Yesterday was the 100th day of Donald Trump’s second presidency.

Trump — and the sycophants that surround him — are weak, selfish, insecure fools. But even weak, selfish, insecure fools can do untold damage when given power.

And the Trump regime has done — is doing — stunningly vast damage. To the American people at large. To entire groups of already marginalized people. To individual members of our society. To our democracy. To our economy. To the rule of law. To our health. To critical institutions like academia, business, and the media. To America’s reputation and standing in the world. To our national psyche and basic human decency. To millions upon millions of our fellow human beings around the globe. To the very planet we all live on.

However ...

That is not the whole story.

That is not the whole story.

That.

Is.

Not.

The.

Whole.

Story.

People are fighting back.

We are preventing some damage, both big and small.

We are forcing the regime to take detours as it attempts a march toward authoritarianism.

And we will win. We will reverse this insanity. We will find our way out of this national nightmare. All of us. Together.

Read on for a snapshot of some of what Public Citizen — that’s not just the people who work here, it’s hundreds of thousands of people like you, from all walks of life and every corner of the country, who read our emails, take action, and even donate — has done in standing up to the regime through its first 100 days. (By the way, while we take some pride in how long this recap is, we understand if you skim through it or if you read some now and some later.)

TAKING TRUMP TO COURT

Public Citizen has (so far) filed 13 lawsuits against the regime since Trump returned to power.

1. January 20: Within minutes of Trump taking office, Public Citizen and a partner group filed a lawsuit against his administration to push his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to comply with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires balance and transparency in federal committees.

2. February 3: On behalf of the Alliance for Retired Americans, American Federation of Government Employees, and Service Employees International Union, we filed a lawsuit to stop Trump’s Treasury Department from illegally sharing Americans’ information with DOGE.

3. February 4: Public Citizen sued the regime on behalf of Doctors for America to reverse the unlawful deleting of critical health information from government websites.

4. February 6: Public Citizen and our co-counsel filed a lawsuit on behalf of the American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees against the regime for unlawfully dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

5. February 7: Representing the University of California Student Association, we and co-counsel sued Trump’s Department of Education for allowing DOGE access to students’ and borrowers’ private information.

6. February 10: Representing AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and Journalism Development Network, we filed a lawsuit against the regime for unlawfully freezing foreign assistance funding and ordering grantees to stop life-saving humanitarian work.

7. February 13: Public Citizen and co-counsel sued the regime for unlawfully attempting to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a critical agency that protects everyday Americans from scams and has returned billions to American consumers.

8. March 7: With co-counsel, Public Citizen sued the IRS on behalf of immigrant rights organizations to prevent the unlawful sharing of tax data with immigration authorities.

9. April 4: Representing the Association for Education Finance and Policy and the Institute for Higher Education Policy, we filed a lawsuit challenging the unlawful dismantling of the Institute of Education Sciences.

10. April 8: We brought a lawsuit on behalf of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington against the regime for unlawfully taking down a public database that shows how the administration is allocating federal funds.

11. April 14: Public Citizen sued the regime on behalf of environmental groups seeking to restore online climate and environmental justice data tools removed from federal agency websites.

12. April 15: Representing three impacted nonprofit organizations, we filed a lawsuit challenging the regime’s unlawful termination of international labor rights programs directed by Congress.

13. April 24: Public Citizen and co-counsel, representing several organizations, sued the regime over its shuttering of the key civil rights and civil liberties protection office within the Department of Homeland Security.

FIGHTING FOR COMMONSENSE PROTECTIONS

On Capitol Hill, in the media, and in the courtroom, Public Citizen is leading the fight against the Trump regime’s stupid and corrupt deregulatory hysteria.

Executive Orders

Trump’s deregulatory executive orders have made clear that his regime is undertaking one of the most radical and extreme attacks on public protections our country has ever seen, all to the benefit of the wealthiest corporations.

On Day One, Trump rescinded President Biden’s EO 14094 on “Modernizing Regulatory Review,” which reformed the rulemaking process to work in the interest of the American people rather than corporate profits. Trump also issued an absurd order demanding the elimination of 10 regulations for every new one. More recently, Trump issued an order that directs agencies to repeal rules that are purportedly out of compliance with various Supreme Court decisions — without using the notice-and-comment rulemaking process required by law.

Public Citizen analyzed and criticized these moves, and we are mobilizing the major pushback against the coming torrent of deregulatory actions.

DOGE Dismantling Federal Agencies

Right-wing ideologues and activists have long dreamed of shutting down government agencies wholesale and firing government employees en masse. But this has always been a pipe dream, since Congress has never had the votes to shut down protective agencies that are popular with the public. Now, with the Trump regime ignoring checks and balances and constitutional limits left and right, the moment has come.

The regime has gutted (or tried to gut) essential federal agencies like USAID, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Departments of Education and Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency in the name of so-called “government efficiency.”

