'Easily the Worst President in U.S. History' [View all]

The damage President Trump has inflicted on the United States and the world is so enormous and wide-ranging that it is hard to grasp.

It runs the gamut from public and private institutions to core democratic customs and traditions, from the legal system to universities, from innocent targets of fraud to those duped into believing vaccines do more harm than good.

One way to bring home the depth of Trump’s callousness is to look at a specific case. In May 2025, Anjee Davis, the chief executive of Fight Colorectal Cancer, a patient advocacy group, told CBS News:

We have a member who is being treated for Stage IV colorectal cancer. She had just qualified to enter a clinical trial that was going to be her last-chance effort to slow the spread of her cancer.

Her trial was about to start when N.I.H. funding was pulled overnight, and the trial was canceled.

Davis replied to my inquiry about the case by email. “This patient has since passed away without receiving the clinical trial she was counting on,” she wrote.

“What we will never know,” Davis added, “is whether that trial could have given her more time with her children.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/opinion/trump-legacy-history-presidents.html?unlocked_article_code=1.clA.vyOp.b6-H_C8IcPrX&smid=url-share