The Trump administration has embraced a wide range of authoritarian tactics, policies, and actions that undermine human rights protections as well as many key pillars of US democracy. Pursued partly through a comprehensive and strategic effort to concentrate power in the executive, these actions ultimately threaten basic universal freedoms and rights of everyone in the United States — and many across the world. 

On this first anniversary of the second inauguration, we have arranged HRW research and analysis released in 2025 to illustrate main elements of the multifaceted attack and to help identify where action is needed to defend rights under siege.