77 Crazy Things Donald Trump Did Last Week
Photo courtesy of Getty
We have a duty to hold the White House accountable. I’m just trying to make it easy. It’s still hard. Sorry.
1. UPDATE: President Donald J. Trump has not removed the DONALD J. TRUMP STATEMENT ON PREVENTING MUSLIM IMMIGRATION from his campaign website.
2. Trump tweeted that he won’t attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner this year. The last president to miss the annual event was Ronald Reagan, who skipped out because he was recovering from an assassination attempt. Trump, on the other hand, is attempting character assassination.
3. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Navy, Phillip Bilden, withdrew his name from consideration, citing what would be a “materially adverse divestment” if he resolved his financial conflicts of interest. Trump withdrawals to date: Secretary of the Navy (COI), Secretary of the Army (COI), Secretary of Labor (domestic abuse revealed on Oprah), and National Security Adviser (ongoing investigation into treason).
4. But when a journalist reported a week earlier that sources said Bilden would be withdrawing, Old Spice dismissed it: “Those people would be wrong.” Interesting to note, though, is that Old Spice said Bilden was “100% committed.”
5. After Secretary of Labor nominee Andrew Puzder withdrew from consideration, other nominees expressed that the White House hasn’t been doing enough to protect them.
6. Jeff Sessions reversed (not will reverse; reversed) an Obama process to ultimately end the use of private for-profit prisons. Sessions said we need more for-profit prisons for, ominously, “future needs of the federal correctional system.” Eep.
7. Trump is going to go after recreational marijuana. Here I’d like to darkly refer you to Mr. Session’s above statement.
8. The father of US Navy SEAL William Ryan Owens (the soldier killed in the failed Yemen raid the weekend Mr. Trump rolled out the travel ban) revealed that he had refused to meet Mr. Trump when his son’s body arrived at Dover. He demands investigation into the raid and chastised the administration for saying an investigation would dishonor Owens: “Don’t hide behind my son’s death.”
9. Spicey dodged a question about the rise of anti-Muslim hate groups in the US, deflecting the subject, as Trump did in a town hall presidential debate last fall, to an incoherent statement on why we need to fight “radical Islamic terrorism.” The Trump administration has ties to several listed anti-Muslim hate groups.
10. One of those groups is “Act for America.” During a chapter meeting in North Carolina one of the members asked if “we” could “kill them all yet.” Read all about it. Frightening.
11. A leaked draft of Trump’s budget proposal calls for a huge increase in military spending and dramatic, some say crippling, cuts to the EPA. Economic growth is projected to be 2.4%, not the 3% Trump promised over and over again. The report was sourced to four (FOUR) senior accounting officers in the administration.
12. Mr. Trump’s federal hiring freeze forced the Army to shut down daycare programs. Mr. Trump enacted the sensible order while on his third straight weekend getaway at Mar-a-Lago, a resort the President of the United States, a self-professed billionaire who pays no taxes to the country he’s now running, still owns and from which he hasn’t divested.
13. One of Mr. Trump’s companies apparently applied for trademark protection in the Philippines over a month after he was elected.
14. Mr. Trump is prepared to reverse Obama’s EPA executive orders. Mr. Trump will reportedly lift a ban on new coal mining leases on federal lands and instruct the EPA to make changes to regulations curbing greenhouse gas emissions and electric utilities.
15. Trump visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture with Ben Carson and Omarosa Manigault. He spoke a few words under a statue of Thomas Jefferson, slaveholder and author of the Declaration of Independence, who covered up his “relationship” with his slave Sally Hemmings, who bore their children.
16. During Mr. Trump’s CPAC speech the crowd waved Russian flags with “TRUMP” emblazoned in gold. It was a prank.
17. Mr. Trump is revoking transgender student rights, such as the freedom to use the bathroom according with their gender.
18. Spicer says there was in fact no White House infighting over the transgender bathroom law, even though several sources contradict him and he’s literally a professional liar.
19. A transgender high schooler is planning to take Trump to the Supreme Court.
20. Jackie Evancho, who sang the National Anthem at Trump’s inauguration, asked for the chance to talk about his transgender policies.
21. At CPAC conference, the chairperson denounced the alt-right as “left-wing” fascists. This puzzled the audience. Richard Spencer walked out, though, so I guess it was the right thing to say.
22. Kellyanne Conway called feminism “heavily anti-male” and “pro-abortion.”
23. Law professors filed a misconduct complaint against Kellyanne Conway, their colleague, student, and classmate.
24. The White House benched Kellyanne Conway from doing press.
25. In a press briefing, Sean Spicer bemoaned “the delays, the tearing up of their personal lives…dragging these people through an arduous, delayed process purely for political points, isn’t right.” He wasn’t referring to deportations or the travel ban or the Republicans’ sworn obstructionist policy to say “no” to anything Obama proposed. He was referring to the Democrats pushing back on Trump’s Cabinet nominations.
