Donald Trump
God, guns, and freedom U.S. Politics |
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Starting arguments over Thanksgiving dinner |
Persons of interest |
“”A work of fiction such as "Donald Trump, successful businessman" cannot be shamed because it feels no sense of responsibility for the real world. A work of fiction responds to revelation by demanding more. As a candidate, Trump did just this, calling on Moscow to keep searching and exposing.
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—Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom, 2018.[1]:232-233 |
Donald John Trump (1946–), is an American ultranationalist[2] and fascist[3][4] politician, businessman, and media personality who is unfortunately the 47th President of the United States. He was also previously the 45th president from 2017 to 2021. He is an adjudicated liar,[5] adjudicated rapist,[6] and the first convicted felon to win a US presidential election.[7]
Born to a wealthy family in New York, he became chairman of The Trump Organization, his family's real estate business, in 1971. During this time, Trump associated with right-wing lawyer Roy Cohn, who taught Trump a set of simple tactics: always attack, always counterattack, and never apologize or admit wrongdoing.[8] During Trump's time in the casino business, he managed to drive no less than six businesses into bankruptcy[9] by structuring those businesses to pay him millions while screwing investors and leaving them to pay the price for his failures.[10] From 2004 to 2015, he played a fictionalized version of himself as the host and co-producer of The Apprentice, a reality television show. The Apprentice turned Trump into a national celebrity, but Trump also used it to hone skills that he would later use as a politician: speaking bluntly and simply, throwing enemies off balance by insulting them, and keeping audiences watching.[11]
After many years of hinting at it, Trump finally entered politics during the 2016 presidential election. By running a populist and xenophobic outsider campaign, Trump hijacked the Republican Party and threw the race into chaos. His willingness to acknowledge and exploit white racial resentment[12][13] while promising to "Make America Great Again" differentiated himself from the failed Republican establishment and swept him to an unexpected victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton. After that, "President Trump" went from a joke to a nightmare.
Trump's first term as president was defined by ugliness, stupidity, and relatively little else. His administration tried to deter undocumented immigration by separating children from their families at the US-Mexico border, rolled back environmental and business regulations while denying the reality of climate change, doubled down on trickle-down economics by cutting taxes for the richest Americans, undermined the NATO alliance, inflamed racial tensions during the Black Lives Matter protests, and cozied up to dictators like Vladimir Putin of Russia and Kim Jong-Un of North Korea. In 2019, the House of Representatives impeached Trump for abuse of power. He also botched the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic by downplaying its severity, undermining the efforts of public health officials, and lying constantly, leading to the deaths of 400,000 people in the final year of his first term.
When he justly and predictably lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, Trump launched a prolonged and concerted effort to overturn the will of the people, culminating in a violent attack on the US Capitol aimed at halting the transfer of power. Trump was then impeached for inciting the Capitol attack in 2021, becoming the first president in US history to be impeached twice. After leaving office, the 2021 C-SPAN "Presidential Historians Survey" rated Trump as one of the worst presidents in US history (rank 41 of 45).[14]
Once he was no longer president, legal problems from Trump's lifetime of malfeasance started to pile up. Multiple states indicted him for election interference, the FBI discovered classified documents he had improperly handled while raiding his private residence, and a New York jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation. In 2024, another New York jury convicted him for falsifying business records to conceal his sexual affair with porn star Stormy Daniels, making him a convicted felon. These charges only caused his popularity to rebound, as Republicans rallied around him against what they perceived as politically-motivated persecution.[15] Trump went on to win the 2024 presidential election due to a poor economy, multiple crises domestically and abroad, and various failures from the Democratic Party. He began his second term by pardoning the roughly 1,500 criminals who attacked the Capitol, implementing a mass deportation scheme, expressing hostility towards Canada and Denmark, and supporting Vladimir Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine.
