Here Are Twenty Other Disturbing Awful Things That Trump Has Said This Month And Its Not Over Yet
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We already knew that this falls campaign, with Donald Trump fighting for his political survival, would be crazy, overwhelming, and exhausting. But, no matter how much weve come to expect the worst, its still a shock when it happens. At least it should be. On Wednesday, Trump was asked what should have been a simple question: Do you commit to a peaceful transfer of power? There is only one answer to this question in America. The answer is yes. But not for Trump. Well, were gonna have to see what happens, he responded. You know that Ive been complaining very strongly about the ballots. And the ballots are a disaster. Further pressed, he added, Well want to haveget rid of the ballots and youll have a verywell have a very peaceful . . . There wont be a transfer, frankly. Therell be a continuation.
So, yes, the prospect of the upcoming election shouldand doesinspire dread. But so does the prospect of what tomorrow might bring from the Presidentand the next day, and the day after that. The election is still forty days from now. How will we get through the rest of this week? This month? Consider that the following are things that Trump has done in the course of this long, enervating, and not-yet-over September, every single one worthy of front-page scandal, of career-ending political damage for an American elected official:
Retracting Plans To Count Lgbt People In The Census
Last year, the Trump administration retracted a proposal to collect demographic information on LGBT people in the 2020 Census. Critics say that not asking citizens about their sexual orientation and gender identity like other characteristics undermines the governments ability to craft policies that serve LGBT peoples health, safety, and other needs. The Department of Health and Human Services, meanwhile, has also said that a survey of older Americans would no longer collect information on LGBT people.
When He Oversaw The Longest Government Shutdown In Us History
Between December 22 2018 and January 25 2019 almost nothing happened in the US government due to the longest shutdown in United States history.
The reason for this? Because Republicans and Democrats failed to agree on the federal budget, mostly over disputes about Trumps immigration policy and his border wall, which still hasnt been completed.
To show you how hypocritical this whole situation was here is a Trump tweet from less than 12 months before complaining about how bad a shutdown would be for the military:
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Love For Authoritarian Leaders Like Erdogan
If a perennial U.S. policy goal is to spread democracy around the world, it seems Trump has undermined that by his gushing support for autocratic and authoritarian leaders, like Turkey’s President Erdoan. Trump was the first foreign leader to call Erdoan congratulating him following a contentious referendum that cements his power in Turkey.
When He Appointed Jeff Sessions Attorney General
Donald Trump might be slamming Jeff Sessions now but when he appointed him his first official attorney general, he seemed like a big fan.
Which was despite large protests against giving Sessions the role, thanks to his past record, which included opposition to LGBTQ rights and protecting voting rights for marginalised groups.
While in office, Sessions immediately began undercutting federal rights for LGBTQ people, especially trans individuals.
Did Trump care, before or after? Absolutely not.
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When He Refused To Release His Tax Returns
Trump had 5 years to show us his Tax Returns. The New York AG has to force him to do it. What is he HIDING? Show us https://t.co/UmjebxrQTj Peter Morley 1600014735
From the very beginning, Trump refused to drop his taxes. Why? We can only guess. But former lawyer Michael Cohen suggested it might be for a very Trumpian reason.
He doesnt report the income he claims, Cohen claimed during an interview to promote his book, Disloyal.
His wealth is not as significant, and I imagine they were probably lenient in how they took deductions.
He also said releasing the tax returns might throw up more problems for Trump.
His biggest fear is, if that tax return was released, theres a whole slew of accountants and forensic accountants that will rip through it and he will end up with a massive tax bill, penalties, fines, and possibly even tax fraud, Cohen added.
When He Tweeted That The Fbi Had Failed To Capture The Parkland School Shooter Because They Were Spending Too Much Time On Russia
Trumps failure to tackle gun violence in the US is almost as bad as his inability to accept responsibility for anything and point the finger elsewhere.
In the aftermath of the Parkland school shooting in Florida in February 2018, Trump attempted to blame the FBI for the massacre, claiming that they were spending too much time investigating his alleged collusion with Russia.
At a time when his people needed him the most, he opted to look the other way. Shameless.
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When He Sprayed Black Lives Matter Protesters With Tear Gas So He Could Attend A Photo Op
As the Black Lives Matter protests escalated across the United States following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers, Trump decided to show no compassion or words of solace or peace.
Instead, he order the military to hit protesters outside of the White House with tear gas just so he could walk a few metres across the street and hold up a bible outside of a church for a shameless photo op, a stunt which left the churches resident distraught.
