He Threw Rocks at a Toddler

…and more highlights of the low life, business dealings and policies of Donald Trump

At several of his rallies, Donald Trump walks to the side of the stage and, smiling smiling smiling, enfolds the American flag in his arms.

Question: Is he embracing the flag in patriotic fervor, or is he humping it in a display of creepy, infantile self-importance?

Your response (cuddle or hump) is, of course, your perception; your opinion. But it is a fact that he’s done this.

What follows is a curated collection of facts regarding Donald Trump’s behavior and the policies of his administration. There are also, admittedly, some personal remarks and headlines woven in, for the sake of structure and readability. These may render his policies, words and actions and spin them as lies, crimes, grifts and blunders, but the bedrock is truth. He did these things. He said these things.

I am merely a list-maker and rewriter. Special thanks to the reporters who gathered these facts, in particular: The New York Times, The Washington Post, McSweeny’s, Vanity Fair, Business Insider, CNN, Huffington Post and Salon.

Man and Boy

Circa 1952. Dennis Burnham lived next door to the Trump family’s home in Queens, New York. According to Burnham’s mother, when Burnham was a toddler, she put him in a playpen in their garden and left him for a few minutes. When she returned, she found Donald Trump, age 5 or 6, standing at the fence between properties throwing rocks at the little boy.

Washington Post journalists interviewed dozens of people who knew Trump as a child. Some of their findings: Trump bullied his little brother relentlessly. He once stole his brother’s favorite blocks and glued them together so his brother could not use them again; he bragged about this. Trump pulled girls’ hair, was a loud know-it-all in class who never admitted he was wrong, and was a sore loser in sports. His nicknames at school included Donny, The Trumpet and Flat Top – he had a pompadour even as kid. He reportedly paid someone to take his SAT. He was so difficult that his father put him in the New York Military Academy for his high school years.

Over the years, Trump has bragged that he took a $1 million loan from his father and turned it into an empire worth $10 billion. It’s a private company, so little of this can be confirmed, but experts dispute those numbers. Here’s what is known: After graduating from the Wharton School in 1968, Trump joined his father’s real estate firm. With an estimated worth of $200 million circa 1970, Fred Trump was a successful real estate developer of middle-class apartment complexes in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. He was deeply involved in Democratic party politics. Donald took over the business in 1971, taking advantage of his father’s stellar credit record, expansive business contacts, and political connections (which helped Donald later gain tax abatements and other concessions). (A 2018 tax fraud investigation found that Donald may have received as much as $413 million from his father’s various tax schemes with which to start his own endeavors.) Donald also gained a $40 million inheritance he collected in 1974. At this time, he borrowed heavily, leveraging his father’s strong credit rating, and undertook risky real estate ventures that did pay off: the Grand Hyatt Hotel on East 42nd Street, Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, and Trump Plaza on Third Avenue. Over the years, he expanded The Trump Organization’s portfolio of buildings, hotels and golf courses around the world. In addition to the three mentioned above, it included Trump Tower Chicago and Mar-a-Lago, a private club in Palm Beach, Florida.

At one point, Trump was involved at an executive level at more than 515 companies, 268 of which have his name on them. But he owns very few of the buildings with his name on them; he licenses his name to other developers.

Trump quickly expanded well beyond real estate. He became involved in ownership at some level in casinos, an airline, a professional football team and a beauty pageant. Products with the Trump brand included a bottled water, an Israeli energy drink, a steak, a vodka, a cologne, a “university” (actually a series of motivational seminars and workshops), a wine from Virginia, furniture, a board game, a magazine, and a line of shirts and ties called the Donald J. Trump Signature Collection. Few, if any, of these ventures were successful.

Biggest hits to his bottom line: In a matter of months, his 1990 Atlantic City casino-hotel failed. His casino business ended in four bankruptcies. The Trump Shuttle airline was losing millions of dollars per month. To avoid personal bankruptcy, he had to sell his yacht, his airline, and ownership of many of his companies. His 1984 purchase of the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League ended in a similar manner: the entire league folded. Federal Election Commission disclosures have shown that 15 companies associated with Trump owe more than $270 million to banks. Trump faced lawsuits over the claims he made for his University: students (who paid thousands for a three-day course, and as much as $35,000 for more extensive packages) were led to believe the 2004 course would be in-depth, and personal, and they might even be mentored by Trump himself. Included in the University-related suits: a $40 million suit from the New York attorney general for defrauding students and operating an unlicensed university.

One episode of note: his father’s will. In 1990, Trump’s creditors were edging him toward personal bankruptcy; his first wife, Ivana, was demanding a billion dollars (!) in a divorce settlement. But Trump manufactured a grubby life line: he sent a lawyer and an accountant to his father, telling the elder Trump he needed to immediately sign a document called a codicil, changing his will in Donald’s favor. It gave Donald “an enormous amount of authority he didn’t have in the original will,” according to an expert. “It gave him essentially full control to do whatever he wanted to run these businesses and to use estate and trust assets for that purpose.” As his niece, Mary Trump, wrote in her book, the codicil placed his siblings “at Donald’s financial mercy, dependent on his approval for the smallest transaction.” She had been told the estate was worth $30 million when it was actually worth closer to $1 billion. She began to secretly record her aunt – Maryanne Trump Barry, a lawyer, judge and Donald’s older sister — in an effort to extract knowledge about what Mary considered the family’s deception. Here is some of what the older sister had to say about her brother: “You can’t trust him. His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God. I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit.”

Fred Trump Sr. was 85 at the time, and was clearly cognitively impaired. Months later, he would be formally diagnosed with “early stages of dementia.” But he was aware enough to be angered by his son placing a document before him to sign with no warning or review. In an interview with the Washington Post years later, Mary Trump would say: “As demonstrated by his willingness to alter his father’s will illicitly and in secret, there are no limits to Donald’s unethical behavior. Because doing so benefited Donald, however, he had no compunction about deceiving his father in order to defraud his own siblings. There is no code of conduct, no moral or ethical imperative that stands in the way of Donald’s craven willingness to achieve his ends no matter the means.”

Trump went on to become the mentor figure in the popular TV series The Apprentice. With the show’s success, his personal brand, if not his bottom line, expanded exponentially. He leveraged the exposure into a political career.

And here we are.

I give you President Trump.

Crisis Management

12/19. Reports start to trickle in of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. It is likely that it was already in the U.S. by this time (California, Oregon, Washington), carried by travelers from Wuhan. Trump does not close any borders until March 18th – the southern border only, due mostly to his obsession with illegal migration. Administration officials, on the condition of anonymity, confide that Trump ignores at least a dozen classified briefings in January and February which call the coronavirus an imminent threat. Also: Trump seldom reads or listens to an oral summary of the President’s Daily Brief.