Trump's political movement combined a justified loathing for the political establishment with inflammatory rhetoric, nationalism, fervent denials of reality, opposition to globalization and political correctness, and Trump's own brand of strange charisma. This phenomenon is called Trumpism, an American variant of fascism adapted for the Internet age.[16][17][18][19]
Trump's brand of politics is also known for his outright embrace of racism and sexism,[20] his unprecedented promotion of conspiracy theories,[21] and the worrisome cult of personality which has formed around him. On numerous occasions, Trump has supported and advocated for political violence.[22] Due to Trump's penchant for social media, his massive platform, and his disdain for the truth, he has told a truly astonishing number of demonstrable and deliberate lies.[23]
Early life and career[edit]
“”There are two Trumps. The one he presents to the world is all bluster, bullying and certainty. The other, which I have long felt haunts his inner world, is the frightened child of a relentlessly critical and bullying father and a distant and disengaged mother who couldn’t or wouldn’t protect him... Fear is the hidden through-line in Trump’s life – fear of weakness, of inadequacy, of failure, of criticism and of insignificance. He has spent his life trying to outrun these fears by "winning" – as he puts it – and by redefining reality whenever the facts don't serve the narrative he seeks to create.
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—Tony Schwartz, ghostwriter of The Art of the Deal, 2018.[24] |
Benefiting from his rich father[edit]
Donald Trump's father, Fred Trump was a wealthy real-estate developer based in New York City. Just to give you an idea of what kind of guy he was, Fred Trump was arrested in 1927 for refusing to comply with a dispersal order during a riot instigated by the Ku Klux Klan and fascist sympathizers.[25] Donnie's mother Mary was rarely around, and his older brother Fred Jr. had little interest in the family business and then died young.[26] This left young Donald at the mercy of his father, who was by all accounts a cold and controlling man who expected stoicism and obedience from his family.[27]
While Trump repeatedly claimed that he received a "small" loan of a million dollars from his father,[28] the real amount was much, much more. Fred Trump set up a sham company, transferred it to his children, and used it to pay them over $1 billion.[29] Trump had a income of $200,000 per year (in 2018 dollars) by the time he was three years old, amounting to about $413 million in total (also in 2018 dollars).[29] Thanks to Fred Trump's scheme using the sham company, Donald Trump only paid 5% of the taxes he should have on this amount.[29] By the time he was eight years old, Trump was a millionaire in today's money.[30]:30-31 Some small loan!
Donald benefited from his father in other ways, as well. During the Vietnam War, Trump received a medical deferment due to a letter from his doctor claiming that he had bone spurs.[31] The doctor had actually written that letter as a "favor" to Fred Trump, according to the doctor's daughters.[32][33]
Education[edit]
In 1968, Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, a prestigious business school. While Trump repeatedly claimed to have graduated "at the top of his class", Trump graduated without honors, meaning that his GPA at the time had to have been less than a 3.40, or else he was sanctioned for some kind of misconduct.[34] Much is unknown about Trump's time at Wharton due to the school's determined silence on all matters regarding its most famous alumnus.[35] The facts that are known, unsurprisingly, don't look so good for Trump.
Wharton's admissions officer at the time, James Nolan, was a close personal friend of Trump's older brother Fred Jr., and he received a phone call from Fred Jr. asking him to consider Donald Trump's application to transfer to the university.[36][37] Upon request, Nolan interviewed Donald with his father Fred Sr. also present.[37] Nolan later recalled that, "I certainly was not struck by any sense that I’m sitting before a genius," and noted that Wharton had a very forgiving 40% acceptance rate for admissions.[37] This is another part of the mythos Trump has built around himself; he repeatedly boasted that Wharton was "one of the hardest schools to get into in the country."[35]
One of Trump's professors, William T. Kelley, famously described Trump as "the dumbest goddamn student I ever had."[38] According to people who knew him at the time, Trump came to the university thinking he already knew everything he needed to know, and he was also self-centered and self-aggrandizing.[35] According to testimony before Congress, Trump instructed his lawyer to send a letter to Pennsylvania State during his 2016 presidential campaign threatening legal action should they ever release his grades.[39] Trump is clearly determined to keep his exact Wharton GPA secret.