Public Citizen sued to stop the dismantling of both USAID and the CFPB, and called on the Office of Government Ethics to direct Elon Musk and his agents to desist from any activity related to the CFPB because of his spectacular conflicts of interest.

More broadly, Public Citizen put forth an alternative vision for what a government committed to “efficiency” would prioritize instead of deregulation, dismantling agencies, and firing regulators. Our report showed where we can save money and actually create efficiencies by doing things like cutting wasteful Pentagon spending, stopping the privatization of Medicare, and more.

Partisan Hacks

Trump’s picks to implement his deregulatory agenda are mostly partisan ideologues who will stop at nothing to impose their extreme anti-government agenda, even if it means running roughshod over constitutional limits and checks and balances.

Trump nominated Russell Vought, a staunch deregulation advocate and one of the architects of Project 2025, to head the Office of Management and Budget and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Vought’s Project 2025 blueprint was so toxic and extreme that even Trump disavowed it on the campaign trail.

Public Citizen lobbied against and called on the Senate to reject Vought’s nomination. As co-chair of the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, Public Citizen helped build the case against Vought, and every Democrat in the Senate voted against him.

Congressional Review Act

Republicans are exploiting a little-known law called the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to hastily repeal regulations put in place near the end of a previous administration with almost no debate and a simple majority vote. For some historical context, this deregulatory loophole had been successfully used only one time ever prior to Trump’s first term; Republicans then used it 14 times to overturn rules put in place during the latter months of the Obama administration.

In effect, this obscure law has functioned as a way for Republicans — any time they have a majority in both the House and Senate after a Democratic presidency — to just throw out regulations they and their corporate backers don’t like, even though they had every opportunity to block them in the first place through the normal legislative process.

The Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, co-chaired by Public Citizen, has been spearheading the effort to stop Congressional Republicans from abusing the CRA.

Gutting Enforcement

The Trump regime isn’t just rolling back regulations. In many cases it has stopped enforcing the law against corporate wrongdoers. In effect, Trump has given corporate America the green light to break the law with impunity by taking agency cops off the beat. The regime has already halted or moved to dismiss enforcement investigations and cases against more than 100 corporations, with more cases against accused corporate criminals being abandoned every week.

Public Citizen’s is documenting the massive dropoff in enforcement, exposing it to national media, and connecting the dots to which corporations, CEOs, and industries have benefited.

Attacks on Independent Agencies

Trump has come up with a new way to assault the regulatory system. For the first time in almost a century, the president has fired commissioners at multiple independent agencies, denying them quorums and the ability to perform core agency functions. This breathtaking power grab is a slap in the face to Congress, which deliberately designed these agencies to be independent of the president.

Public Citizen is tracking these firings and the quorum status at independent agencies. Our coalition originated a public letter from numerous organizations condemning Trump’s attacks on these agencies. And we called out Trump’s unlawful firing of the two Democratic commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), noting that the only purpose of such a move is to further neuter the FTC, leaving giant corporations free to cheat and scam, imperil our privacy, and grow their monopoly power.

Anti-Regulatory Legislation

Not to be outdone, Republicans in Congress have joined Trump’s deregulatory push by introducing and advancing a wide range of anti-regulatory bills. Public Citizen, as co-chair of the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, helped analyze and lobby against these dangerous bills and is committed to ensuring they never become law.

PLUTOCRACY AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST GALORE

Public Citizen is meticulously tracking the rampant plutocratic impulses and conflicts of interest of the Trump regime.

Conflicted Appointees and Nominees
Donald Trump’s nominees for Cabinet positions and other important political appointments are absolutely riddled with conflicts of interest. As was the case in Trump’s first term, his second administration is handing people with clear corporate conflicts of interest — like stakes in Big Oil companies, long corporate lobbying careers, and seats on major company boards — the power to regulate and oversee corporations. Public Citizen published a tracker for the endless corporate conflicts of interest among Trump’s appointees. And we are following the money and shining a blazing spotlight on this corruption sprawl.

Trump’s Meme Scheme
As Trump encourages people to purchase his meme “coin,” Public Citizen has called for an investigation into whether Trump violated federal law barring the president from soliciting gifts. And we have highlighted the egregious risk inherent in the fact that since the meme can be purchased anonymously, unknown actors — including potentially foreign governments — could, in essence, stuff cash into the president’s pockets.

The Amazon River of Cash
Amazon is paying $40 million to license a documentary and a limited series on first lady Melania Trump. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was seated just feet away from Trump at the Inauguration. Amazon Prime has also begun to stream Donald Trump’s old show “The Apprentice.” Trump and Bezos just came to some kind of arrangement related to tariffs. Public Citizen has been bringing scrutiny to these outrageous plutocratic maneuvers.

Firing Inspectors General
The Trump regime has fired over a dozen Inspectors General — independent watchdogs tasked with rooting out fraud, waste, and corruption in government. Public Citizen has been drawing attention to this watchdog wipeout — a recipe for unfettered corruption cooked up by corporate lobbyists and served to the American people by Trump sycophants whose hands are definitely not clean.