The U.S. is wholly unprepared for a pandemic, because: Trump fired the pandemic response unit the Obama Administration had established after the Ebola outbreak; he cut funding to the CDC; he shut down U.S. research labs in 60 countries that had been set up as early-warning units.

Trump goes on to ridicule people for wearing masks; undercut his own scientists; conceal information that the virus is airborne; leaves it to the States to figure out 50 separate plans to combat the virus; holds super-spreader events; assigns his inexperienced son-in-law Jared Kushner to the task of straightening out critical supply chain issues regarding obtaining masks and medical equipment for overwhelmed hospitals; and (and!!) casually wonders if injecting disinfectant might treat the virus.

By the end of Trump’s term, more than 24.3 million people had been diagnosed with COVID-19, and 405,000 had died.

Some details:

3/20/20. During a press conference, Trump is asked the following question: “What do you say to the Americans who are scared, though? Nearly 200 dead, 14,000 who are sick, millions, as you’ve witnessed, who are scared right now.” Trump replies: “I say that you’re a terrible reporter. That’s what I say. I think it’s a very nasty question, and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people.” He goes on in that vein for a while.

3/21/20. Trump publicly endorses combining two specific drugs (hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin) as a treatment for coronavirus. The drug therapy had not been approved by the FDA, and doctors had warned that the combination could be dangerous.           

4/15/20. It is revealed that, for reasons unknown, the Trump administration delayed the purchase of N95 masks for distribution country-wide to stem the spread of Covid-19. In the interval, the price of each mask increased eightfold.

4/23.20. At a press conference, Trump wonders whether disinfectant can be used as a cure for Covid: “Then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?” Adding: “Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.” The following day, health officials as well as the manufacturers of Lysol and other household products warn consumers against ingesting disinfectant to prevent Covid-19. The day after, New York City’s poison control center reports calls about household disinfectants doubled. At his daily briefing shortly after, Trump is asked if he bears any responsibility if people are harmed by improperly using disinfectants. His response: “No, I don’t.”

6/20/20. In a speech, Trump admits that he ordered his administration to “slow down” coronavirus testing so that fewer cases of COVID-19 would be reported (and his stats on fighting the virus would improve, presumably). “I personally think testing is overrated, even though I created the greatest testing machine in history.”

7/18/20. It is reported that the Trump administration tried to block Senate efforts to fund the states with billions of dollars for Covid relief, and testing and contact tracing programs, as well as billions to the CDC.

9/9/20. Tapes are released of an interview Trump gave to journalist Bob Woodward in February, in which Trump admits he lied to the public about the seriousness of the disease because he didn’t want to cause a panic. “We don’t want to go around screaming, ‘Look at this, look at this,” the president said.

10/5/20. Though Trump’s doctors confirm that the president is still infected (thus contagious) with Covid, Trump leaves Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, saying he is bored staying in the hospital. Speaking to the nation via reporters, he says of the deadly virus, “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life.” He boards an SUV and orders the car to be driven slowly so he can wave to supporters. In the vehicle with Trump are several Secret Service agents, at obvious risk for catching the virus at such close quarters. Equally vulnerable are staff at the White House Trump soon re-enters. He does not wear a mask, and within a few days 34 White House personnel are infected – what is termed a super-spreader event. One Secret Service agent was later quoted as saying about Trump: “He’s not even pretending to care now.”

Policies, From Questionable to Cruel

1/27/17. Trump signs an Executive Order that bans foreign nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries from visiting the USA for 90 days, suspends entry to the country of all Syrian refugees indefinitely, and prohibits any other refugees from coming into the country for 120 days. He does exempt several countries in which he has business dealings. What follows is years of protests, a court ruling attempting to block the ban, Trump administration maneuvers to extend the ban to African countries….and thousands of families separated for years.

2/16/17. Trump repeals the “stream protection rule,” which prevented coal companies from dumping mining debris into rivers.

3/3/17. Trump eliminates an ethics course for incoming White House staff.

3/28/17. Trump signs a bill that eliminates an Obama-era regulation that protects workers against workplace safety hazards and labor law violations.

3/30/17. Trump and congressional allies pass a bill effectively allowing states to withhold federal funding for Planned Parenthood, repealing yet another Obama-era law.

4/3/17. Trump signs a bill that eliminates rules governing internet service providers, allowing them to share or sell private information of consumers without their permission.              

4/3/17. Trump eliminates funding for the U.N. Family Planning Agency, which supports women’s health and family planning around the world.           

9/5/17.  Donald Trump orders the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, aka DACA. This is the program, instituted by the Obama administration, that protects against the deportation of nearly 800,000 young people who arrived in the United States as children.

5/1/17. Trump appoints Teresa Manning deputy assistant secretary for population affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services. She will oversee Title X funding for contraceptive and sexual health services. Manning is a long-time anti-abortion advocate and birth control skeptic who is quoted as having said, “contraception doesn’t work” and “family planning is something that occurs between a husband and a wife and God, and it doesn’t really involve the federal government.”

5/21/17. Trump proposes cutting the Federal deficit by $1.7 trillion. He will accomplish this by substantially cutting funding to the food stamp and Medicaid programs.

6/1/17. Trump announces the U.S. will withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, the 2015 international accord to slow climate change. This, after he has ordered the removal of references to climate change in public documents and resisted policies intended to protect the environment.

6/17. At the direction of Trump, the EPA proposes to cut more than 1,200 jobs, reducing its budget by 31 percent. At the same time, they roll back clean drinking water protections. Researchers at Harvard and Columbia estimate that during Trump’s four years as president, his administration reversed, revoked or rolled back nearly 100 environmental initiatives.

10/3/17. Trump visits San Juan after Hurricane Maria, which killed approximately 3,000 people, devastated Puerto Rico’s infrastructure and left residents short on food, water, shelter. At the relief center, Trump tosses paper towels at residents. Later in the week he will rate himself 10 out of 10 on his administration’s disaster response, even though 78% of the island did not have power, and 28% didn’t have drinking water. The following September, he will dispute the 3,000-person death count as a Democratic party hoax to make him look bad. In 2021, an investigation will reveal that the Trump administration withheld $20 billion in hurricane relief funds to Puerto Rico.

10/12/17. The Trump administration eliminates a healthcare subsidy that assists low-income Americans with expenses during medical treatment. In addition to its obvious negative effect on health and personal finances, eliminating subsidies puts further burden on insurance companies, causing insurance premiums to rise (which they have done, significantly in certain states, since Trump took office.)

12/22/17. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is passed by Congress. It benefits those earning more than $500,000/year, enables business owners to take huge deductions, and cuts corporate taxes by a third. Most Americans will not benefit. The plan assumes corporations will reinvest, but very little reinvestment occurs. A cut in estate taxes follows, which costs the U.S. an estimated  $83 billion and benefits only 5,500 families.