Housing segregation[edit]
Fred Trump's real estate business, Trump Management, enforced racial segregation at its properties by turning away any applications from Black Americans.[40] Donald Trump was extensively involved in Trump Management at this time, as Fred was raising Trump to take over the business when he was older. In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed landmark legislation banning housing discrimination on the basis of race,[41] but Trump Management kept applying its segregation policies.[40]
In 1973, the federal government sued both Fred and Donald for civil rights violations, having received evidence that the Trumps were refusing to rent to Black people.[42] Testimony during trial showed that applicants filed by Black apartment-seekers would be marked with "C", meaning "colored."[43] The Trumps accused the government of defamation and counter-sued them for $100 million, and they also filed a a contempt-of-court charge against one of the prosecutors accusing her of "Gestapo-like interrogation."[40] The counter-suit and the contempt-of-court charge were both dismissed,[40] and Trump Management eventually settled the civil rights case without having to admit guilt, with the requirement that the company implement policies to prevent racial discrimination.[44]
This wasn't the end. In 1978, the Justice Department noted that, "an underlying pattern of discrimination continues to exist in the Trump Management organization."[40] While Trump Management was now renting to Black Americans, it confined Black renters to a small number of complexes which were poorly-maintained and sometimes dangerous.[40] Unfortunately, the government failed to press a new case before the agreement from the first case expired, and the Justice Department simply dropped the case in 1982.[40] As you'll see again and again, Donald Trump was extremely good at getting away with shit.
Scummy businessman[edit]
“”In the next 10 years, [Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts] loses money every year, every single year, and he takes out $44 million in compensation during that period. In 1995, when he offered this company, if a monkey had thrown a dart at the stock page, the monkey on average would've made 150 percent. But the people that believed in him, who listened to his siren song, ended up losing well over 90 cents on the dollar. They got back less than a dime.
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—Billionaire Warren Buffett![]() |
In 1971, Trump took over the family real estate business, renaming it to The Trump Organization in 1973.[46] His early activities focused on expanding the business beyond Manhattan and New York City, and many of his ventures involved some degree of scumminess. Something to keep in mind: Trump was (and is) fond of forcing people into silence with non-disclosure agreements,[47] and the shittiness described below is based only on the information that is publicly available. Trump almost certainly did a lot of things we don't know about.
Alliance with Roy Cohn[edit]
One of Trump's defining relationships was that with his lawyer, Roy Cohn, who had previously served as the right-hand for Joseph McCarthy and various mafia bosses.[48] Cohn is the man who organized and filed Trump's $100 million counter-suit against the government during their racial discrimination case, during which Trump gave a fiery press conference slamming the government for trying to make the Trumps rent to "welfare recipients."[49]
Cohn was an all-around nasty character. He was a gay man who helped the government persecute other gay men, he delighted in using legal threats to silence the enemies of his clients, and he was eventually disbarred for defrauding his clients.[50] Cohn's aggression and lack of morals endeared him to Trump, who has compared all of his other lawyers to Cohn.[51] Cohn also famously taught Trump the three tactics he has followed all his life: always attack, always counterattack, and never apologize or admit wrongdoing.[8] In short, Trump's relationship with Roy Cohn explains a hell of a lot about how Trump behaved as a politician and president.
Criminal connections[edit]
Another service provided by Roy Cohn: putting Trump in connection with mafia figures like Genovese crime boss Anthony Salerno.[52] Trump spent decades working with top mobsters, organized crime associates, and corrupt union leaders during his time in the real estate business.[52] Trump learned their tactics. He gave generous campaign donations to New York politicians in exchange for favors, spreading the payments across various shell companies to circumvent campaign finance limitations.[53] During the construction of Trump's signature project, Trump Tower in Manhattan, he sought out and employed undocumented workers from Poland through a contractor so he could work them in 12-hour shifts with low wages and few safety measures.[54] He threatened to have them deported if they complained. The Poles were also non-union workers, but none of Trump's union workers went on strike because Trump paid the mob bosses who controlled the local construction union.[52] Trump quietly settled the resultant class-action lawsuit for $1.4 million in 1998.[55]
During Trump's expansion into the New Jersey casino business in 1981, he threatened to take his business elsewhere unless the state's attorney general limited his required investigation into Trump's business dealings.[52] Since New Jersey had a thriving casino industry in Atlantic City, the state complied to prevent Trump from developing anywhere else. Trump promptly turned around and bought land in Atlantic City from a mob boss named Salvatore Testa and hired two construction companies owned by mobsters Nicademo "Little Nicky" Scarfo and Phillip "Crazy Phil" Leonetti to build his Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino.[56]
Felix Sater, a Russian-born mobster and businessman, served an essential role in helping Trump get his other name-branded towers built in places around the world.[57] One of Trump's companies was also exposed for embarking on business ventures with a money-laundering crime family from Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic.[58] Most damning of all, a top Russian mobster named David Bogatin paid $6 million to buy five luxury condos in Trump Tower in 1984, and Trump personally attended the closing of this deal.[59] Organized crime groups frequently used high-end real estate to launder money.
