Since day one in the White House, Donald Trump has plowed through norms and laws alike. His administration has clawed back funding that Congress approved and shamelessly defied Court orders. His policies are tearing apart families and livelihoods, stoking division and punishing his opponents, and destroying protections for everything we hold dear. 

From gutting healthcare, food assistance, and environmental regulations, to impinging on our freedom of speech, Trump is on a rampage from the seat of the White House. He has all but given himself a crown.

On October 18, 2025, people will gather in cities and towns across the country to say “No Kings!” It’s time for our leaders, especially those in Congress, to stand up to Trump. Food & Water Watch is joining and leading No Kings protests nationwide and will continue to fight Trump’s tyranny, from the streets to the courts to the halls of Congress. 

Here are five ways the Tyrant-in-Chief has abused his authority, attacked our democracy, and threatened our livable future. 

1. Unilaterally Slashing Funding and Programs

We are all living through one example of Trump’s excesses right now. The federal government has shut down, all because Trump and Congressional Republicans have insisted on maintaining unilateral power to claw back funding. 

Through rescissions, Trump can send down orders to Republicans in Congress to cancel funds. He only needs 51 out of 100 Senators to vote in favor, rather than the usual 60. This is how Trump and Congressional Republicans pulled the rug out from under NPR and PBS. 

Congressional Republicans openly admitted that they planned to work with Trump to do the same with funds passed in this year’s spending bill. And under the President’s orders, they’ve refused to negotiate with Democrats or add “No Kings” language to the bill to block rescissions.

This is far from the first time Trump has abused his power to slash the government. His Department of Government Efficiency has been recklessly slicing through the federal workforce, cutting more than 200,000 workers responsible for everything from disaster response and weather forecasting to environmental justice and public health. 

He’s also moved to dismantle and gut agencies created by Congress. That includes the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects us from predatory financial practices, and the Department of Education. He’s completely eliminated the environmental justice divisions at the Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and more. 

Congress is supposed to have the power of the purse. Yet, Trump has completely usurped that power by freezing or cancelling funding Congress already approved. For example, he cancelled more than $7 billion in grants to install solar in underserved communities, every single EPA environmental justice grant, a $1-billion program providing schools and food banks with food grown by local farmers, and much more.

2. Deploying ICE Agents Like His Personal Henchmen

Trump has sent masked agents into American cities to terrorize families, workers, and protestors. His Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have chased farmworkers through fields and raided apartments in the middle of the night to tear children from their parents. 

The administration has also illegally deported people to countries they have no connection to, denying them due process and potentially subjecting them to dangerous, inhumane conditions. Recently, a Supreme Court stacked with Trump-appointed judges even gave ICE the green light to racially profile people in its sweeps.

Besides being human beings worthy of dignity and respect, immigrants — including undocumented immigrants — have a variety of rights in the United States. King Trump is trampling over them.

This is not only doing horrendous harm to those facing ICE directly. It’s affecting every single one of us — for example, through our food system.

Immigrants make up the vast majority of agricultural workers in the U.S. Trump’s draconian and inhumane immigration policies are creating labor shortages in our already fragile food system, which will lead to higher prices and less food availability.

3. Cracking Down on Our Freedom of Speech

Free speech has no place in Trump’s kingdom. He has begun an all-out war on American media, from newspapers to television broadcasters to social media companies. His intimidation tactics have led companies to pay the President millions to settle his outrageous lawsuits, cancel or suspend shows he doesn’t like, or change their policies to suit him.

The administration has also tightened its grip on the media by seizing control over which outlets have access to the White House Press pool and limiting reporting on the Department of Defense.

But Trump’s war goes beyond the press. He’s also attacking nonprofits and foundations he doesn’t like or agree with. He’s worked with House Republicans to try and strip the tax-exempt status of left-leaning nonprofits, under the utterly unfounded, ridiculous claim that they “support terrorism.” 

This would devastate nonprofits — including Food & Water Watch and our allies across the environmental and progressive movements — that have long depended on tax-exempt status to fund our work. 

Additionally, Trump has worked to shape the stances and actions of colleges and universities across the country. For example, he’s threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status. This would set a terrible precedent, as most colleges and universities also depend on their tax-exempt status.

Moreover, he’s pressured nine colleges to sign a “Compact” holding them to all sorts of demands to align with his vision, and he pushed many to curtail their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives.

4. Threatening and Punishing Political Opponents

In his quest for unchecked power, Trump has sent, or attempted to send, the National Guard to Democrat-governed cities against state and local objections. That includes Los Angeles, D.C., Memphis, Portland, and Chicago. He’s even declared that Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson should be jailed for opposing his National Guard deployment.

Trump has also spewed lies about chaos and crime in these cities while using the deployment of federal troops to ramp up violence against immigrants and peaceful protesters. And he has wielded arrests, detainments, and the threat of deportations to terrorize international student protestors.

The president has also withheld Congress-approved funding to punish his opponents. During October’s government shutdown, the administration announced it would pause $18 billion for New York City infrastructure projects (home to Democratic Minority Leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries in the Senate and House, respectively). The administration also cut nearly $8 billion in clean energy funding to states that had voted for Harris last November.

At the same time, Trump is turning the Department of Justice against his perceived enemies. New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey were indicted after Trump used Truth Social to command Attorney General Pam Bondi to go after his political foes.

5. Quashing Any Checks On His Power

The federal government was designed with checks and balances to prevent any branch from gaining too much power. But Trump is bulldozing through these checks with little resistance from Congress or the Supreme Court. 

In the first week of his presidency, Trump fired 18 inspectors general, the top watchdogs of federal agencies. Soon after, he issued an executive order purporting to expand his power over independent agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which regulates financial markets, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). 

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is also supposed to be an independent arbiter of disputes between employers and unions. But Trump fired the NLRB’s Democratic board member, halting its work reviewing cases. 

Besides expanding Trump’s unchecked power, these actions will empower and embolden corporations. With agencies like the SEC, CPSC, and NLRB compromised, corporations will get away with even more abuses against consumers and workers.

Furthermore, Trump is not only stomping on Congress’s constitutionally mandated power of the purse. He’s also pressuring Republican leaders to gerrymander voting districts to make it harder for Democrats to win the House in the 2026 midterms.

He’s doing all this while successfully demanding absolute loyalty from Congressional Republicans, even when his preferred policies directly harm their constituents.

Finally, Trump is defying and ignoring court orders in various ways, including by continuing deportation flights, pushing ahead with funding freezes, and maintaining a policy that conditions disaster aid to states on their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. In July, The Washington Post found that the Trump administration has defied one-third of judicial rulings against its actions. 

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has only paved the way for the President’s abuses with decisions that have overturned previous judgments to favor Trump’s agenda.

Join Us in Declaring “No Kings!”

We don’t have kings in America — but Trump seems to have missed the memo. He has brazenly stomped over the Constitution to expand his own power.

For the last eight months, we’ve seen the havoc this has wreaked in our communities. He is ripping through our democracy and endangering all we hold dear. But the peaceful movement against him is only growing. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson has called No Kings protests the “hate America rally,” but these are anything but. We love this country and its residents enough to fight for its most important ideals, including a government for the people, by the people. No kings, no dictators. 

On October 18 and every day, we’re joining with people across this country to fight for our democracy, together. Our livable future depends on it.