3/3/18.  Trump announces tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, ignoring the advice of his economic advisors, and without alerting the country’s trade partners or consulting Congress. A spur-of-the-moment decision, according to witnesses.

4/18. As part of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” approach to deter illegal immigration across the southern border (now official policy), a Family Separation Policy is instituted: authorities separate children and infants from parents or guardians. Even families following the legal procedure to apply for asylum at official border crossings are now being separated. The adults are being prosecuted, then held in federal jails or deported. Children are being placed under the supervision of the Department of Health and Human Services. More than 5,500 children are placed under the supervision of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Some are confined in cages. It is hinted that the policy is intentionally cruel, to discourage immigration. In 2019, the Department of Homeland Security will update its policy to detain migrant families with children indefinitely. In many cases, no records are being kept to facilitate later reuniting families. As of 8/22, hundreds of families have not been reunited.

5/8/18. Trump announces that the U.S. is withdrawing from the Iran Nuclear Deal, in which the terrorist-sponsoring nation agreed to stop developing nuclear weapons.

9/28/18. It is reported that 13,000 migrant children — a record number — are being held in a West Texas tent city without access to legal services or education. The average length of time children spend in custody has doubled in a single year.

6/25/19. Trump publicly threatens Iran with “obliteration” in a tweet, the day after the U.S. imposed sanctions against Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

8/2/19. The Trump administration withdraws from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the U.S. and Russia that limited the types of weapons the two nations could develop.

8/20/19. Trump suggests that the United States purchase Greenland, which is part of Denmark, due to its abundance of natural resources. Trump even commissions an image of a projected Trump Tower on a Greenland landscape. When Denmark’s prime minister insists that Greenland is not for sale, Trump calls her “nasty” and her response “inappropriate” and promptly cancels his planned trip to the country.

9/1/19.  To address the serious issue of Chinese theft of U.S. intellectual property. Trump engages in a trade war with China, applying 15% tariffs on $112 billion worth of Chinese imports. China retaliates with similar tariffs on American goods. According to JPMorgan Chase, this tax on American consumers will cost each household $1,000 a year. Economists view Trump’s go-it-alone approach – not enlisting allies – as a poor strategy. Says Harvard’s Jason Furman: “Any good strategy has to include getting other countries on your side. If it’s the United States versus China, we’re similar sized economies. If it’s the United States and the world versus China, that’s not something China can win.”

1/31/20. The Trump administration places immigration restrictions on five African nations. (In 2018, he referred to African nations as “shithole countries.”)

2/29/20. The Trump administration finalizes a deal with the Taliban to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan by the spring of 2021. It is widely considered one of the worst deals ever negotiated with a foreign nation – the U.S. gave up much, the Taliban almost nothing. This, after Trump sabotaged peace talks by proclaiming publicly his determination to pull out (why would the Taliban make major concessions, given that?), and announcing troop reductions without proper consultation with the military. What results from this agreement, ultimately, are ill-considered and hasty troop drawdowns and a failure to share materials with the incoming Biden transition team, which will lead to a disastrous, chaotic final withdrawal…and the Taliban smothering Afghans’ hopes of a better life, and freedom.

Here is Trump’s partial account of his negotiations with Mullah Baradar, the head of the Taliban: “I spoke to, and sort of the known head, but nobody was sure, but now I’m sure, and I was sure then when I was speaking to him. And I knew as soon as I spoke to him. And even the introduction, I say hello, and he screamed something very tough….If you do anything bad to the United States of America, if you do anything bad to any of our civilians, to any American citizen, or if you do anything out of the normal, you know, they’ve been fighting for a 1,000 years, but out of the normal, because you’ve had your wars, and if you do anything out of the normal, but anything bad to America or any American citizens, I will hit you harder than anybody has ever been hit in world history.”

8/17/20. The Trump administration announces that it will open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas drilling. Scientists predict this will lead to the release of more than 4.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.

9/10/20. It is revealed that the Trump administration secretly withheld approximately $4 million from a program designed to help paramedics, firefighters and emergency med techs who had physical and psychological illnesses stemming from the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Buffoonery & D-bag-ery

7/18/15. Trump (who never served in the military, receiving four deferments, including a dubious medical deferment) belittles the military service of political opponent Senator John McCain. McCain was a decorated Vietnam War veteran. As a prisoner in Hanoi, he endured torture and solitary confinement. Given a chance to be freed, he chose to remain as long as men under his command were also imprisoned. Trump’s take? During a speech to the Family Leadership Summit: “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

9/26/16. Debating Hilary Clinton, supposed millionaire Trump brags about not paying taxes. “That makes me smart.”

1/21/17. Trump visits CIA headquarters on his first full day as president, to deliver his first speech. Standing in front of the wall of stars carved into marble to represent the 117 CIA agents who have died in service (a solemn setting) before an audience of national security professionals, he spends much of his speech denouncing his critics, boasting about his appearance on magazine covers, exaggerating the size of the crowd at his inauguration and suggesting he might loosen limits on torture. He manages to brag: “Is Donald Trump an intellectual? Trust me, I’m like a smart person.” And he offers Trumpian assurances of his support for the CIA: “I am so behind you. You’re gonna get so much backing. Maybe you’re gonna say, please, don’t give us so much backing, Mr. President, please, we don’t need that much backing.” Two reactions from CIA professionals: “This was a waste of time,.” said one. The spokesman for former CIA director John O. Brennan issued this tweet: “Former CIA Dir Brennan is deeply saddened and angered at Trump’s despicable display of self-aggrandizement in front of CIA’s Memorial Wall of Agency heroes. Brennan says that Trump should be ashamed of himself.”

2/15/17. Donald Trump announces he will not attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a long-time Washington tradition in which U.S. presidents allow themselves to be gently mocked.

2/24/17. Trump instructs his press secretary Sean Spicer to temporarily bar reporters from the New York Times, CNN and Politico from White House Press Briefings. This is days after he declared during a speech that certain press outlets are “fake news.”

5/12/17. At a White House meeting, Trump shares highly classified information with the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassador, endangering a prized source who has infiltrated the Islamic State.

5/25/2017. At the set-up for a group picture of world leaders during his first NATO meeting and first trip abroad as president, Trump shoves Montenegro’s prime minister out of the way so he can be front and center.

7/25/17. Tens of thousands of Boy Scouts gather for their annual Jamboree, and are given the honor of a live speech by the president. Trump chooses to give a 35-minute campaign rally-style speech. He spends a good amount of time bragging about his election win and denouncing the press. He talks about killing Obamacare, maybe firing a member of his Cabinet, and the hot parties he attended in the 1980s. Days later, he will claim that the head of the Boy Scouts called him to say “it was the greatest speech that was ever made.” A spokesperson for the Boy Scouts says the call never happened.

