To say that 2025 has been a politically challenging year would be an understatement.
From wars and conflicts ravaging around the world to the rise of authoritarianism, many friendships turned into feuds, and many governments fell.
In this article, we outline 10 of the biggest political scandals of 2025.
BP Daily highlights some of the biggest political scandals of 2025
Image credits: The White House/Flickr
Musk and Trump’s fallout
Perhaps the biggest drama of the year was the fallout between President Donald Trump and his billionaire friend Elon Musk. In 2024, Musk endorsed Trump’s presidential campaign, deepening their friendship.
By the end of the presidential campaign, Musk had spent $277 million supporting Trump and other Republican candidates, making him the largest individual political donor since at least 2010.
Months later, Trump announced that Musk would lead a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and operate as a special government employee.
Image credits: Brandon Bell/Getty Images
The Washington Post referred to Musk as “somewhere between unofficial co-president and first buddy.” Then, in May 2025, Musk announced his departure from the administration, and he did so with a fiery tweet.
“Time to drop the really big bomb Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public,” Musk wrote on X. By the next day, the tweet, along with others, had been deleted. Trump retaliated by calling Musk “crazy.”
Months later, during Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, the duo was seen shaking each other’s hands. Both Musk and the White House shared images of the duo, implying that their tensions have been resolved.
Pentagon leaked chats
In March this year, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, published a sensational article after being added to a Telegram group of the Pentagon, where leaders discussed U.S. plans to bomb Houthi targets across Yemen.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth messaged detailed war plans, including information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.
The whole incident was shocking, beginning with Hegseth putting war plans on an unofficial channel and ending with mistakenly adding a journalist to it.
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Several Defense Department officials said having this type of conversation in a Signal chat group itself could be a violation of the Espionage Act.
Former F.B.I. officials who worked on leak cases described this as a devastating breach of national security, The New York Times reported.
The group chat also included Hegseth’s wife and brother, further violating Pentagon policies about using personal phones for official business.
The Epstein files scandal
One scandal that united Republicans and Democrats alike was the Trump administration’s secrecy and denial of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In late 2025, the controversy surrounding the long-demanded ‘Epstein files’ intensified after the bipartisan Epstein Transparency Act forced the Department of Justice and FBI to release hundreds of thousands of documents tied to Epstein’s network.
The documents revealed that powerful figures from Bill Clinton to Trump himself, along with Prince Andrew, Michael Jackson, Noam Chomsky, Bill Gates, and many more, were associated with Epstein, who was alleged to have sexually abused and trafficked dozens of underage girls.
As the release deadline approached, internal emails later revealed that the FBI had launched an enormous internal push to review and redact material, with roughly 1,000 personnel reportedly working nights and weekends.
The DOJ claims they have released nearly 30,000 pages, with some pictures featuring Trump standing with groups of women.
Alien Enemies Act Deportations and ICE tactics
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been at the center of Trump’s immigration crackdown since the beginning of his second term. Agents appear in plain clothes as they raid facilities and arrest people they deem to be undocumented immigrants.
The Department of Homeland Security has also increased the budget and hiring of new ICE officers. As part of the extensive hiring, the DHS will condense the training of new hires from 13 weeks to eight weeks, reducing Spanish language classes and a firearms course. Advocates told The Guardian that the existing training, as it is now, failed to prevent misconduct.
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The agency’s aggressive tactics often sweep up far more than just undocumented immigrants. There have been numerous reports of ICE detaining U.S. citizens by mistake, sometimes for extended periods.
The administration has also sought to end birthright citizenship for children of unauthorized immigrants, largely closed access to the asylum process on the southern border, and ended temporary humanitarian protections for people fleeing prosecution in their country of origin.
A heavily advertised campaign by the government also encourages immigrants to self-deport, with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem saying, “Leave now. If you don’t, we will find you, and we will deport you. You will never return.”
Trump circumventing Congress
Since Trump started his second term, nearly 7 million Americans have attended two separate periods of protesting, called the No-King’s Protest, against the administration. Much like its name, the Trump administration has come under scrutiny for several instances of circumventing Congress’s orders.