Bankruptcies and screwed investors[edit]
“”He put a number of local contractors and suppliers out of business when he didn't pay them. So when he left Atlantic City, it wasn't, 'Sorry to see you go.' It was, 'How fast can you get the hell out of here?'
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—Steven P. Perskie, chairman of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission from 1990 to 1994.[60] |
Trump's foray into the casino business went very well for him and very poorly for his casinos. He opened the $1.2 billion Trump Taj Mahal casino in 1990, and it filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection just over a year later; two more of his casinos went bankrupt in 1992.[61] The obvious question was how the hell Trump managed to drive multiple casinos into bankruptcy when they should have been raking in money from repeatedly losing gamblers.[62] Well, Trump had put up very little of his own money to buy or build his casinos, instead relying on investors.[63] The rest of the money his casinos needed was all borrowed, and at such high interest rates that their failure was all but guaranteed.[60] Trump also shifted his personal debts onto the casino businesses while collecting millions of dollars in salary, bonuses, and assorted payments.[63] While the casinos failed and investors bore the burden, Trump made millions. That's not all; after the construction of his casinos, he stiffed the small businesses he had contracted for the work.[64]
As for the Taj Mahal, Trump still owned a stake in the casino after 1991, and the Taj Mahal was forced to spend exorbitant amounts of money on Trump-branded products, contributing to another bankruptcy.[65] He squeezed even more money out of the Taj Mahal by using it as a money laundering scheme; a 1998 IRS report found 106 violations of anti-money laundering statutes in the casino's first two years of operation.[66] At the time, the Trump Taj Mahal was a hangout for Russian mobsters, according to federal investigators.[66]
Trump's casino ownership company, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts, went public in 1995 and listed on stock exchanges under the letters DJT.[67] The company lost catastrophic amounts of money every year, collectively costing investors about $1 billion while Trump himself made $44 million in salary and bonuses.[67] It went bankrupt and was de-listed in 2004.
In Atlantic City, the failures of Trump's casinos put many thousands of people out of work and put dozens of contractors out of business, leaving a lasting impact in the form of a 7.4% unemployment rate in 2019 (nearly twice the national average).[68] During the Republican primary debates in 2015, Trump boasted that, "I made a lot of money in Atlantic City, and I'm very proud of it."[69] And that's true. He did make a lot of money. But he made that money by honing and perfecting a single skill: structuring businesses to stuff his pockets despite their lack of success and then leaving investors to take the fall.[10] This is a pattern he would repeat over and over again.
Bailed out by Russians[edit]

“”In terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. Say, in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo, and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.
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—Donald Trump Jr. at a real estate conference, 2008.[71] |
The stock market crash of 1987, combined with the ludicrous amounts of money Trump had borrowed for his various ventures had put him about $4 billion in debt to various American banks.[72] While Trump was able to negotiate a deal with the banks in 1992 to escape much of that debt, his business reputation was in tatters due to the repeated failures of his businesses.[73] American banks wouldn't invest in him anymore.
