February 2025 Recap: A Stunning Lack of Basic Regard for Human Life
They wanted to shock. They wanted it flashy. They wanted it chaotic... Mission accomplished. Here are 48 quotes that give a sense of the vibes this month.
Looking back on the first full month of hand-archiving about this administration, this is how I’d sum up my impression: A stunning lack of basic regard for human life.
This whole scorched-earth, blunt-force trauma approach was not Donald Trump’s only option for accomplishing his goals; he has the executive branch, he has a Republican majority in both houses of Congress, he has a conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, he has an unprecedented amount of presidential immunity after the Trump v. United States ruling last year… and he has the support of the three richest men in the world.
If he had chosen a measured, thoughtful approach, passed through Congress with the full effect of the rule of law, he still would’ve been successful. In fact, reducing the government bloat, LAWFULLY, would probably have enjoyed bipartisan support…
They wanted to shock. They wanted it flashy. They wanted it chaotic.
Mission accomplished.
February 2025 felt like the first act of a tragedy still unfolding. The stage has been set for catastrophe, we just don’t know yet which domino will be the first to fall.
The following is a collection of quotes from politicians, federal employees, lawyers, professors, and everyday Americans—voices from all walks of life, all speaking in February, all capturing the tectonic shifts reshaping our nation.
While some Americans stand by the President’s decisions, recent polling suggests that the perspectives below offer a more telling reflection of the country’s prevailing mood.
Memorable Quotes from February 2025:
February 3, 2025
Brian Schatz, Senator D-HI: “This is self-inflicted chaos of epic proportions that will have dangerous consequences all around the world.”
Steve Bannon: “President Trump’s philosophy is that this is a premium market, and to get through the golden door, you have to pay a premium price… Tom Homan is reporting, I think, a 93% drop in folks coming across the border - we’re almost sealed… President Trump is playing hardball - the hardest ball you can play - which is really to put up a moat or to put a toll to get into this lucrative market in the United States.”
February 4, 2025
Brittney Brown, former division head of USAID during Biden: “I spent the first 7 months at the first Trump administration, as Trump’s senior Africa person, and I saw firsthand that things were rarely what they seemed, and that is why I feel so panicked about what they’re saying versus what is happening. I think this is a test to see if Congress will actually stand up for their right. USAID is a safe organization to test this with; it’s difficult to explain to the average American why spending $60 billion overseas makes sense.”
Jon Lovett, Pod Save America: “This is as core and as basic to the Constitution as it gets… if the President can decide what to spend or what not to spend based on what Congress has passed, then Congress is no longer determining what is spent, the President is; THAT is one of the core dangers, that is one of the core reasons we have a Constitution and my concern is that if they bash through a court ruling, the question is how long do we hold that off?”
Judith Levine, The Guardian: “Normalizing vilification, making bigotry chic and fun, Trump has disinhibited even his critics to dip their toes in the slime.”
Anne Applebaum, Journalist, Historian & Author: “Let’s put it this way; if the Chinese government were to be doing this by hacking, this would be considered a major cyber warfare attack. There is no precedent for giving that kind of information or access to a private citizen, even if the President says it’s okay… we’re in a world of extra legality, we are beyond the law.”
February 6, 2025
Anonymous FBI Official Fearing Retribution From Pardoned January 6th Rioters: “We don’t think they’ll care - unless and until one of us gets killed.”
February 7, 2025
Goli Sheikholeslami and John F. Harris, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Politico: “POLITICO is a privately owned company. We have never received any government funding — no subsidies, no grants, no handouts. Not one dime, ever, in 18 years.”
Joyce Vance, Lawyer & Former US Attorney: “It’s fair to say that people didn’t anticipate that it woiuld be an all-fronts assault on day one of the new administration, but given the slow start Trump got the first time, the criticism of that, and the reporting that they were much better prepared this time, it’s hard to say any of this is a surprise.”
Paul Krugman, Economist & Professor: “What’s happening in America right now is an attempted autogolpe… An autogolpe is literally a “self-coup” - when a legitimately elected leader uses his position to seize total control, eliminating legal and constitutional restraints on his power.”
February 10, 2025
NPR News, covering the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: “The bureau would on its face appear to be an unlikely target for cost-cutting, given its return on investment.”
Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of Law at UCal Berkeley: “We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now… There have been so many illegal & unconstitutional actions in the first 18 days of the Trump Presidency. We’ve never seen anything like this.”
Kate Shaw, Law Professor at UPenn: “It’s an open question whether the administration will be as contemptuous of courts as it has been of Congress and the Constitution.”
February 11, 2025
Norm Eisen, Former Ambassador: “It’s the most corrupt start that we’ve ever seen in the history of the American presidency.”
Reverend Sean Rowe: “We cannot worship freely if some of us are living in fear.”
Pope Francis: “What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.”
Jason Easley, PoliticusUSA: “While Donald Trump is breaking laws everyday, House Republicans are acting like everything is fine, and this is business as usual. What Congress should be doing is holding hearings on the activities of Elon Musk, which Donald Trump claims are happening under his direction. Instead, the American People get goofy subcommittee hearings about the scary-sounding administrative state.”
Paul Krugman, Economist and Professor: “The best way to explain the sudden closure of the CFPB, as I see it, is as part of an effort to make predatory finance great again.”
David Ho, Professor at University of Hawai’i: “We got a message from the university to remove any use of “DEI”, “diversity”, “equity”, or “inclusion” from all public-facing documents. They said even “biodiversity” is being flagged by the federal government. We live in the dumbest timeline.”
February 12, 2025
Elon Musk, DOGE: “I don’t know of a case where an organization has been more transparent than the DOGE organization.”
New York Times, Covering DOGE: “In reality, Mr. Musk’s team is operating in deep secrecy: surprising federal employees by descending upon agencies and gaining access to sensitive data systems. Mr. Musk himself is a ‘special government employee’, which, the White House says, means his financial disclosure filing will not be made public.”
February 13, 2025
Lord Kim Darroch, Former UK National Security Adviser & British Ambassador to Washington: “It may be that Trump’s threat of economic measures against NATO ally Denmark, and his refusal to rule out military action against them, are just negotiating tactics. But even if nothing comes from it, it’s done great damage. It’s another signal of Trump’s disdain for NATO. And it will be interpreted in Moscow and Beijing as a message that they have a free hand in Ukraine and Taiwan respectively.”
Danielle Sassoon, Former US Attorney: “It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment. Nor will a court likely find that such an improper exchange is consistent with the public interest.”
February 14, 2025
Hagan Scotten: Former Assistant US Attorney: “… any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me. Please consider this my resignation. It has been an honor to serve as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.”
February 15, 2025
Donald Trump, POTUS: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
February 16, 2025
Matthew Biggs, President of IFPTE: “They’re treating these people as if they’re not human beings. It’s bad all around.”
Lisa Murkowski, Senator R-AK: “Many of these abrupt terminations will do more harm than good, stunting opportunities in Alaska and leaving holes in our communities. We can’t realize our potential for responsible energy and mineral development if we can’t permit projects. We will be less prepared to manage summer wildfires if we can’t support those on the front lines. Our tourism economy will be damaged if we don’t maintain our world-class national parks and forests.”
February 17, 2025
William J. Bosanko, Former Deputy Archivist: “Please focus on the mission and look out for one another… You have my deepest respect and admiration. I feel an immense sense of sadness that I am not by your side at this important time in the history of the agency.”
Current VA Employee: “It’s the worst I’ve ever seen… we’re paralyzed because we don’t know what’s happening tomorrow.”
Laid-Off Forest Service Worker, Montana: “There’s no way the trails can be maintained with a drastically smaller crew; they’ll try their best, but it will mean… the communities around here will suffer. It’s going to hit the economy really hard because tourism will drop.”
Laid-Off VA Employee & Veteran: “It’s going to result in worse care or not the quality care that the veterans deserve. It’s going to turn into burnout, fatigue, and just lack of quality care.”
Laid-Off Medicare & Medicaid Employee: “We weren’t in this work for a profit. The people that we served are the most vulnerable.”
February 18, 2025
Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College London: “In the past, you assumed that this (the US) was a serious, competent country. It’s unnerving to think that might not be the case. There is a sense that the guardrails just aren’t there.”
February 19, 2025
Borys Filatov, Mayor of Dnipro, Ukraine: “We may like Zelenskyy, or we may not, we may scold him, or we may praise him, we may condemn his actions, or we may applaud them… Because he is OUR President. No lying creature, neither in Moscow, nor in Washington, nor anywhere, has the right to open his mouth against him.”