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Why did Trump do this? According to CNN, it was because he was upset for being mocked for being rushed into a bunker by the secret service after riots broke out near the White House.
Failure: The Us Economy
Trump often took credit for the robust US economy before the pandemic, ignoring that much of the growth began during the Obama administration.
The US faced one of the worst economic crises in its history under Trump, which was intrinsically linked to his disastrous response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Coronavirus lockdowns in early 2020 and reduced consumer spending led to tens of millions of job losses as whole segments of the economy sputtered. The economy has since begun adding back jobs, but is far from a full recovery as the US struggles to contain the coronavirus and Biden takes over.
Roughly 22 million jobs were lost from February to April. Though nearly half of those jobs have been recovered, the unemployment rate is still at 7.9% . The pre-pandemic unemployment rate was 3.4%.
As Trump left office, the US national debt was at the highest levels since World War II. And US economic growth was set to average just above 0% for Trump’s first term because of the pandemic recession, according to The Washington Post.
Though the economy is still far from recovered, Trump also failed to bring Congress together to pass a second coronavirus stimulus package prior to Election Day as Americans across the country struggled to cover rent and other bills. The GOP-controlled Senate instead prioritized confirming Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, essentially placing the economy and the livelihoods of Americans on the back-burner.
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When He Cut Corporate Tax To Its Lowest Rate Since 1939
If you are interested in things like corporate tax then you might not be surprised to learn that Trump has opted to favour the biggest companies in the world rather than the everyday blue-collar worker that he pretends to appeal to.
On December 22 2017 he signed in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which reduced taxes to somewhere between 35 and 21 per cent, reportedly the lowest the rate had been since 1939.
Trump even falsely bragged about this being the biggest tax cut in history, saying in We have the biggest tax cut in history, bigger than the Reagan tax cut. Bigger than any tax cut. It was actually only the eighth biggest in US history.
Regardless, under Trump, the rich get richer and the poor stay the same.
How Are His Approval Ratings
Despite a bitter presidential race, Mr Biden began his term with 56% of the country approving of his performance, according to RealClearPolitics, and having won more than 80 million votes – more than any other president.
But in his first year, he has had a startling slide in fortunes.
His star began to fall at the time of a widely criticised withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and as the Delta variant advanced.
Since then, his approval ratings have fallen further as he has struggled to deliver on his biggest campaign promises to tame the pandemic and restore prosperity for working families.
Compared with other recent presidents, only Donald Trump has had a more disappointing first year – his approval rating fell from 45% on his inauguration day to 35% a year later, according to historical trends by Gallup.
Mr Biden’s former boss, Barack Obama, began at a high of nearly 70% when he took office and ended close to 50% a year later. George W Bush began his first term in a similar position to Mr Biden, with approval around 60%, but that rose to nearly 90% after 9/11.
Anthony Zurcher: It’s hard to say that the honeymoon is over for Joe Biden because he never really had one. His ratings started modestly positive, without the kind of big inaugural bump most presidents receive. Now his numbers are in the danger zone for first-term presidents hoping to win re-election – a reflection of near universal Republican dislike and a majority of independents who are souring on him.
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He Claimed A Judge Was Biased Because Hes A Mexican
In May, Trump implied that Gonzalo Curiel, the federal judge presiding over a class action against the for-profit Trump University, could not fairly hear the case because of his Mexican heritage.
Hes a Mexican, Trump told CNN of Curiel. Were building a wall between here and Mexico. The answer is, he is giving us very unfair rulings rulings that people cant even believe.
Curiel, it should be noted, is an American citizen who was born in Indiana. And as a prosecutor in the late 1990s, he went after Mexican drug cartels, making him a target for assassination by a Tijuana drug lord.
Even members of Trumps own party slammed the racist remarks.
Claiming a person cant do their job because of their race is sort of like the , House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a reaction to Trumps comments, though he clarified that he still endorses the nominee.
The comments against Curiel didnt sit well with the American public either. According to a YouGov poll released in June, 51 percent of those surveyed agreed that Trumps comments were not only wrong, but also racist.Fifty-seven percent of Americans think Trump was wrong to complain against the judge, while just 20 percent think he was right to do so.
When asked whether he would trust a Muslim judge, in light of his proposed restrictions on Muslim immigration, Trump suggested that such a judge might not be fair to him either.
Nobody Could Have Ever Seen Something Like This Coming
On March 25, Trump framed the pandemic as a completely unexpected problem nobody could have prepared for. Hes done this many, many times.
Many experts did see this coming.
