PART 1: Everything that happened in 2025

I promise you don’t remember all these little moments

First thing’s first: thousands upon thousands of you cast votes in our inaugural Political Creator of the Year bracket. After beating Jennifer Welch by just 31 votes, he handily defeated the Queen of Conspiracy, Candace Owens. The (non-existent) trophy belongs to none other than Brian Tyler Cohen. Ran the gauntlet like a true champ.

“NO FAT SOLDIERS?” (direct quote). TEXAS REP ATTENDS TRUMP’S JOINT ADDRESS AND THEN DIES IMMEDIATELY AFTER? TARIFFS ON PENGUINS?

No matter what you do — like even if you live, breathe, work, sleep, eat, drink the news — it is impossible to remember every little flicker of fun, fraud, feat, or farce that takes place in one calendar year. Especially one that felt as endless and saturated as 2025.

My prescription for our collective amnesia is relatively simple: I keep a list. Yes, like a basic ass Notes app list. Of every single thing that happens during the year. It’s an imperfect system, of course. What might feel like news to me might be inconsequential, irrelevant meaninglessness to you (and vice versa). But I try to have all the major bases covered.

For the focus of this newsletter — and the sake of time — I sifted through my 600 news items to pull out the key U.S. political moments sandwiched in between entries like “jean marie le pen fucks off to hell” or “tracy morgan voms on court at MSG” or even “lea michelle proves she can read.”

Barely contained in just two newsletters, you’ll see 25 entries per month (organized, clean, obsessed). Today’s got Jan thru June. Part two will be delivered to your inbox Christmas morning, taking us home from July to today. I yeeted some items for length but most of the entries are exactly as I wrote them in my notes. Meant to give you an easy read!

You’ll also notice, in addition to links, I’m giving you some explanations or references when needed. It’s really a laugh, if I do say so myself, and we all need it. If you have questions, comment them! If you have concerns, girl, so do I! Let’s get to it.

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JANUARY

1. johnson reelected speaker

2. congestion pricing nyc

3. “gulf of america”

4. trump sentenced to nothing

5. red dye 3 banned

6. progressive staffers ask for 32-hour work week

7. tiktok banned

8. tiktok unbanned, thanking trump

9. trump meme coin

10. melania meme coin¹

11. biden pardons his whole fucking family

12. trump inauguration, melania dressed as hamburgler

13. carrie underwood music is fucked up

14. all the tech bros are there

    

    Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    I have to take this opportunity to say — boy did we all think these relationships wouldn’t last. And I can name at least one that has led to nuclear fallout. Never in my wildest dreams did I think Tim Apple would still be hanging around the White House getting Facetuned to oblivion by Kristi Noem by Christmastime.

15. did elon literally just nazi salute

16. joe exotic trump forgot about me post

17. anti-defamation league supports elon

18. nvm adl condemns elon

19. hegseth confirmed

20. whole federal funding freeze chaos

21. caroline kennedy says rfk is blending animals

22. trump unfreezes funding what is going on

23. “we were sending $50M to gaza to buy condoms for hamas and they’re making bombs with them”

    

    Acyn@Acyn

    Trump: We identified and stopped $50 million being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas. And you know what's happened to them? They've used them as a method of making bombs.

    7:23 PM · Jan 29, 2025

    ---

    990 Reposts · 13K Likes

    Yes, this was an actual talking point Trump and the admin peddled in their Hash Slinging Slasher phase in the DOGE era.

24. plane helicopter collision kills 67

25. trump blames it on dei

FEBRUARY

26. USAID chaos

27. trump basically wants to annex gaza

28. vance and musk want to rehire racist doge guy

29. trump won’t deport prince harry bc “he has enough problems with his wife”

30. 25% steel tariffs incoming

31. dropping charges on eric adams

32. kanye selling swastika t-shirt

33. gop bill to rename greenland red white and blueland

34. elons kid like … told trump to shut up in the oval

35. kathy hochulaissance after trump halts congestion pricing

36. elon calls iss and spacex astronaut retarded

37. tuberville wants pentagon cut into a “trigon”

    Just for reference, his website labels him as “Coach Tommy Tuberville” rather than Senator — a title he’s always clearly preferred and tracks with his approach to government. I believe, when he said let’s “cut a couple sides off” the Pentagon, the shape he was looking for was, in fact, a triangle.

38. all cabinet selections confirmed

39. florida rep cory something [mills] accused of assault²

40. trump fights w governor of maine

    The one where Trump threatens Gov. Mills and she responds with a casual “We’ll see you in court.” The two sides reached a settlement to restore Maine’s funding in May.

41. pope is in critical condition

42. eagles won’t go to white house

43. elon demands emails on what ppl did every week

44. more plane fuckery

45. trump announces gold cards

46. elon lies about restoring ebola funding

47. first measles death

48. tate brothers for some reason come to florida³

49. “phase 1” of epstein files released to influencers

    

    AP Photo/Evan Vucci

    Remember when they “dropped” the “Epstein files” to right-wing influencers … and it turned out to be already public information? At least they got free “Trump was right about everything” hats!

50. zelenskyy trump blow up in oval office

MARCH

51. strategic crypto reserve? idek anymore

52. tariffs go into effect, so everyone tariffs the fuck out of us

53. vance memes taking over

    

    Twitter remains home of amateur cultural anthropology so, you can see basically every JD Vance meme ever made in one thread here.

