would reverse the Biden administration's Title IX expansion, which protects transgender students' rights to use bathrooms, locker rooms, and pronouns that align with their gender identity.

Trump has also proposed forbidding federal agencies from "promoting" gender transitions and plans to task the Justice Department with investigating potential long-term effects of gender-affirming treatments.

[252] Trump rescinded Executive Order 11246 signed by former President Lyndon Johnson forbidding employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion and national origin, and establishing affirmative action.

[259] On February 6, following the National Prayer Breakfast, Donald Trump signed an executive order to create a task force to "immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government, including at the DOJ, which was absolutely terrible, the IRS, the FBI — terrible — and other agencies.”[260][261] Donald Trump appointed Attorney General Pam Bondi to lead the task force and appointed Paula White to direct the White House Faith Office.

[291][292] On the subsequent day, former chief executive Friis Arne Petersen in the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the situation as "historically unheard of", while Noa Redington, special adviser to former prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, compared the international pressure on Denmark that during the 2005 Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.

[301][302] Trump repealed and rolled back anticorruption efforts and ethical standards for himself and his allies, dropped corruption charges against political figures with ties to him, and fired inspectors generals investigating fraud and abuse.

[308] Trump's cabinet were noted to have a large number of potential conflicts of interest, with the Campaign Legal Center finding over 467 that would require recusal, with the most, 106, belonging to Howard Lutnick.

[309] Trump Media gifted 25,946 shares of stock of DJT to each of his picks for FBI Director, Kash Patel, and Education secretary nominee, Linda McMahon, totaling $779,400 each as of January 31, 2025.

[317] Journalist Martin Sandu and authoritarian politics researcher Alex Norris described the maximalist interpretation of executive power in Donald Trump's second term as President, including sweeping executive orders, the federal funding freeze, actions against political opponents and the media, pardons of those involved in the 2021 attempted self-coup, the actions of Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, and the like as an attempted self-coup.