One of the most controversial areas was the administration’s use of military force at sea without clear congressional authorization. Throughout the latter half of 2025, U.S. forces repeatedly struck vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that the administration claimed were involved in narcotics trafficking, particularly linked to Venezuela.
These strikes resulted in several fatalities and took place without authorization from Congress.
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On the domestic front, the DHS and ICE adopted aggressive tactics that included sending the National Guard to Democrat-run cities, despite courts repeatedly blocking these deployments.
In January 2025, an executive order paused much of U.S. foreign aid spending while the administration conducted a review, effectively halting programs that Congress had previously appropriated, except for a few exemptions.
Young Republicans leaked group chat
In October, 2,900 pages of chats were obtained by Politico, showing a group of young Republicans praising Adolf Hitler, supporting slavery, using derogatory terms, and joking about rape.
The group chat, called “RESTOREYR WAR ROOM,” included Republican activists between 18 and 40 years who used racial slurs more than 250 times, joked about gas chambers, and referred to black people as “monkeys” and “the watermelon people.”
Image credits: Politico
They discussed raping their opponents and driving them to suicide. Peter Giunta, then chair of the New York State Young Republicans, played a major role in the chat. In June, ahead of a leadership vote, he wrote, “Everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”
The Kansas Young Republicans organization has since been deactivated, and many involved have released statements of apology.
Ukraine’s corruption scandals
July saw Ukrainians come together and protest against President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after he signed a bill, potentially weakening the independence of Ukraine's anti-corruption bodies.
The law, which has since been reversed, granted the control of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office to the prosecutor general.
Image credits: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
But soon, another scandal mounted. Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies revealed in November that some of Zelenskyy’s close associates were allegedly involved in a plot to embezzle about $100 million from Ukraine’s energy sector. The scandal unfolded as Russia escalated its attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities.
While Zelensky had previously said he was committed to cooperating fully with the anti-corruption investigation, the scandal brought his commitment to fighting corruption under scrutiny again.
The collapse of the French government
The French government collapsed in early October 2025 after Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu resigned less than a day after announcing his cabinet. Lecornu submitted his resignation to President Emmanuel Macron roughly 14 hours after unveiling his government, making him the shortest-serving prime minister in modern French history, with a tenure of under 27 days.
The collapse followed months of political instability triggered by Macron’s decision to call snap legislative elections after his party’s defeat in the 2024 European elections.
Lecornu delayed naming a cabinet for 26 days while negotiating with opposition parties.
Image credits: Antoine Gyori/Getty Images
Just two months prior to this, French unions had launched mass strikes across the country to protest against government proposals for budget cuts. Macron also saw his popularity drop to new lows.
Bolsonaro fallout in Brazil
Earlier in November, Brazil’s right-wing former president Jair Bolsonaro began serving his prison sentence of 27 years and three months under orders by the Supreme Court for plotting a coup after he lost the last election.
He was found guilty of leading a conspiracy to keep himself in power after losing the 2022 election to his left-wing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, with plans involving assassinating him and his vice-presidential running mate, Geraldo Alckmin.
Before serving his sentence, Bolsonaro was detained in a jail cell after being classified as a flight risk and removed from home detention.
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In January 2023, after his plan failed, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed government buildings in Brasília. The rioters claimed they had been incited by Bolsonaro, who planned for the military to step in and return him to power.
South Korea’s impeached president
Yoon Suk Yeol became South Korea’s shortest-serving, directly elected president since 1987 after his impeachment in April.
He was also arrested for a martial law attempt last December, which was followed by an attempted military takeover. The arrest came after a dramatic standoff between anti-corruption investigators and his personal security detail.
In South Korea, insurrection is punishable by life in prison or death. But for many right-wing groups, Yeol has become a hero.
Image credits: Jung Yeon-Je/Getty Images
The right-leaning youth group Freedom University rallied behind him, branding him as a symbol of resistance against what they view as corrupt left-wing governments.
Inspired partly by America’s MAGA movement, they promote slogans like “Make Korea Great Again.”