Trump administration

In one line: The Trump administration is the United States executive branch under President Donald Trump in two non-consecutive terms, from January 2017 to January 2021 and from January 2025 to the present.

The leader and the people under the leader

Roster as of September 29, 2026. Offices and office-holders change; this page is a dated snapshot.

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  Donald Trump

  President of the United States · 2017 to 2021 and 2025 to present

  Head of state and head of government, vested with executive power under Article II of the Constitution.

  In their words

  “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”

  “It is the policy of the United States to: (a) secure the right of the American people to engage in constitutionally protected speech; (b) ensure that no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen;”

  “One thing I’ve learned about the press is that they’re always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational the better. It’s in the nature of the job, and I understand that.”

  In the archive: MAGA and the Resistance: grassroots organising for and against Trump, 2016-2021

White House

• 

  JD Vance

  Vice President of the United States · 2025 to present

  Presides over the Senate, casts tie-breaking votes and succeeds the President if the office falls vacant.

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  Susie Wiles

  White House Chief of Staff · 2025 to present

  Directs the White House Office, the President's personal staff.

• SC

  Steven Cheung

  Assistant to the President and White House Communications Director · 2025 to present

  Directs the White House Office of Communications, which coordinates the administration's public messaging; the press secretary's post has been vacant since 27 August 2026.

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  Stephen Miller

  Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy · 2025 to present

  Coordinates policy development between the White House Office and the executive departments.

Cabinet

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  Marco Rubio

  Secretary of State · 2025 to present

  Leads the Department of State, the executive department responsible for foreign relations and diplomacy.

  In the archive: The State Department's Global Engagement Center (2016 to 2025)

• 

  Scott Bessent

  Secretary of the Treasury · 2025 to present

  Leads the Department of the Treasury, which manages federal finances, collects taxes and administers financial sanctions.

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  Pete Hegseth

  Secretary of Defense (secondary title: Secretary of War) · 2025 to present

  Leads the Department of Defense, which Executive Order 14347 of 5 September 2025 also permits to be called the Department of War; the statutory name is unchanged.

• 

  Todd Blanche

  Attorney General · August 2026 to present (acting from April 2026)

  Leads the Department of Justice, the chief federal law-enforcement and litigating agency, which includes the FBI.

• 

  Markwayne Mullin

  Secretary of Homeland Security · March 2026 to present

  Leads the Department of Homeland Security, which covers border and immigration enforcement, the Coast Guard, disaster response and cybersecurity.

Independent agencies

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  Kash Patel

  Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation · 2025 to present

  Directs the FBI, the Justice Department's principal federal criminal-investigation and domestic-intelligence agency.

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  Jay Clayton

  Director of National Intelligence · August 2026 to present

  Heads the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which coordinates the U.S. intelligence community and advises the President on intelligence.

• 

  John Ratcliffe

  Director of the Central Intelligence Agency · 2025 to present

  Directs the CIA, which collects and analyses foreign intelligence for the President and other policymakers.

• 

  Brendan Carr

  Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission · 2025 to present

  Chairs the FCC, which regulates broadcast, cable, satellite and wireless communications and licenses broadcast stations.

  In their words

  “Should the government censor speech it doesn’t like? Of course not. The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the “public interest.””

  “As Congress, the Supreme Court, and the FCC have all made clear, broadcasters are different than every other distributor of media. Specifically, broadcasters are required by both the Communications Act and the terms of their FCC-issued licenses to operate in the public interest.”

  In the archive: Government pressure on platforms and broadcasters ("jawboning"), 2020-2026

• 

  Andrew Ferguson

  Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission · 2025 to present

  Chairs the FTC, which enforces consumer-protection and antitrust law, including rules on advertising.

  In their words

  “Tech firms should not be bullying their users. This inquiry will help the FTC better understand how these firms may have violated the law by silencing and intimidating Americans for speaking their minds.”

Background and rise to power

Donald Trump, a businessman and television host who had never held public office, won the presidential election of 8 November 2016 by carrying the Electoral College. He took the oath on 20 January 2017 with Mike Pence as vice president. His first-term press secretaries were Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephanie Grisham and Kayleigh McEnany. The House impeached him on 18 December 2019 (abuse of power and obstruction of Congress) and on 13 January 2021 (incitement of insurrection); the Senate acquitted him on 5 February 2020 and 13 February 2021. He lost the 3 November 2020 election to Joe Biden and said the result was fraudulent; he and his allies filed dozens of lawsuits, which courts dismissed or rejected, state officials certified the results, and he left office on 20 January 2021. The movements for and against him in these years are documented in MAGA and the Resistance.