8/21/17. With a nearby aide shouting “Don’t look!”, Trump looks straight into the sun during a near total eclipse – defying the common-sense advice of experts, dispensed widely for weeks before.

9/19/17. As part of his speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Donald Trump threatens to “totally destroy North Korea” and calls Kim Jong-un “Rocket Man.”

10/16/17. At a press conference, Trump is asked why he hasn’t spoken publicly about the deaths of four American soldiers during a firefight with ISIS in Niger. Trump says he has written to the families, and that those letters would be mailed that day or the next. He then implies that President Obama never called families of recently fallen soldiers (a lie, as confirmed by Gold Star families). The day after the press conference, Trump does place a condolence call to Myeshia Johnson, the widow of fallen serviceman Sgt. La David Johnson. A week later, Mrs. Johnson, appearing on a talk show, says that during the call Trump repeatedly forgot her late husband’s name. An hour after the broadcast, Trump calls the widow a liar, claiming he “spoke his name from beginning, without hesitation!”

11/15/17. After a mass shooting in Rancho Tehama, California, Trump tweets a message of condolence and pledge of rigorous law enforcement. But it is plainly an incompetent cut-and-paste tweet, as he expresses condolence (again, word for word) to the community of a mass shooting the previous week in Sutherland Spring, Texas.

12/4/17. Trump endorses Roy Moore’s candidacy for Alabama senator although Moore has recently, credibly, been accused of sexual abuse of teenage girls.      

1/5/18. Trump accuses Democrats of “treason” and being “un-American” because they did not stand and applaud his recent State of the Union speech to Congress. “Somebody said treasonous. Yeah, I guess, why not? Can we call that treason? Why not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”

1/8/18. Bill Frischling of website Factbase releases the results of his study of Donald Trump’s speech level and vocabulary, based on the Flesch-Kincaid grade level scale. Frischling found that Trump speaks at a fourth-grade level, the lowest rating a president has received since Herbert Hoover.

7/15/18. During a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Trump is asked about Russian collusion in the 2016 election. And even though his own intelligence services have been seeing strong evidence of such collusion, here’s what Trump says: “They said they think it’s Russia; I have President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be. I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”

12/6/18. The New York Times reports that Trump employed undocumented workers at his golf club in New Jersey. Trump has often claimed that undocumented workers hurt native American workers, burdens taxpayers, represent a criminal threat, and strain government services.

1/14/19. It is traditional for the winners of the College Football National Championship to visit the White House. This year, the Clemson Tigers visit the Trump White House. Traditionally, an elegant meal is served to players and coaches, a showcase for American fine cuisine. This year, they are served McDonald’s.

4/2/19. Rick Reilly’s book, Commander in Cheat, is published. Some excerpts: “I’ve played golf my entire life. Years ago, I even played with Trump once. Whatever sport he’s playing, it isn’t golf. He cheats. He lies. He kicks. And not just his ball—yours, too. …He drives his golf cart on greens. He drives it on tee boxes. He never, ever walks…He always hits first, never mind who won the last hole, and then jumps in his Super Mario Kart with his caddy and peels off before you’ve even hit…” He also brags about winning 20 club championships, which is a lie.

7/14/19. Via a barrage of tweets, Trump attacks four congresswomen, all of whom happen to be people of color: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley. Trump writes that they should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.” Ocasio-Cortez was born in New York, Tlaib in Detroit, and Pressley in Cincinnati.

8/21/19. In a single day, Trump refers to himself as “the chosen one” and suggests he should be given the nation’s highest honor for military valor. Details: At a morning press conference, answering questions about trade with China, Trump turns his eyes to the sky and says, “I am the chosen one.” (He later will say he was joking.) Later that same day, in an address to American war veterans, including Woody Williams, he says, “Medal of Honor. Nothing like the Medal of Honor. I wanted one, but they told me I don’t qualify, Woody. I said, ‘Can I give it to myself anyway?’ They said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’”

7/10/20. In an interview with Fox news, Trump brags endlessly how he “aced” a test he took in 2018 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The test is designed to detect early signs of dementia and cognitive loss. Says Trump: “…the radical left were saying, is he all there? Is he all there? And I proved I was all there, because I got — I aced it. I aced the test.” He adds of the doctors administering the test: “They were very surprised. They said, that’s an unbelievable thing. Rarely does anybody do what you just did.” Trump provides details, saying the 20-minute test gets progressively more difficult: “Yes, the first few questions are easy, but I’ll bet you couldn’t even answer the last five questions. I’ll bet you couldn’t, they get very hard, the last five questions.” Among the last five questions? Name the time and the place you are in.

7/30/2020. Trump’s (heavy on politics, light on patriotism) speech at Mount Rushmore is followed by a fireworks display – during wildfire season. Trump was deeply involved in getting the fireworks show approved. In a meeting with the South Dakota governor in the run-up to the event, Trump said, “Nobody knows why, but you just couldn’t have it. And now you’re going to have fireworks.” In a 2019 interview with the publication The Hill, Trump addressed the subject of Mount Rushmore and wildfires: “I think they thought … the stone was gonna catch on fire. That doesn’t happen, right?”

8/8/20. A Trump aide reaches out to the South Dakota governor’s office to inquire what is required to have a president added to Mount Rushmore. Two years earlier, Trump had confided, “Do you know it’s my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?”

9/3/20. In 2018, a visit by the president to a WWI cemetery in France was canceled. The reason Trump gave was that his helicopter could not fly due to weather. In 2020, it is revealed that his true reason was that he felt the helicopter would muss his hair. He added: “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” More than 1,800 U.S. Marines died in the fighting in the area; Trump referred to the Marines as “suckers”.

I can’t resist including this quote from an anonymous source, given about the time of the abovementioned scam: “Be glad you’re not Donald Trump…because I’ve known the man for 33 years, and he is a miserable human being. Try to find him laughing when it isn’t forced or for dramatic effect. It doesn’t happen. I’ve tried to get him to tell jokes in the past. He can’t tell a joke. He’s a miserable, sad story.”