The problem is hes using that kind of information to justify, in some way or explain, the incompetencies of what this administration has been doing, or not doing, in preparation for something that we knew was coming, Dr. Irwin Redlener, director Of Columbia Universitys National Center For Disaster Preparedness, told MSNBC on Thursday.
The president did not cause this virus to develop, he conceded. But Trumps response to the pandemic, including claiming it was unforeseeable even as it ravaged Italy, is leading the country in the wrong direction with misinformation that has been extremely destructive to our efforts to combat this calamity that we have on our doorstep.
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Using Nonprofit Funds To Enrich Himself
In 2018, the New York State attorney general Barbara Underwood said that Trump broke a law by enriching himself with nonprofit funding. The Donald J. Trump Foundation had its funding used for both personal and political gain.
The filing states, private foundations cannot use their funds for the personal or business benefit of their directors, and they cannot engage in political activities.
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When He Separated Migrant Children From Their Parents
Of the many scandalous things that Trump has done in his presidency, the separation of children from their parents at his controversial detention facilities at the US/Mexico border was probably the worst.
Evidence had emerged of migrant children literally being placed in cages at the facility, something which Trump tried to blame Barack Obama for. In June 2019, Trump official Marsha Brown even tried to argue that said children didnt need to be safe and sanitary.
A Trump official tried to argue that detained children dont need soap, toothbrushes, or beds to be safe and sanit https://t.co/eecN9kDitd NowThis 1561145035
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Failure: Family Separations And The Deaths Of Migrant Children
Trump in 2016 campaigned on reducing undocumented immigration, pledging to take a hardline approach.
He made good on that promise when coming into office, but was accused of human-rights abuses and violating international law by the UN.
The Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy on illegal border crossings led to the separations of at least 5,500 families and saw children placed in cages.
The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics at the time described the practice as “nothing less than government-sanctioned child abuse.”
After widespread backlash, Trump issued an executive order in June 2018 to halt the family separations, and a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reunite all those it had separated. But the fallout from the separations is ongoing.
Trump falsely blamed his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, for the policy that saw thousands of children separated from their parents.
At least six migrant children died in US custody, leading to widespread condemnation of conditions in detention facilities.
The UN human-rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, in July 2019 said she was “shocked” by the US government’s treatment of migrant children and the conditions they faced in detention facilities after crossing the border from Mexico.
When He Nominated A Climate Change Sceptic To Chair The Committee Advising The White House On Environmental Policy
We cant say that Donald Trump doesnt take climate change seriously but we can say that he withdrew from global commitments to tackle the issue, once tweeted about needing a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming!, and nominated climate change sceptic Kathleen Hartnett White to be his top environmental advisor.
So, you do the math.
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Failure: Replacing The Affordable Care Act
The late GOP Sen. John McCain’s iconic “thumbs-down” vote denied Trump a full congressional repeal of former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.
But Trump did have success in dismantling parts of the law. His tax bill included a rollback of the tax penalty for those who did not enroll in healthcare.
Trump never offered a replacement for the Affordable Care Act. As a candidate Trump promised “insurance for everybody” and a more immediate replacement to the nearly decade-old ACA. But he didn’t deliver on that as president.
When He Imposed A Muslim Travel Ban
The court asked why we call it a Muslim ban when some Muslim-majority countries arent included.
The answer: Trump has assured us since he was first campaigning that he wants to ban Muslims, and it affects millions of people in countries that are 95% Muslim.
ACLU
In 2017 Trump signed an executive order that temporarily suspended immigration to the US for all citizens of seven Muslim majority countries for 90 days. Citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen suddenly found themselves unable to enter America. Massive protests immediately took place as a response with courts eventually finding the ban unlawful and overturning it.
That didnt stop Trump though he issued a new ban in 2018 that instead restricted how many visas could be issued to applicants from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, along with Venezuela and North Korea.
This ban was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court. And in February it was expanded to cover citizens from Nigeria, Eritrea, Tanzania, Sudan, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar.
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Trump’s Record Of Hate
Since Trump was sworn into office, our nations federal courts have halted his draconian and illegal executive actions from being implemented, while millions of people across the country have become more politically engaged, standing up against hate and bigotry.
But Trump is a bully and so is his administration. He will do everything in his power to tear back the progress made under former President Obama, including rolling back and undermining laws that help the LGBTQ+ community and other minority groups.
HRC will continue to stand up against Trump. We will join other civil rights organizations and remain vigilant in holding Trump and his administration accountable at every turn.
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