He won the 5 November 2024 election and was inaugurated again on 20 January 2025, with JD Vance as vice president. He is the first president since Grover Cleveland to serve two non-consecutive terms. The roster on this page is the second-term government as of 29 September 2026. Offices that changed hands in 2026: Homeland Security (Markwayne Mullin, confirmed 23 March and sworn in 24 March), Attorney General (Pam Bondi out on 2 April; Todd Blanche acting, then sworn in on 10 August), Labor (Lori Chavez-DeRemer left on 20 April; Keith Sonderling designated acting secretary that day), Director of National Intelligence (Tulsi Gabbard resigned effective 30 June; Jay Clayton sworn in on 3 August) and press secretary (Karoline Leavitt left on 27 August; no successor found in the sources checked for this page).

How power was organized

Article II of the Constitution vests executive power in the President. In practice it runs through four layers. The White House Office is the President's personal staff, led by the chief of staff, with deputy chiefs of staff (Stephen Miller for policy) and a communications director. The wider Executive Office of the President includes the Office of Management and Budget and the National Security Council. The fifteen executive departments are headed by secretaries whom the Senate confirms; whitehouse.gov lists 21 secretaries and cabinet-level officials in the second-term Cabinet in addition to the vice president. Independent agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are led by commissioners the President nominates and the Senate confirms, and the President designates the chair.

On 29 June 2026 the Supreme Court held 6 to 3 in Trump v. Slaughter that the FTC Act's for-cause removal protection is unconstitutional, overruling Humphrey's Executor v. United States (1935), so the President may remove FTC commissioners at will (SCOTUSblog).

The Department of Defense has a second name in current official documents. Executive Order 14347 of 5 September 2025 states: "The Secretary of Defense is authorized the use of this additional secondary title — the Secretary of War," and that the Department of Defense and the Office of the Secretary of Defense "may be referred to as the Department of War and the Office of the Secretary of War, respectively, in the contexts described in subsection (a)", those contexts being official correspondence, public communications, ceremonial contexts and non-statutory documents within the executive branch. The same order says: "Statutory references to the Department of Defense, Secretary of Defense, and subordinate officers and components shall remain controlling until changed subsequently by the law." whitehouse.gov's cabinet page lists Pete Hegseth as "Secretary of War".

The propaganda apparatus

Offices. The White House Office of Communications, directed since 20 January 2025 by Steven Cheung, coordinates the administration's public messaging alongside the press secretary's office. In the second term Leavitt gave her first briefing on 29 January 2025 and said: "Starting today, this seat in the front of the room, which is usually occupied by the press secretary staff, will be called the 'new media' seat" (whitehouse.gov). President Trump announced her departure on 12 August 2026 in a social media post (ABC News).

Press access. On 11 February 2025 the White House barred Associated Press reporters from pool events after the agency kept using "Gulf of Mexico" rather than "Gulf of America", the name set in the executive order of 20 January 2025 (the White House's stated reason; the AP sued on First Amendment grounds); on 25 February it took over composition of the press pool from the White House Correspondents' Association. On 8 April 2025 Judge Trevor McFadden ordered the restrictions lifted but stayed his order; on 6 June 2025 a divided D.C. Circuit panel (2 to 1) let the exclusion from restricted spaces such as the Oval Office stand and restored East Room access. The case is reported as pending (Wikipedia).

The President's own accounts. President Trump's personal account on Twitter was a primary channel for announcements in the first term. On 9 July 2019 the Second Circuit held unanimously in Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump that, because the account was held out as an official account and functioned as a public forum, blocking critics from it was viewpoint discrimination that violated the First Amendment (opinion). Twitter suspended the account on 8 January 2021, citing "the risk of further incitement of violence" (see platform moderation and jawboning). In the second term the President announces some personnel decisions on Truth Social; on 2 April 2026 he wrote that Attorney General Bondi would be "transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector" (CNN). The official "Rapid Response 47" account, launched on 27 January 2025, gave its purpose as: "We will be supporting President Donald J. Trump's America First agenda and holding the Fake News accountable for their lies" (Fox News).