3/8/22. Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, publishes his memoir, One Damn Thing After Another. In it, he confirms that during protests against racial injustice outside the White House in June 2020, Trump was ushered to a protective bunker. An excerpt: “The president lost his composure. Glaring around the semi-circle of officials in front of his desk, he swept his index finger around the semi-circle, pointing at all of us. ‘You’re all losers!’ he yelled, his face reddening … ‘You’re losers!’ he yelled again, tiny flecks of spit arcing to his desktop. ‘Fucking losers!’ It was a tantrum.” It was after this tantrum that Trump ordered protesters be violently cleared from Lafayette Square. Park police later confirmed that in addition to tear gas, pepper ball projectiles were fired at protesters. Trump and a bewildered entourage of administration officials then walked to the church so Trump could have a photoshoot holding a Bible. A reporter asked if it was his Bible, and Trump replied, “It’s a Bible.” Trump repeatedly denied going into the bunker earlier in the day, but later acknowledged that he had, but for an “inspection.” “I went down during the day, and I was there for a tiny little short period of time.” A former White House communications director later remembered that Trump was furious that someone on his staff had leaked the bunker story to the press. And Trump said, in a meeting: “Whoever did that should be executed.”

10/3/23. Retired Marine General John Kelly confirms that during a 2017 visit to Arlington National Cemetery with Trump, at the grave of Kelly’s son, who was killed in Afghanistan, Trump said: “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”

Scams, Greed, Corruption and Waste

6/15. Although there is plenty of available office space in the Republican National Committee’s Arlington, Virginia headquarters, the Trump campaign rents space in Trump Tower at $37,500 a month – three times what it would have paid otherwise. Much of this money will go directly to Trump. After Trump secures the GOP nomination, he will expand the space slightly and increased the monthly rental to $169,758.

Fun fact, regarding Trump Tower: In order to make the building seem taller than it actually is, Trump fudged the floor numbers. There are no floors 6 through 13, and no floors 27, 28 and 29. They do not exist.

12/16.  In 2014, the Obama administration placed sanctions on Russia for violating the sovereignty of Ukraine. The sanctions were expanded many times since 2014, including for interference in the U.S. 2016 presidential election. In December of 2016, Donald Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner, and his incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, meet with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to establish Trump administration communications with Russia outside official channels.

11/18/16. Trump agrees to pay $25 million to settle the many lawsuits directed at him, for his Trump University fraud. Over 3,000 people accused Trump of misleading them into thinking they were getting an accredited real estate course taught by himself; what they got were a series of seminar/consultations run by a third party, which mainly consisted of sales pitches designed to upsell them: from the Bronze Elite Package for $9,995 up to the Gold Elite Package for $34,995.

3/3/17. The White House hires three former lobbyists to internal staff positions in agencies they had lobbied against.

3/10/17. Trump orders 46 prosecutors appointed by former president Obama to resign. Among these prosecutors is Preet Bharara, who is a prominent figure in fighting government corruption and has, at this time, jurisdiction over Trump Tower in New York.

3/22/17. The Secret Service requests $60 million in additional funding for Trump family protection and travel. $26.8 million of this is for the protection of the Trump residence in Trump Tower. The cost is high because Melania Trump prefers staying at Trump Tower over the White House.

4/14/17. The Trump administration announces that the White House will discontinue the policy of revealing its visitor logs. Without them, Trump and White House officials can hold private meetings without oversight on visitor identity or affiliation.

5/9/17.  Trump fires FBI Director James Comey in the very midst of Comey’s federal investigation into Trump’s potential collusion with Russia during the 2016 election. Two days later, in a televised interview, Donald Trump admits his reasoning: “And, in fact, when I decided to just do it, said to myself, I said: This Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.” In an interview in January of this year, Comey revealed that Trump demanded loyalty from him during a private dinner only a few days after Trump took office. “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty,” Trump said, concerned about the Department of Justice’s inquiries into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Comey demurred, explaining that he could not intervene, that the DOJ and FBI should remain independent of each other. Now, four months later: You’re fired.

9/21/17. Twenty-one of Trump’s appointees to the Department of Agriculture have no prior experience of agriculture – however, they all worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign.

10/29/17. The Daily Beast reports that half of Trump’s nominees for administrative positions have significant conflicts of interest. Roughly one fifth had actively lobbied for industries they would oversee if confirmed, and eleven more received direct payments from the industries they would regulate.           

3/10/18. Inspired by a visit to Paris where he witnessed a French military parade to celebrate Bastille Day, Trump announces that the U.S. military will stage a military parade in Washington D.C. for Veterans Day. The announcement is met with polite silence by the military (viewed as a diversion of priorities) and pointed criticism by members of Congress (a waste of resources, as it would cost between $10 and $30 million). Another reason, as stated by Washington State representative Adam Smith: “A military parade like this — one that is unduly focused on a single person — is what authoritarian regimes do, not democracies.”

3/20/18. Public Citizen, a citizen watchdog group, files ethics complaints, finding that 36 appointees in the Trump administration have significant conflicts of interest.

5/16/18. The Senate judiciary committee releases 2,500 pages of testimony with Donald Trump Jr. and top aides, concerning their meetings with Russian delegates at Trump Tower in 2016. There is plain evidence of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. “The Russian effort was extensive, sophisticated, and ordered by President Putin himself for the purpose of helping Donald Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton,” concluded Virginia Senator Mark Warner. While running for president, Trump made much of his opponent, Hilary Clinton’s, missing emails on her server from her time as Secretary of State. He accused her of corruption, without evidence. In a speech he said this: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” He repeatedly laughed at the idea that Russia might interfere on his behalf. The Mueller report, in 2019, made it clear that Russia did try to interfere, on behalf of Trump against Clinton. The report examined over 200 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials; this included 18 undisclosed contacts during the final months of the election. Ultimately the report did not bring charges of conspiracy. And not just Russia: Trump’s former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, confirms that during the G-20 Summit in 2019, Trump asked Chinese President Xi to help him win re-election.

7/5/18. In March, in an interview with CNN, Andrew Wheeler claimed that the EPA was “brainwashing our kids.” Now, in July, Trump appoints Wheeler, a lobbyist and a frequent critic of limits on greenhouse gases, as Deputy Administrator of the EPA.

1/12/19. The Washington Post reports that no records – classified or unclassified — exist of conversations between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two met as many as five times over a two-year period. Trump went to “extraordinary lengths” to conceal what the two leaders discussed.

1/17/19. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, admits that during the 2016 presidential campaign he rigged online polls to exaggerate Trump’s support at the time. Cohen said he acted “at the direction of and for the sole benefit of” Trump.

3/8/19. Trump nominates David Bernhardt for Secretary of the Interior. Bernhardt is a former oil industry lobbyist who in that role was successful in rolling back the protection of endangered species.

3/22/19. The Mueller Report is released. The report details its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign and whether the Russians acted on behalf of Trump’s candidacy. The report details many examples of Russian information warfare to damage Hilary Clinton on behalf of Trump. It asserts that the Trump campaign “welcomed” such activity but has no evidence that it colluded. It details ten episodes in which Trump attempted to obstruct justice; they include pressuring FBI Director James Comey to let go of one investigation; attempting to have Robert Mueller dismissed; efforts to prevent public disclosure of damaging emails; forcefully opposing the Attorney General’s recusal in the matter, hoping for favorable treatment; and attempted interference in potential witness testimony, including his campaign manager (Manafort), lawyer (Cohen) senior staffers (McGahn et al) and his national security advisor (Flynn).