Volodomyr Zelenskyy, President, Ukraine: “If someone wants to replace me right now, then right now it won't work. If we are talking about 4% then we have seen this disinformation, we understand that it comes from Russia. And we have evidence. As for President Trump, with all due respect to him as a leader of the American people, who we deeply respect and are thankful for all his support, but President Trump, unfortunately, is living in this disinformation space.”
February 20, 2025
Mihaela Mihailescu, PhD researcher, University of Bath: “The claim that a sudden surge in Google searches for terms like ‘Rico law’ and ‘Swiss bank’ indicates a widespread exodus of corrupt bureaucrats is based on little more than speculation - nevermind that we have zero evidence that these searches are even coming from DC insiders.”
Joe Walsh, Former Tea-Party Conservative and Former Supporter of Trump: “I’ll say Jim what I think you’re too decent to say; I think Trump’s a Russian asset. I think Putin has something on him. I think Trump works for Putin. I think Trump stands with Putin. And I was thinking this morning, Jim, I’m just an average American… what an odd f****** position for me to be in right now, for any American, to actually oppose one’s own country… I stand with Ukraine, I stand with NATO, I stand with the free world, freedom and democracy, and so because Trump, by the extension of the United States right now, stands opposed to all of that… I oppose my own country right now. This is weird.”
February 24, 2025
Ian Kelly, Professor and Former Ambassador: “This is not peace through strength - this is peace through surrender.”
Judge Deborah Boardman, Maryland: “…plaintiffs have shown that DoE and OPM likely violated the Privacy Act by disclosing their personal information to DOGE affiliates without their consent.”
Jane Fonda: “‘Woke’ just means you give a damn about other people.”
February 25, 2025
Tim Kaine, Senator D-VA: “…Decreasing the supply of American-made energy when demand is high is the quickest way to raise prices - and that’s exactly what President Trump’s sham energy emergency will do.”
Derek Tran, House D-CA: “They’ve (veterans) sacrificed so much to protect our country, to defend our freedom… now they’ve been kicked to the curb.”
February 27, 2025
Amy K, Holding on Together, Substack: “I feel like we’re all living inside a dystopian science fiction film that has no director.”
February 28, 2025
Donald Trump, POTUS: “You (Zelenskyy) either make a deal or we are out.”
Peter Baker, New York Times: “I have covered the White House since 1996. There has never been an Oval Office meeting in front of cameras like this in all that time. Never has an American President lectured the leader of an ally in public like this, much less the leader of a country that is fighting off invaders.”
The Kyiv Independent, Left-Center Publication in Ukraine: “It’s time to say it plainly. American’s leadership has switched sides in the war. The American people have not, and they should speak up.”
Liz Cheney, Former Representative R-WY: “History will remember this day - when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for.”
I’m just one of US peasants, but here’s my two cents, for what very little it’s worth: Whatever you think about the performance, size, value or cost of the federal government… tens of thousands of Americans just lost their jobs. Homes are being sold, their kids will be switching schools, retirements delayed… it’s gross to see an American President so gleeful about the pain he’s just caused his own citizens.
Those federal employees fortunate enough to keep their jobs, clearly, will reconcile with the forfeiture of a certain amount of dignity and respect they used to enjoy with their labor. This is a real post from our commander-in-chief:
It might sound strange, but this quote from Downton Abbey keeps coming to mind; one of the times when Tom was putting Mary in her place after bad behavior:
“You’re a coward, Mary. Like all bullies, you’re a coward.”
If God had the answers, I’d like to think he would have handed the answer key to someone on the side of humanity before it got so despicably deadly.
They want civil uprising if not all out civil war. Americans must be disarmed for plans to progress.
Trump may be too deranged to understand this and is only being baited like a dog to do what he's doing or he may know. My guess it the first reasoning since he's so easily manipulated.
Thank you, but all the nonsense being spewed are lines for bit players in the spectacle.
Our biggest threat is the AI infrastructure that's nearly complete now. It will spring like a trap and everyone needs to ready themselves and be clear within themselves which way they will go to avoid being swept up in the panic of the moment(s) that are surely coming.
Find God. He has the answers.