54. psychotic speech to joint session⁴

55. rep sylvester turner was there and then died

56. columbia grad detained, WH posts “shalom mahmoud”

57. stock market is litch crashing

58. trump turns the white house into car dealership

59. department of education getting slashed

60. trump threatens 200% tariffs on eu alcohol

61. trump ignores court ruling about deportations

62. removes hundreds of “tren de aragua” with no due process

63. scientists urged to minimize mRNA findings

64. dod deleted jackie robinson page bc dei

65. why is elon getting top secret china briefing???

66. tiger woods dating vanessa trump

67. trump meltdown over colorado portrait

    

    (Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post via AP)

    Idk man, this might’ve been the funniest thing that happened to him all year:

    “Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before. The artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one on me is truly the worst.”

68. oh my god they’re planning bombings on signal

69. atlantic eic added to chat omg

70. crockett calls greg abbott hot wheels

71. full blown SIGNAL GATE

72. elise stefanik UN ambassador nomination pulled

73. vance goes to greenland everyone hates him

74. elon million dollar giveaway in WI supreme court race⁵

75. cory booker 25 hour speech

APRIL

76. house proxy voting fight goes crazy

77. stocks plummet on liberation day

78. omg things are bad, market is massacred

79. tariffs on penguins

80. even ben shapiro is mad — dave portnoy too⁶

81. cnbc runs with fake white house quote, market soars + drops again

82. trump pauses tariffs after saying he would never

83. china tariffs up to 125%, jk wrong math, 145%

84. elon kind of out of the in crowd?

85. scotus rules 9-0 on returning kilmar abrego garcia

86. josh shapiro gov mansion arson

87. jd vance breaks cfb trophy

88. sen. van hollen goes to el salvador, barred from meeting

89. trump admin says harvard letter was a mistake

90. van hollen finally allowed to meet abrego garcia

91. pope ducks vance

92. hegseth texting war plans to wife and brother

93. pope meets vance

    

    (Vatican Media/­Handout via REUTERS)

94. pope francis dies

95. dow down 1000 points

96. musk bessent screaming match

97. george santos sentenced to 7 years

98. amazon will show tariffs added to prices

99. never mind trump called that stupid ass

100. trump doesn’t know ms13 tattoo is photoshopped

     

     (President Donald Trump/Truth Social)

MAY

101. mike waltz out as national security advisor

102. kamala harris has been thinking about elephants

     This was her first public speaking appearance after losing the election six months prior. It doesn’t eclipse the venn diagram speech, but it’s somethin’ alright!

103. trump launches crypto dinner party raffle

104. just kidding, mike waltz un ambassador

105. revoking harvard tax exemption

106. sheryl crow calls her congressmen every day

107. ending federal funding for npr and pbs

108. brutal fetterman articles drop

109. MAGA creators get a white house briefing

     This is where I get to take you on a brief stroll through the lore of “Who Broke It.” I had no idea what road I was gonna travel when I made the decision to launch a new project in the first quarter of 2025. I felt unbelievably lost in the shuffle of the second Trump admin and didn’t have a clue what I could meaningly offer an audience that felt their grip slipping even more than I did. When it finally occurred to me that I could name basically every creator in that briefing room … infinite potential unlocked.

110. trump posts pic of himself as new pope

111. AMERICAN POOOOPPPPEEEEEEEE

112. judge jeanine selected as u.s. attorney

113. qatar plane … like ???

114. trump says “friend” takes fat shot drug

115. rfk jr goes swimming in contaminated creek

116. dhs considering immigrant reality show?

117. trump says taylor swift is “no longer hot” bc he hates her

118. palm springs fertility clinic bombed

119. biden has cancer

120. noem can’t define habeas corpus in hearing

121. rep. gerry connolly dies

122. trump asks south african prez about white genocide

123. brigitte macron slaps her husband in the face⁷

124. trump pardoned the christleys and nba youngboy

125. elon leaves white house

JUNE

126. boulder antisemitic fire bombing

127. former biden press sec becomes an independent

128. FEMA chief didn’t know we had a hurricane season

129. oh …… my god. the trump musk fall out. tweeting out epstein. stock tanking. the memes. omg.

     

130. la ice raids + protests + national guard

131. simone biles-riley gaines feud

132. jd vance humors deporting menswear guy

133. stacey plaskett vagina tweet (don’t recommend clicking)

134. “no fat soldiers”

     

135. sen. alex padilla dragged out of presser

136. caitlyn jenner stuck in israel, world war 3 subplot

137. bill nye posts his texts with RFK jr⁸

138. trump birthday parade lame af

139. no kings protests

140. mn dem lawmakers and spouses murdered

141. brad lander arrested in immigration court

142. trump mobile drops gold phones

143. tucker carlson ted cruz interview

144. operation midnight hammer bombing iran

145. “they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing”

146. zohran wins dem primary

147. rep. ogles insane zohran “little muhammad” mamdani letter

148. idaho gunman ambushes fire fighters

149. sen. tillis won’t run for reelection

150. fetterman whining about missing vacation

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And that’s only half of what happened this year …

Would love to hear what moment you forgot about until you read this — or any glaring oversights by yours truly!

Catch you Thursday for part two which feels somehow even more unhinged.

1. melania’s meme coin ends the year completely worthless, for the record.

2. rep. mills has since been involved in a number of concerning escapades, both legal and illegal. Roger Sollenberger is doing an incredible exposé series on them.

3. the new york times dropped an incredible article this month on the events leading up to the tate brothers arrival in america — it involves none other than barron trump

4. rip wtf america, but we did a reaction video right after the address to the joint session

5. republicans lost the WI supreme court race, btw

6. it’s funny to think that even in april it was still rare enough for me to write down when trump supporters had an open disagreement with him …

7. this is the one foreign story i couldn't bear to leave out. what a crazy moment ...

8. one of my absolute favorite pieces of the year