26. Trump’s noble new deportation order substantially broadens the target base for ICE and Border Patrol.
27. Trump called the massive ICE deportations a “military operation.” Spicer said Trump was using it as “an adjective.”
28. ICE officials arrested a 26-year-old woman with a brain tumor. (Some, I assume are good people.)
29. ICE officials arrested a victim of domestic abuse in the Texas courthouse where she was arguing her case. The agents acted on a tip from her abuser. (Some, I assume are good people.)
30. Customs agents at JFK airport checked each passenger’s ID on a domestic flight from San Francisco.
31. But the Border Patrol said those agents were looking for a single suspect whom a judge had identified for deportation. That person wasn’t on the flight. Passengers said the search didn’t seem so narrow.
32. A court in the United Kingdom ruled that an income test for accepting immigrants would be legal. Mr. Trump’s travel ban suggests the same policy.
33. Mr. Trump now has three generals advising him. This is the most in presidential history.
34. The White House categorically rejected an official DHS intelligence report that said the seven countries targeted in the travel ban don’t pose a real threat to the United States. Intelligence officers fear Trump is “politicizing intelligence” and blindly jeopardizing national security.
35. Trump actually appointed a competent person with sound ethics, General H.R. McMaster, as his new NSA director. General McMaster has spoken out against the military-industrial complex and urges not to call jihadism “radical Islamic terrorism” because a) it perverts Islam; b) feeds into the Islamic State’s narrative that the West is at war with Islam; and c) plays to the narrative of extremists in the US that the West is at war with Islam.
36. In Kansas, a man shot two Indian engineers in a bar, killing one, after screaming “get out of my country.” Spicer said that to link the shooting to Trump’s rhetoric would be “absurd.”
37. Florida Senator and erstwhile Republican Presidential candidate Marco Rubio won’t take town halls because he doesn’t want to face an angry opposition. He’s afraid they’ll “scream and heckle.”
38. A constituent thoroughly dressed down Sen. Mitch McConnell at a town hall about healthcare and Trumpism in general, but he didn’t respond.
39. Mr. Trump tweeted that “The so-called angry crowds in home districts of some Republicans are actually, in numerous cases, planned out by liberal activists. Sad!” Liberal activists who want to plan out town hall gatherings can visit Crooked Media’s Resistance Recess page to learn more.
40. Mr. Trump gave an angry, desultory, and often incoherent speech at CPAC. Here is the full video and here is the full transcript.
41. Mr. Trump’s CPAC speech was riddled with falsehoods. He continued his war on the “media,” saying, for instance, they “make up sources,” pointing to one story that cited nine sources as evidence to support their claim, without providing evidence to support his own claim beyond his own incredulity. That story was The Washington Post report on General Michael Flynn, a report the White House confirmed led to Flynn’s resignation three days later. Here is a fact check.
42. Mr. Trump’s CPAC audience chanted “lock her up” during the speech.
43. Following Mr. Trump’s CPAC speech, Sean Spicer canceled Friday’s press briefing and then held a press “gaggle,” but barred the failing New York Slimes, Bullitico, the Clinton News Network and the Los Angeles Crimes from attending. Breitbart and Fox were selected to attend, along with the major networks (e.g., NBC, CBS), which the White House couldn’t afford the PR of blocking. AP and Time walked out in protest.
44. Later that day, Old Spice called the White House communications staff into a room for a surprise phone check, in the interest of rooting out leaks. Spicer told them not to leak the meeting. It leaked.
45. A State Department memo warning of the dangers of leaks leaked.
46.The White House seems to have scrubbed all of its open data.
47. President George W. Bush said of the Trump administration’s war on the media that “power can be very addictive” and it’s “important to hold people accountable.”
48. Mr. Trump said he can’t find a country we have a trade surplus with. There are several. The largest is Hong Kong. For the record, a trade deficit indicates, among other things, that foreign investment in the US is strong.
49. Millions of people will lose coverage under the new healthcare plan. Trump met Feb. 27 with heads of insurance companies to discuss the plan.
50. Support for Obamacare is at an all-time high, according to Pew research. Perhaps it’s because 35% of Americans didn’t know that Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act were the same thing.
51. Mr. Trump’s campaign staff said that leaving Mr. Trump alone for too long “could be damaging because he watches too much TV.” They tried to flatter him so he’d stay off Twitter, and resorted to colluding with conservative media to plant favorable coverage so he could feel better about himself—but, but… Donna Brazile!