Trump sought out and received money from alternative partners. Wealthy individuals from Russia and the former Soviet republics started making massive investments in Trump, in the form of real-estate partnerships and massive purchases of Trump's condos.[73] During this time, more than 1,300 of Trump's condos were sold to these foreign owners in secretive all-cash transactions.[74]
Aid also came in the form of the Russian-owned Bayrock Group, a company that chose to headquarter itself two floors below Trump's office in Trump Tower.[75] Bayrock forked over enormous amounts of money to use Trump's name on its real estate projects.[74][76] The company was run by Tevfik Arif, a Kazakh-born former Soviet official who had access to suspiciously large amounts of money, and Russian mobster Felix Sater.[73] A US Senate report from 2020 later found that Arif was also a Russian mobster and a human trafficker.[77]
Bayrock's licensing of Trump's name became the basis of his new business model: selling his brand instead of his businesses. Their largest project was a New York condo-hotel called Trump SoHo, built with mysterious funding and primarily selling to wealthy foreign buyers.[78] The property was directly marketed to Russian buyers with a Russian-language website featuring pictures of Trump posing alongside Russian businessmen.[79]
This relationship proved to be a lasting one. A 2017 Reuters investigation was able to verify that 63 Russian oligarchs owned $98.4 million worth property in Trump's luxury towers just in south Florida alone.[80] One example of this from 2008: Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev purchased a beachfront villa from Trump for much more than the property was worth, never set foot in the mansion, and then had it demolished due to a mold problem before selling the land.[81] Trump's dealings with the Russians in south Florida were rife with red flags for money laundering.[82]
Other notable ventures[edit]
“”When it comes to great steaks, I've just raised the stakes! Trump Steaks are by far the best tasting, most flavorful beef you've ever had. Truly in a league of their own.
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—Donald Trump on his Trump Steaks™ partnership with Sharper Image.[83] |
“”The net of all that was we literally sold almost no steaks. If we sold $50,000 of steaks grand total, I'd be surprised.
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—Jerry Levin, CEO of Sharper Image, Trump Steaks™ post-mortem.[83] |
Here's a list of some of Trump's other notable business ventures that took place prior to his presidency, both for the sake of completion and for the sake of really showing just how bad Trump was at being a legitimate businessman.
- Trump the Game: He tried this twice, in 1988 and 2004, but this real-estate themed board game was too boring to get people interested.[84] Plus, Monopoly was right there and much more fun.
- Trump Shuttle: In 1988, Trump launched his own airline company after buying 21 aging Boeing 727s from a struggling carrier, but he borrowed $380 million to renovate the planes and found them to be extremely costly to maintain.[85] The company missed an interest payment in 1990 and defaulted.
- Trump Mortgage: "I think it's a great time to start a mortgage company, the real estate market is going to be very strong for a long time to come," said Donald Trump, in April 2006.[86] Oops.
- Trump Vodka: Trump launched this product in 2006 to one-up his friend, the founder of Grey Goose, but it sold poorly and was discontinued in 2008 before going out of circulation completely in 2011.[87]
- Trump Magazine: Trump teamed up with advertising mogul Michael Jacobson in 2006 to launch Trump World (later rebranded to Trump Magazine), a periodical focusing on the Trump family's wealth and pictures of scantily-clad women.[88] In typical Trump fashion, he received a licensing fee of $120,000 per issue while the magazine went into massive debt and then failed a little over a year later.[88]
- Trump Steaks: Originally meant to be sold in his casinos, Trump instead approached Sharper Image (a consumer electronics store) to start selling his steaks in 2007.[83] Although Trump sold almost no steaks due to how overpriced they were, Sharper Image's CEO said the venture worked out just fine for them since confused customers would show up to ask about the bizarre advertisements and then leave with an unrelated Sharper Image product.[83]
Media personality[edit]

“”So sometimes I make outrageous comments and give them what they want — viewers and readers — in order to make a point. I'm a businessman with a brand to sell. When was the last time you saw a sign hanging outside a pizzeria claiming 'The fourth best pizza in the world'?!
