A bleak description of "American carnage." A forceful rollback of his predecessor's achievements. A blatant falsehood from the White House podium.
And that was just the first 24 hours.
In his first year in office, Donald Trump proved to be a singular figure, casting aside norms and traditions, fighting with Republicans and Democrats alike and changing how the nation and the presidency are viewed at home and abroad.
Seemingly each day spawned several can-you-believe-it headlines that would have defined a previous president's term. But in the hyper-accelerated Trump news cycle, many were forgotten by the next morning.
Appropriate for a former reality TV star, Trump's first year was can't-miss drama, full of unforgettable characters, surprise casting changes and innumerable plot twists. It came against the backdrop of a deeply polarised nation, a looming nuclear threat, whispers about the president's fitness for office and, for good measure, the shadow of the Russia investigation.
The reviews weren't kind. Trump's first-year approval rating stood at 39 per cent, the lowest of any president. But viewers couldn't look away.
President Donald Trumpmeets with truckers and CEOs about healthcare on the South Lawn of the White House. Source: AAP
"He is a compulsively watchable political character," said Jon Meacham, presidential historian and biographer.
"The country elected the most unconventional president in our history and he has proven to be just that. To me, the story of the first year is the atmospheric chaos that the president has created, sustained and perpetuated."
Trump was the first president to be elected without any government or military experience. And from the first moments of Trump's inauguration, it was clear that Washington had never seen anything like this before.
His inaugural speech was a dark pitch to the nation's forgotten, suggesting a retreat from the world under the slogan of "America First."
It soon led to an uproar over the White House press secretary's wild claims about the inauguration crowd size.
Soon, other crowds were the story.
Millions of people flooded streets around the globe for the "Women's March" to protest Trump's presidency. That set the template for the so-called #Resistance, which swarmed airports just days later when the White House suddenly announced its travel ban on visitors from several Muslim-majority countries.
There would be little attempt from Trump to bring those protesters into the fold.
Despite losing the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, the president forged forward as if elected with a sweeping mandate, aiming his policies directly at his base - with moves such as the rollback of environment regulations and civil rights protections - and blaming Democrats for any Washington failure.
Then-White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon with President Donald Trump. Source: AAP
Always eager to have a foe, Trump governed as he campaigned, and not just by incessantly reliving his 2016 election over Hillary Clinton.
Trump frequently instigated fights and rarely let a slight go unanswered via his favourite weapon, his Twitter account.
The discussion about sexual harassment toppled many powerful men but, while Trump's own accusers resurfaced, the White House never changed its story: The women were lying.
That was just one of many moments in which Trump appeared almost eager to foment divisions, including racial ones.
His political career was launched on the lie that Obama was not born in the United States, and this month, Trump was denounced for dismissing African nations as "shithole countries" when he urged a limit on immigration from that continent.
He dismissed Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren as "Pocahontas," mocking her claims about being part Native American, while addressing a group of American Indians. More divisively, he blamed "both sides" for the violence between neo-Nazis and anti-hate group protesters that left one woman dead in Charlottesville, Virginia.
While Trump was rewriting the rules of behaviour within the Oval Office, his agenda was largely lifted from the Republican playbook and his first year victories thrilled the GOP orthodoxy. He appointed conservative judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, rolled back business regulations, presided over a massive tax cut and, the White House argued, fostered an environment that freed the stock market to boom.
"2017 was a year of tremendous achievement (and) the achievements for our country, our people, and for our standing in the world have been very monumental," Trump said at a Cabinet meeting last week.
Like any president, Trump faced crises during his first year.
Most ominously, North Korea escalated its nuclear weapons development program while Trump responded with unprecedentedly bellicose rhetoric.
The anniversary of his inauguration coincided with a government shutdown, and he scoffed that Democrats "wanted to give me a nice present."
He travelled overseas four times, upbraiding traditional American allies at NATO for not paying enough, basking in the flattery of Chinese President Xi Jinping and touching a mysterious, glowing orb with Saudi King Salman.
Protests in Florida were among the many Women's Marches that took place in US cities to mark Donald Trump's first year in office. Source: AAP
Befitting a man whose reality show ended with a firing each week, in Trump's first year his administration's upper-level officials have had a turnover rate of 34 per cent, much higher than any other in the past 40 years. Gone were chief of staff Reince Priebus, chief strategist Steve press secretary Sean Spicer and, after just 11 eventful days, communications director Anthony Scaramucci.
National security adviser Mike Flynn was fired less than a month into the term for lying to Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with foreign officials. In May, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, who had been leading the investigation into possible collusion between Trump's campaign and Russian officials during the 2016 election.
That dismissal led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, whose probe into possible collusion and obstruction of justice has hovered over the White House.
"We've never had a president who had such a chaotic first year. Every day is topsy-turvy and disorganised, the country has not been so divided since the Civil War," said Douglas Brinkley, presidential historian at Rice University. "He's not like anything we've seen before and this is the question: What are the consequences going to be?"