Amnesty for Corporate Criminals
As reported by Public Citizen investigators, the Trump regime dropped, withdrew, or halted investigations and enforcement actions against over 100 corporations in just its first two months. Examples include investigations and lawsuits against alleged financial rip-offs, crypto violations, foreign bribery, environmental harms, civil rights violations, and workplace discrimination. Public Citizen has also highlighted that corporations facing federal enforcement actions donated at least $50 million to Trump’s inauguration.

Dinner with Donald
Public Citizen has led calls for the regime to release the names of people paying to attend million-dollar-a-plate candlelight dinners at Trump’s Florida estate. In addition to Elon Musk, guests could include other government favor-seekers such as federal contractors or the CEOs of companies previously under investigation until the Trump administration stopped enforcement.

CONFRONTING THE TRUMP TEAM AND AGENDA

Opposing Trump’s Dangerous Cabinet Picks
Public Citizen aggressively opposed Trump’s unqualified and dangerous Cabinet picks, drawing attention to their deeply problematic records, including Pam Bondi as Attorney General, Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary, Kash Patel as FBI Director, and more. (And don’t forget that people worked together to prevent former Congressman Matt Gaetz from becoming Attorney General.)

Protecting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security
As Trump and his lackeys look to undermine Social Security, privatize Medicare, and gut Medicaid, Public Citizen worked with members of Congress and with grassroots partners to call out these efforts and highlight that Medicare for All is the real reform needed to guarantee health care for everyone in the country.

Harms and Cronyism of Trump’s Tariffs
With Trump waging war on working people in America and across the world through the misuse of tariffs, Public Citizen engaged Congress and the press to break down the anti-immigrant intent of these policies. We issued a report on the cronyism entailed in Trump’s tariffs. And we released a primer to the national media explaining how the Trump tariffs are a shakedown on behalf of Big Tech.

Sounding the Alarm on Trump’s Withdrawal from WHO
When Trump announced his intent to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, Public Citizen issued a report outlining the importance of continued U.S. support for and participation in WHO, not just for the world’s sake, but specifically for the safety of Americans as well.

MOBILIZATION

Public Citizen has been organizing and mobilizing with partners across the country, holding meetings and press calls, and participating in protests — including the nationwide “Hands Off!” rallies in early April, co-organized with Indivisible, MoveOn, Working Families Party, and others, that drew over 100,000 people in Washington, D.C., and millions more at some 1,300 events all across the country.

Here’s what one of us (Robert) said when he had the privilege to address the rally in D.C.: “We are living under the most lawless, Constitution-trampling administration in American history. ... There is only one thing that’s enough to face down this authoritarian moment, and that is this movement here today!”

People sometimes wonder if demonstrations and protests make a difference. They make all the difference.

Trump, like other authoritarians, aims to invoke fear and isolate people. When we join together in large numbers, we overcome our fear, find our courage, and feel viscerally that we are a majority. Trump and his henchmen have very intentionally tried to create an air of invincibility around their actions, to project dominance and cultivate hopelessness. When we’re together in large numbers, we discover hope, feel our power, and build real power.

If you’ve been frustrated with how Democratic leaders have (or have not) been responding to the Trump bulldozer, nothing is more important than these demonstrations, which will stiffen Democrats’ spines. More generally, the entire political conversation around Trump will never be the same. We’ve started to take back control of the political narrative.

Demonstrations like these will inspire more and more Americans to join the movement against Trump. And that — experience around the world has taught us — is how you beat authoritarianism. Public Citizen is continuing to help organize and publicize rallies for the weeks and months ahead.

THE DEPARTMENT OF JUST US

When Pam Bondi was nominated to be Trump’s Attorney General, her extensive record as a corporate lobbyist, combined with her apparent openness to obliging Trump’s authoritarian desires, set off flashing red warning lights about the potential for misuse and weaponization of the awesome powers of the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Over the regime’s first 100 days, numerous actions taken by Bondi and DOJ officials under her charge have shown that those initial fears were not unfounded. For example:
One of us (Lisa) had the chance to testify in the U.S. Senate against Bondi’s nomination, urging senators not to confirm her. Public Citizen is spotlighting Bondi’s role in the authoritarian slide and investigating conflicts at the DOJ and the get-out-of-jail-free cards it is dolling out to Big Business. And we continue to lead protests around the country over DOJ lawlessness.

Believe it or not, even though this may be the longest email we’ve ever sent you, it is not close to a comprehensive account of everything Public Citizen is doing to confront the Trump regime in the courts, in Congress, in the media, and in communities all across America.

If you can, please donate today to support Public Citizen’s work standing up to the Trump regime.

Anything you can chip in — $5 or $25, $50 or $100, $500 or even more — will help at such a critical moment.

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For progress,

- Lisa Gilbert & Robert Weissman, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen
 
 
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