NYT pinpoints the exact day Trump's 'lawless' second term really began — in 2021

The New York Times editorial board marked the end of 2025 with an extensive breakdown of Donald Trump's "even more lawless" second term, through the lens of the grim day years ago, they argue, it really began, "a day that should live in infamy."

Per the board's argument, "Trump’s second term began to take shape" nearly five years ago during the waning days of his first, on January 6, 2021. On that day, a mob of Trump supporters, summoned to Washington, D.C., and "urged" on by the president, stormed the US Capitol building in an effort to disrupt Congress during its certification of the 2020 election. Trump lost that election to Joe Biden, but spent the week afterwards claiming that he had actually won it and pursuing efforts to get the real results overturned.

The riot ultimately failed to prevent the certification, but it nonetheless unleashed a torrent of violence, mayhem and destruction into the Capitol, in what the NYT board called "one of the most disgracefully anti-American acts in the nation’s history." It was also, however, "a turning point, but not the one it first seemed to be," as it signaled a turn for Trump that would come to define his second term in office.

"It was a turning point toward a version of Mr. Trump who is even more lawless than the one who governed the country in his first term. It heralded a culture of political unaccountability, in which people who violently attacked Congress and beat police officers escaped without lasting consequence," the board explained.

It was not just Trump whose conduct was forever altered after January 6, it was also the Republican Party at large, driven to new depths in its efforts to insulate him from consequences and help push his agenda.

"The aftermath of Jan. 6 made the Republican Party even more feckless, beholden to one man and willing to pervert reality to serve his interests," the board continued. "Once Mr. Trump won election again in 2024, despite his role in encouraging the riot and his many distortions about it, it emboldened him to govern in defiance of the Constitution, without regard for the truth and with malice toward those who stand up to his abuses."

After his reelection in 2024 and return to office, the board noted that Trump even used the events of January 6 as "a litmus test to identify and promote loyalists." Prospective national security hires in the second Trump administration were reportedly asked if they believed that the Capitol riots had been an "inside job." Official and agents involved in efforts to prosecute rioters and hold Trump accountable for his election lies have been "retaliated against," "fired or demoted," or hit with "unjust federal investigations." Kash Patel, Trump's choice to lead the FBI, had notably "promoted the theory that the F.B.I. had secretly encouraged Jan. 6 violence."

Trump also marked the start of his second term by issuing a mass pardon for those who took part in the January 6 Capitol riots, signaling to his supporters that "If you break the law to protect me, you will be supported."

"In Mr. Trump’s second term, he has governed as if Jan. 6 never ended," the board wrote. "The damage to the nation is severe."