7/25/19. Trump calls President Zelensky of Ukraine and offers military aid to Ukraine, if (“Do us a favor, though”) Zelensky will investigate whether a Ukraine company interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of Biden (a conspiracy theory long disproved) and also investigate business dealings of Hunter Biden, Joe’s son. Trump later calls this attempted shakedown a “perfect call”. Earlier in the month, Trump had asked Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland to instruct his staff to investigate Biden and his son Hunter.

11/7/19. Trump is ordered to pay $2 million by a New York judge to settle claims against the Trump Foundation – charitable donations for veterans and other causes were instead used by his 2016 campaign.

3/8/20.  The Associated Press reports that 18 of the 59 people appointed to the EPA by President Trump have direct ties to fossil fuel companies, as registered lobbyists or as lawyers for chemical manufacturers.

4/17/20.  Trump fires the chairman of a watchdog panel that is intended to oversee the Trump administration’s management of $2 trillion in coronavirus relief.

7/19/20. During an interview on Fox, Trump says outright that if he loses the 2020 election he might not accept the results. “It depends. I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election. I really do.” He goes on to claim, falsely, that the mortality rate in the U.S. from Covid was one of the lowest in the world. He also predicts, contradicting any scientific plausibility, that Covid will abruptly disappear: “It’s going to disappear, and I’ll be right. Because I’ve been right probably more than anybody else.”

1/26/22. A judge allows states to investigate the Trump campaign’s online fundraising platform WinRed. Trump supporters were scammed out of tens of millions of dollars with deceptive donation links on their emails and websites. Without their knowledge, they signed up for weekly recurring donations and/or agreements to donate a lump sum on a future date, also known as “money bombs.” Stacy Blatt reports a case of a man dying in hospice care who unwittingly allows the campaign access to his bank account. His limited income is withdrawn again and again until he is broke.

6/9/23. A federal indictment is handed down, accusing Trump of storing classified documents at his resort in Florida, as well as lying to investigators and refusing to return the documents. The dozens of cartons of documents include information on U.S. nuclear capabilities, confidential intelligence sources, a “plan of attack” and classified maps. Trump may have compromised national security and endangered U.S. military personnel by casually showing some documents to visitors at the resort.

8/14/23. Trump (along with 18 other people) is indicted on racketeering, conspiracy and other charges by a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia after a two-year investigation into Trump’s attempts to interfere with election results after the 2020 election. The charges include perjury, conspiracy to defraud the state, making false statements, filing false documents, impersonating a public officer and influencing witnesses. The most prominent and telling indictment cites the phone call Trump made to Georgia’s secretary of state at the time, in which Trump asked him to “find 11,780 votes”. Trump lost the state by 12,000 votes.

Cruelty, Ineptitude & Inattention

1/29/17. Trump orders a raid against an al Qaeda enclave in Yemen. Officials later acknowledge that the raid uncovered no new intelligence. However: one Navy Seal was killed, five soldiers were wounded, and 30 civilians died, including children. Though the raid was considered a failure, the military, after extensive review, concluded there was no fault in planning or judgment. Still, in an interview on a Fox news show, Trump went out of his way to make sure everyone knew he (commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States) wasn’t at fault. “This was a mission that was started before I got here. This was something they wanted to do,” Trump said.

2/19/17. After the Federal Reserve projects growth in economic production at 1.8%, the Trump administration asks the Council of Economic Advisers to predict 3.5% growth, presumably in order to make his policies look strong – though distorting projections in that way can destabilize the economy down the road.

5/10/17. During an oval office visit by the Russian foreign minister and ambassador, Trump, in bragging about the quality and depth of his national security briefings, discloses classified information involving Israel and Syria. It’s possible that an Israeli intelligence officer is compromised and later killed as a result. It is just one of a number of incidents of Trump’s loose (criminal?) handling of classified information, followed by confirmed national security consequences. He may have disclosed classified information to Russian President Putin himself in the same year, again in the oval office. More: Lax security at Mar-a-Lago allows uncontrolled traffic of guests at events and access to far reaches of the property – especially worrisome when boxes of classified material are found in a property bathroom. Maybe most galling: After leaving office, Trump will share classified information about American nuclear submarines with an Australian businessman at Mar-a-Lago; the man will go on to share with several others. According to two witnesses, Trump frequently disclosed national security secrets with this billionaire and would brag that his “perfect call” with Ukraine’s Zelensky in which he tried to condition U.S. military support on receiving dirt on his political opponent, was apparently typical or even mild compared to what he often did with foreign leaders.

5/29/17. Mike Pompeo, the CIA director, reveals that briefings in the Trump oval office must be short and include “killer graphics” in order to keep Trump’s attention.

6/17.  Two anonymous White House officials tell the New York Times that Trump, in a response to a surge in immigration, said that Haitians “all have AIDS” and Nigerian immigrants wouldn’t ever “go back to their huts.” At this same time, more than 50 reports from around the country report bullying incidents in schools: Trump’s name is often mentioned, deportation is called for, racist language used. An 8-year-old California girl to a black classmate: “Now that Trump won, you’re going to have to go back to Africa, where you belong.”

6/27/17. Time Magazine responds to the news that the Trump Organization hung a framed cover of Time’s March 1, 2009 issue on the walls of five Trump resorts. The headline, beside a photo of Trump with his arms crossed, trumpets that Trump’s TV show is a smash and that “Trump is Hitting on All Fronts…Even on TV!” Time confirms that the cover is a fake.

2/18/18. After the massacre of students at Parkland High School in Florida, Trump tweets that the FBI was unable to capture the murderer because they were spending too many resources on the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia. In a tweet in response, a Parkland student wrote: “17 OF MY CLASSMATES AND FRIENDS ARE GONE AND YOU HAVE THE AUDACITY TO MAKE THIS ABOUT RUSSIA???!!”

9/5/18. The New York Times publishes an anonymous essay by a White House insider. It describes a chaotic atmosphere and desperate attempts by staffers to corral an “impetuous, adversarial, petty, and ineffective” president. “Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.”

11/21/18. One day after Trump announced there would be no repercussions against Saudi Arabia for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi (the CIA had confirmed their involvement), Trump doubles down with this gleeful tweet: “Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let’s go lower!”

7/19/19. Trump hosts survivors of religious persecution in the Oval Office. Most prominent is Nadia Murad, the 26-year-old Iraqi-born human rights activist and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner. She pleads for America’s aid. She describes being personally beaten and raped; she details widescale genocidal murder and rape of her people. Trump, remaining in his chair and not making eye contact, is clearly not bothering to listen. When Murad finishes by saying, “They killed my mom, my six brothers,” Trump immediately responds: “Where are they now?” “They are in the mass graves in Sinjar,” Murad is forced to reply.

