Everything that happened in D.C. in 2025
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If you live in Washington, 2025 lasted precisely ... a million years.
The big picture: It was a whopper of an annum packed with non-stop headlines affecting local living.
- In fact, so much happened that we here at Axios D.C. forgot about some of it — and we were the ones covering everything!
State of play: So here's a refresher on what went down in D.C.'s 2025.
- Bonus points if you can sing the whole thing out loud to the chorus of REM's "It's the End of the World as We Know It."
🇺🇸 Inauguration
- D.C. turns into the Trump Show, with cyber trucks, a Capital One rally and protests galore.
📝 President Trump's executive orders begin
- POTUS strips civil servants of employment protections, calls feds back in IRL and says federal buildings must follow traditional design styles.
💰 Washington sees a real estate "Trump bump"
- Luxury home sales surge, complete with bougie house managers and private chefs.
🙏 D.C. mourns after the DCA plane crash
❌ DOGE targets the District
- Elon Musk and crew come to town (and sleep in their offices), feds are laid off, entire agencies are shuttered and some Washingtonians try to avoid dating DOGE-ers.
🎭 Trump takes over KenCen
- Now, the Trump-Kennedy center.
🔨 Washington's economy gets hammered
- Recession talk abounds, laid-off government workers vie for white-collar jobs and former feds document their unemployment online.
💲 Congress withholds $1 billion from D.C.'s budget
🙏 Washington mourns the shooting of two Israeli Embassy staffers
🌈 World Pride sees attendance impacted by Trump rhetoric
🪖 Trump's military parade rolls through town — but so do protests
🍽️ D.C. guts I-82
😵💫 We all lose our mind over Labubus
🚨 Trump kicks off D.C. federal crackdown
- The National Guard and federal agents go on patrol, homeless encampments are cleared and ICE arrests take over social media feeds.
- Local resistance pushes back — including "Sandwich Guy" — and Trump and Mayor Muriel Bowser officially become "frenemies."
- The economy, housing market, restaurant world and tourism industry feel the effects.
🏈 Commanders' D.C. stadium gets approved
🍴 Woodmont Grill closes — and Butterworth's becomes the new MAGA playground
- Plus: Trump eats out in D.C. for the first time.
📈 D.C. reaches peak Trump-ification
- The Rose Garden gets paved over, the East Wing comes down, the Oval Office gets gilded, Trump's headshot pops up on federal buildings and everyone has Mar-a-Lago face.
🏛️ Washington experiences its longest-ever shutdown
- Nonprofits get hit, local chefs feed the hungry, and furloughed feds start recording shutdown diaries and taking on side hustles.
🚫 Bowser announces she won't run for a fourth term
🔄 D.C. does away with streateries — and then changes course
✈️ Trump floats Dulles takeover
What we're watching: How the ripple effects of this very long list continue to play out in 2026.
Go deeper: See D.C.'s 2025 in photos