Agencies and officials. The FTC announced on 20 February 2025 a public inquiry into technology-platform content moderation; its chairman said: "This inquiry will help the FTC better understand how these firms may have violated the law by silencing and intimidating Americans for speaking their minds" (FTC). The FCC chairman's September 2025 remarks about a late-night show, and whether they amounted to pressure, are set out in platform moderation and jawboning. The State Department closed its counter-disinformation office R/FIMI on 16 April 2025 (Global Engagement Center), and cuts to U.S.-funded international broadcasting are covered in State television across borders.

Messaging on the record. Archive examples include the first-term "Make America Great Again" slogan, which the campaign took from a 1980 Reagan button (see MAGA and the Resistance); the 15 August 2017 answer "what about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt?" (transcript: American Presidency Project; Then and now: whataboutism); the use of "Chinese Virus" on 16 March 2020 (Then and now: ethnic labels); and the pandemic-era briefings and posts in COVID messaging.

Timeline

• January 2017: First inauguration (20 January); Pence becomes vice president.
• July 2019: Second Circuit rules in Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump (9 July).
• December 2019 to February 2020: First impeachment and acquittal.
• January 2021: Twitter suspends the President's account (8 January); second impeachment (13 January); first term ends (20 January). The Senate acquits on 13 February.
• November 2024: Trump wins the presidential election.
• January 2025: Second inauguration (20 January); "Rapid Response 47" launched (27 January); "new media" seat (29 January).
• February 2025: AP barred from pool events (11 February); White House takes over the pool (25 February); FTC opens an inquiry into what it calls tech censorship (20 February).
• April 2025: State Department closes R/FIMI (16 April).
• September 2025: Executive Order 14347 authorizes the "Department of War" secondary name (5 September).
• March 2026: Mullin confirmed (23 March) and sworn in (24 March) as Secretary of Homeland Security.
• April 2026: Bondi leaves as Attorney General; Blanche acting (2 April); Chavez-DeRemer leaves Labor; Sonderling acting (20 April).
• June 2026: Trump v. Slaughter decided (29 June).
• August 2026: Clayton sworn in as DNI (3 August); Blanche sworn in as Attorney General (10 August); Leavitt leaves the press secretary's post (27 August).

Same-standard note

This page uses the same structure, headings and neutral register as every other regime page in the archive, and applies the archive's working definitions on the same terms. The roster is a dated snapshot as of 29 September 2026 and will change; holders come from whitehouse.gov and agency sources, departure dates from news reports. A sitting government operates alongside a privately owned press, competing parties, courts that heard and ruled on the disputes above, and a Congress that confirms most of the people listed; the archive's other regime pages cover states that lacked some or all of these, and this page does not imply equivalence between them.

Sources

• The White House: The Cabinet (read 29 September 2026); Executive Order 14347, 5 September 2025; briefing of 29 January 2025.
• Officeholders: DHS on Mullin; ODNI on Clayton; PBS on Gabbard; CNN and NPR on Bondi; PBS on Blanche; ABC on Leavitt; Wikipedia on the press secretary post (vacant from 27 August 2026 as read 29 September 2026) and Executive Office appointments.
• Courts: SCOTUSblog on Trump v. Slaughter; Knight Institute v. Trump, 2d Cir.; AP v. Budowich.
• Other: Fox News on Rapid Response 47; FTC, 20 February 2025.
• Portraits: Wikimedia Commons file pages linked in each entry's frontmatter; all are U.S. federal government works.

In the archive

Collection objects (2)

Case studies

• MAGA and the Resistance: grassroots organising for and against Trump, 2016-2021
• Follow the science, Plandemic: COVID-19 messaging from officials and contrarians, 2020-2022
• Government pressure on platforms and broadcasters ("jawboning"), 2020-2026
• The State Department's Global Engagement Center (2016 to 2025)
• State television across borders: from Der schwarze Kanal and ZDF-Magazin to RT, CGTN, Alhurra and Al Jazeera

Then and now

• Then and now: "and what about you?" (Soviet Union, Cold War; US, China and Russia, 2017–21)
• Then and now: national and ethnic labels for an enemy or a disease (US 1942, US 2020)