Eww!

6/6/06. In comments on TV’s “The View,” Trump speculates whether his daughter Ivanka would ever do a nude photoshoot. “She does have a nice figure,” says Donald Trump. “If she weren’t my daughter I might have dated her.”  When the audience groans, Trump asks, “Did I say something wrong?” Other comments about Ivanka over the years: that they several things in common, including golf and sex. In 2003 on the Howard Stern show: “You know who’s one of the great beauties of the world, according to everybody? And I helped create her. Ivanka. My daughter, Ivanka. She’s 6 feet tall, she’s got the best body.” In a 2015 Rolling Stone interview: “Yeah, she’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father…” According to an article in The New Republic and a book by a former White House security chief, Trump talked about his daughter’s breasts, her backside and what it might be like to have sex with her – in an Oval Office meeting — forcing then-chief-of-staff John Kelly to remind the president that Ivanka was his daughter.

5/16. A Miss USA pageant contender from Utah, Temple Taggart, complains that Trump kissed her on the lips without her consent on several occasions.

6/16. A Miss USA pageant contender from Washington accuses Trump of sexual misconduct during the pageant, saying he “treated us like cattle,” and “proceeded to have us lined up so he could get a closer look at his property.”

10/11/16. Tasha Dixon, a former Miss Universe contestant, accuses Donald Trump of sexual misconduct. She is one of several women who say that Trump routinely walked into their changing room while they were dressing. In 2005 Trump bragged about it to Howard Stern on his radio show: “I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant. And therefore, I’m inspecting it. You know they’re standing there with no clothes. And you see these incredible looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that.”

1/17/18. Pornstar Stormy Daniels announces that she had an affair with Trump in July of 2006, four months after the birth of his son, Barron. Daniels says that she and Trump met several times thereafter. A week before the 2016 election, one of Trump’s lawyers paid Daniels $130,000 to keep silent about the affair.       

2/16/90. The New York Post front page headline for the day is: “Best Sex I Ever Had!” It is supposedly a quote from Marla Maples about her husband, Donald Trump. The story behind the headline, per The Hollywood Reporter: Trump called Jerry Nachtman, editor of the Post, demanding some coverage. He was told he couldn’t demand coverage; he had to actually do something to get coverage. Like what? Trump asked. Nachtman explained that money, murder or sex appeal to readers. Nachtman heard Trump holler at his wife, “Marla, didn’t you say you have the best sex ever with me?” He heard a faint reply: “Yes, Donald.”

5/1/93. Trump is seated beside model Vendela Kirsebom at the White House Corresponds dinner. After 45 minutes, she asks to be seated elsewhere. “He talked about big breasts, small breasts, how one was better than the other and the differences between them,” Kirsebom later says. “He is the most vulgar human being I have ever met.”

5/1/23. During the trial of Donald Trump for defamation in his denials of sexually assaulting writer E. Jean Carroll, Jessica Leeds testifies that in the 1970s she was seated next to Trump on a plane. After a while he started groping her. “There was no conversation,” Leeds testified. “It was like out of the blue…He was trying to kiss me, trying to pull me towards him. He was grabbing my breasts. It was like he had 40 zillion hands.” Trump has been accused by at least 26 women of sexual misconduct.

Lies

The Washington Post did its best to tally the lies Trump told while running for office and after becoming president. The paper estimated that by the end of his term he had made over 30,000 false or misleading claims. They range from the petty to the ridiculous to the scandalous. One of the most blatant was his claim that Barack Obama was not born in the Unites States; that his birth certificate was false, or missing. As early as 2011, long before he aspired to public office, he said this on February 10 during a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference: “Our current president came out of nowhere. Came out of nowhere. In fact, I’ll go a step further: The people that went to school with him, they never saw him, they don’t know who he is. It’s crazy.” In other forums, Trump even implied (without evidence) that there was foul play in the death of the Hawaiian State official who had released Obama’s long-form birth certificate. He made such allegations for years until September of 2016 when he admitted, publicly (though grumpily) that Obama was indeed born in the U.S.

Here are some other prominent examples of lies (but no corrections, no contrition):

1/11/17. Sheri Dillon, a Trump lawyer, asserts that Trump will “voluntarily donate all profits from foreign government payments made to his hotel to the United States Treasury.” There is no evidence such payments were ever made.

1/23/17. Trump has his press secretary claim that the crowd for his inauguration was the largest in history – 1.5 million people. Most estimates point to 250,000 to 600,000 attendees. When aerial photography clearly shows it was significantly smaller than the previous inauguration of Barack Obama, Trump’s senior counselor Kellyanne Conway says the administrations claims are not lies, but “alternative facts.” A government photographer will later admit he cropped aerial photos of Trump’s inaugural to suggest the crowd was large.

2/11/17. Trump claims that 3 million illegal votes were cast for Hilary Clinton in 2016. The claim was debunked by numerous news sources. The number was not picked at random. Trump lost by 2.9 million popular votes.

7/31/17. Donald Trump Jr. releases a statement, dictated by his father, to the effect that a meeting between Junior and a Russian lawyer in 2016 concerned an adoption program of Russian children. Emails later reveal that the meeting concerned Trump’s opponent in the 2016 presidential race, Hilary Clinton, and Russian support for the Trump campaign.     

12/27/17. Trump boasts that he signed more legislation than any president since Truman. In fact, by this date he has signed fewer pieces of legislation than any president since Eisenhower.          

4/5/18. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump denies knowing anything about the $130,000 hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, A month later he will admit that he repaid fixer Michael Cohen for the payment.

4/9/19. Trump claims that the Obama administration was responsible for the border policy of separating children from their families. It was his administration that initiating the cruel and politically unpopular policy.

6/19. Trump makes several erroneous claims to reporters about the U.S.’s financial performance as compared to China’s – for the purpose of making it seem as if he is rescuing our economy from mistakes by the Obama administration. In addition to completely mischaracterizing the state of tariff payments between the two countries, he claims the trade deficit with China under Obama was $500 billion. In fact it was never more than $400 billion.

7/7/19. Trump falsely quotes Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, saying that she had expressed pride and support for terrorist group Al-Qaeda. She did not.

8/15/19. During a campaign rally in New Hampshire, Trump boasts that he was once named Michigan’s Man of the Year. He has made this mysterious boast for years, despite the fact that it never happened.