52. Alex Jones, whose batshit crazy conspiracy-theory media outlet Infowars now has White House press credentials and who believes Sandy Hook “may” have happened, said Trump “still calls him for advice.”
53. Joe Scarborough, host of Morning Joe, one of the shows Mr. Trump watches habitually, told Stephen Colbert that Mr. Trump’s actions over his first month make it hard to call him Mr. President.
54. Mr. Trump, when forced to speak out against the wave of anti-Semitism that followed his election said, forcefully, it “has to stop.”
55. The Anne Frank Center called Mr. Trump’s delayed statement on the recent increase of anti-Semitic sentiment and attacks “a pathetic asterisk of condescension” and asked “What universe are these people living in?”
56. Here’s a history of Mr. Trump’s racism.
57. White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon sent a clarifying EU-skeptic message ahead of VP Mike Pence’s visit. Pence gave damage-control speeches to help reconcile the US with the bloc of our allies.
58. Bipartisan members of congress asked Trump to curb his war powers.
59. Two-thirds of Americans are worried Trump will get us involved in a major war.
60. For-profit universities, such as the now-defunct Trump University, will have a new lease on life under Education Secretary Betsy De Vos.
61. An annual study of the school voucher system described the system’s current performance as the worst “in history of the field.”
62. Iowa State Senator Mark Chelgren (R, Ottumwa, “City of Bridges”) proposed a bill that would implement affirmative action for college faculty based on party affiliation. Presumably the legislation, which would mandate a less-than ten percent spread between parties, is designed to increase Republican representation, but it’s unclear where third-party and unregistered faculty would fit in. Also, you sound drunk when you say Chelgren’s name.
63. Mr. Trump tweeted that he likes DNC chair nominee Keith Ellison—a Muslim—because Ellison predicted Trump would win.
64. Then Mr. Trump tweeted the Republican party was happy the DNC elected Tom Perez as their chairperson.
65. Then Mr. Trump tweeted the DNC election was rigged against Ellison and that “Clinton demanded Perez!”
66. Trump has lied every day of his presidency.
67. A dump of Scott Pruitt’s emails showed that, while attorney general of the great state of Oklahoma, he colluded with energy companies to roll back Obama regulations. The Senate confirmed Mr. Pruitt to head the EPA the day before the emails were published. Most of the emails had been published previously by the failing New York Whines.
68. The public health committee in the legislature of the great state of Oklahoma passed a bill that would require a man’s signature for an abortion.
69. Charles Schumer predicts the GOP will split from Trump “in months.”
70. Mr. Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen was reported to have met in secret with a pro-Russia government representative from Ukraine to discuss a pro-Russia peace deal. He delivered it to Flynn the weekend after his conversations with the Russian Ambassador about lifting sanctions were revealed. Cohen denied it, then backtracked, meaning that the meeting happened.
71. Politico reported that former Trump campaign manager and prominent figure in the Steele dossier Paul Manafort received blackmail messages from a Ukrainian government figure in August just before the “black money” ledger was published and Manafort resigned.
72. An investigation into the sudden death of Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin is expected to take weeks. Six Russian diplomatic officials have died since November.
73. An Arizona sheriff met the Russian Foreign Minister in Moscow and posted a picture of it.
74. Trump said he wants to expand the US nuclear arsenal and make it “top of the pack.” Obama made nuclear arms reduction a cornerstone of foreign policy. The US and Russia each have about 7,000 nuclear warheads (about 2,000 are on high alert right now), enough to wipe out human civilization several times over. Missiles would launch within four minutes of Trump’s command.
75. Susan Collins (R – Maine) called for General Flynn to testify before Congress, which could possibly offer an opening to subpoena Trump’s taxes.
76. US Senators fear the White House will try to delete the Trump campaign’s communications with Russia.
77. The White House asked the FBI and “other agencies” to publicly push back on stories from the Clinton News Network and the failing New York Slimes about allegations of the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia. Those stories cited multiple anonymous senior current and former government officials. When the agencies did their legal duty and refused to comment, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus took to the air to denounce the stories himself, assuring the public that Comey said it was okay. Priebus’s characterization of the reporting varied between “overstated” and “complete garbage.”
In point of fact, six (SIX) US intelligence agencies, including the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Unit, have been investigating the Trump campaign’s communications with Russia since Spring 2016. These investigations aren’t based on the slowly-being-substantiated Golden Memo dossier but on communications the CIA intercepted independently. Foreign intelligence agencies are also investigating the case, as are several banks in the US and abroad. Deutsche Bank, is investigating Trump himself, who owes the bank billions in debt.