9/4/19. Hurricane Dorian is approaching the southeast coast. Trump predicts that it will hit Alabama, although no weather forecasters agree. In a White House briefing, Trump displays a map that shows Alabama in the storm’s path – though the map has clearly been altered with a sharpie. When reporters point this out, Trump says he doesn’t know if it was altered.

7/27/20.  Infectious disease expert Doctor Anthony Fauci (a Trump sometimes-nemesis) is invited to throw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium. An hour before it is to happen, Trump announces that he’s been invited to throw out the first pitch at an upcoming game. The Yankee organization denies this. The White House counters in an official statement that, yes he was invited, but had to cancel, he was busy that day.

8/8/20. Trump has claimed – some 150 times, by some estimates — to have promoted and passed the very popular Veterans Choice Health Care Program. In fact, Barack Obama did. On this occasion, at a press conference, when this untruth is pointed out by a CBS reporter, Trump abruptly leaves the room.

9/10/20. At a campaign rally in Michigan, Trump claims that Joe Biden is proposing to end insurance protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Trump boasts that he will preserve them. Facts: Biden has said no such thing. It was the Obama-Biden administration that created these protections, Biden who frequently said he’d continue them, and Trump, during his administration, who tried to end them.

9/29/20. The New York Times reveals that Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017. Trump’s reaction to reporters a few days later: “It’s fake news. It’s totally fake news. Made up. Fake. We went through the same stories. You could have asked me the same questions four years ago. I had to litigate this and talk about it. Totally fake news. No.” It is estimated that Trump uses the term “fake news” some 2,000 times during his term. One of its first uses: in April of 2017, in reaction to polls showing he had the lowest approval rating of any president since 1945.

Quotes

6/16/15. While announcing his candidacy for President of the United States, Trump had this to say about the citizens of Mexico: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

8/7/15. Megyn Kelly, moderator of the first Republican primary debate, has frequent heated exchanges with Trump about his negative comments regarding women over the years. The next day, Trump says this to a reporter from CNN about Kelly: “She gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions. You know, you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”

8/10/19. Serial child molester Jeffrey Epstein is found dead in his jail cell. In 2002, Trump said he’d known Epstein for 15 years and he was a “terrific guy.” Trump added, “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

3/1/16. When protesters appear at one of his campaign rallies, Trump tells his supporters to “Get ‘em out of here!” The supporters then proceed to shove and punch the protesters.

10/7/16. Excerpts from a 2005 interview Trump gave to TV show Access Hollywood are released, in which Trump brags about grabbing women’s genitals without their consent. “I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it, you can do anything… grab them by the pussy.”

3/23/17. When Time magazine reporter presses Trump on his poor relationship with the intelligence services, Trump dismisses the reporter and ends the interview by saying, “Hey look, in the meantime, I guess, I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m president, and you’re not. You know. Say hello to everybody, OK?”

8/15/17. Trump speaks days after the “Unite the Right” rally in Virginia, in which hundreds of white supremacists marched to protest the removal of a Confederate statue, with counter-protesters also marching. Violence broke out, in which one counter-protester was killed and dozens more injured. “There were very fine people on both sides,” observes Trump.

11/2/17. Addressing the issue of the many vacancies in leadership positions at the State Department, Trump: “I’m the only one that matters, because when it comes to it, that’s what the policy is going to be. You’ve seen that, you’ve seen it strongly.”

3/3/18. After Chinese President Xi Jinping abolished his term limits by altering the country’s constitution, allowing him to retain power indefinitely, Trump says this, recorded in a closed-door meeting: “President for life… I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.”

9/25/18. Trump addresses the United Nations general assembly and says this: “In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.” The audience laughed openly at this claim. Later, Trump says, “They weren’t laughing at me, they were laughing with me.”

4/23/19. Trump visits George Washington’s Mount Vernon with French President Emmanuel Macron. He speculates on how rich Washington was, given how small the rooms are in his home. He adds: “If he was smart, he would have put his name on it. You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.”

11/7/19. When Turkey seemed ready to launch an incursion into Syria, Trump tweets: “As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!).”

4/13/20. During a press conference, the subject being the power of governors (to re-open offices, plants, businesses as the pandemic wanes) versus the president: “When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total, and that’s the way it’s got to be.” Wrong.

5/3/20. Again, during a press conference in which he calls previous presidents “foolish” and “stupid” and brags that he had “done more than any other president in the history of our country,” Trump then points to a statue of Lincoln and says, “They always said nobody got treated worse than Lincoln. I believe I am treated worse.”

7/17/20. Trump has encouraged his Energy Department to eliminate a rule, instituted by Obama, that limits the amount of water showerheads can produce per minute. In remarks on the White House lawn Trump has this to say: “So shower heads — you take a shower, the water doesn’t come out. You want to wash your hands, the water doesn’t come out. So what do you do? You just stand there longer or you take a shower longer? Because my hair — I don’t know about you, but it has to be perfect. Perfect.”

8/6/20. Speaking of his opponent in the 2020 election for president, Trump claims that Joe Biden (a devout Catholic) is “following the radical left agenda… no religion, no anything, hurt the Bible, hurt God. He’s against God.”

8/11/20. During a radio interview: “China will own the United States if this election is lost by Donald Trump…If I don’t win the election… you’re going to have to learn to speak Chinese, you want to know the truth.”

8/21/20. Trump speaks to a conservative group in Virginia: “The more success that we’ve achieved, the more unhinged the radical left has become. Anarchists and violent mobs have rioted in our Democrat-run cities, attacking police and tearing down statues. I’m the only thing standing between the American dream and total anarchy, madness, and chaos, and that’s what it is.”

9/2/20. Trump encourages voters to break federal law by voting twice: by mail and then in person. “Let them send it in and let them go vote, and if their system’s as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote.”

9/15/20. During an ABC News town hall, on the subject of Covid, Trump mangles the term “herd immunity”: “You’ll develop, you’ll develop herd — like a herd mentality. It’s going to be, it’s going to be herd-developed, and that’s going to happen.”

9/17/20. Olivia Troye, Vice President Pence’s former homeland security adviser, recalls Trump saying during a meeting: “Maybe this Covid thing is a good thing. I don’t like shaking hands with people. I don’t have to shake hands with these disgusting people.”

3/6/22. In a speech to Republican donors, Trump suggests the Air Force might paint the Chinese flag on U.S. F-22s and then “bomb the shit out” out of Russia. “And then we say, China did it, we didn’t do, China did it, and then they start fighting with each other and we sit back and watch.”

11//23. Here are some remarks Trump has made while campaigning for the 2024 election: He promised to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” He called for shoplifters to be shot. He said migrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.” During a Univision interview: “If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business. They’d be out of the election.” And this, on his plans after he wins in 2024: “And then after that, we’ll go for another four years because they spied on my campaign. We should get a redo of four years.” (Unconstitutional, to say the least.)