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—Donald Trump, Crippled America, 2015.[90] |
Ghostwritten books[edit]
Trump has boasted repeatedly about the number of bestselling books he has written, but almost all of them were actually written in part or in whole by ghostwriters.[91] His most famous book, The Art of the Deal from 1987, spent 13 weeks in the number one spot of the New York Times bestseller list and turned Trump from "that one rich guy from New York" into a national celebrity.[92] It created the image of Donald Trump as a prudent businessman who was skilled at striking deals with even the most stubborn of partners. Tony Schwartz, whom Trump paid $250,000 to write the book, declared in 2016 that it was the greatest regret of his entire life[93] and went on to express his deep personal contempt towards Trump.[94]
Some common themes are present in all of his ghostwritten books. There are repeated insults towards people Trump dislikes, some hints of his insecurity (such as his repeated references to his Wharton degree), and some surprisingly candid admissions that so much of his success relied on smoke-and-mirrors.[95]
One of his more revealing books was The America We Deserve (2000), in which Trump laid out his political beliefs in preparation for a campaign for the Reform Party nomination that year. In it, Trump spells out his support for "tough anti-crime policies", the death penalty, raising requirements for welfare eligibility, renegotiating the US' international trade agreements, and privatizing Social Security.[96] Trump's anti-immigration stance also appeared in this book: "We can't allow ourselves to welcome outsiders out of kindness. If people enter this country by disregarding our laws, can we be confident that they will suddenly become law-abiding citizens once they arrive?"[96] In 2015, Dave Shiflett, the ghostwriter of this book, also declared that he would not vote for Donald Trump.[97]
His 2015 book, Crippled America was an update to Trump's political beliefs, this time with a more emphasis on conservatism and more defenses of his brash campaign style.[98]
Miss Universe pageant[edit]
“”Before a show, I'll go backstage and everyone's getting dressed, and everything else, and you know, no men are anywhere, and 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.
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—Trump brags to shock jock Howard Stern about walking in on naked women, 2005.[99] |
Trump purchased the Miss Universe beauty pageant in 1996, lamenting that the women contestants weren't hot enough anymore because the judges were apparently prioritizing intelligence over beauty.[100] The first Miss Universe crowned on Trump's watch was Alicia Machado, a woman from Venezuela who suffered insults from Trump ("Miss Piggy") because he was dissatisfied with her weight.[101] Trump also called her "Miss Housekeeping" and mocked her accent.
His ownership of Miss Universe also served as an outlet for Trump's perversions. Two former contestants on Miss USA 2001 recalled that Trump would barge into the women's dressing rooms and stare at them.[102] Former Miss Vermont Teen USA Mariah Billado said that Trump would tell them, "Don't worry, ladies, I’ve seen it all before," during his visits.[103] Trump's employees would then encourage the contestants to walk up to Trump and welcome him during his visits to their dressing rooms.[100] These aren't even allegations, by the way. Trump personally bragged about doing this to radio host Howard Stern in 2005.[99]
For his ownership of Miss Universe, Trump received a star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2007.[104] In 2015, NBC and Univision dropped Miss Universe in response to his racist comments about Mexican immigrants,[105] and Trump sold the pageant.
The Apprentice[edit]
In January 2004, The Apprentice started airing. Trump, playing a fictionalized version of himself, would have the show's contestants perform some business-related task before being either rewarded for success or scolded for failure.[106] Eliminations from the show would happen with Trump's slogan, "You're fired!" The winner of the show would receive $250,000 and the opportunity to keep working with Donald Trump.
From the beginning, it was built on a false premise. Trump was an unsuccessful businessman at the time, and the famous boardroom where Trump fired contestants had to be a set because his real boardroom was too shabby and antiquated to be taken seriously.[107] The show's producers had earlier tried to recruit more successful CEOs to host the show, but they all had better things to do and little to gain from hosting a cheesy reality television show.[107]
It took a long and concerted effort from the producers to market Trump to the country as a genius businessman,[106] an effort for which NBC's chief marketer John D. Miller apologized in 2024.[107] In front of the cameras, contestants would fawn over his gilded apartments and his lavish casinos, while behind the cameras Trump would sexually harass and demean female crewmembers.[108][109]
The show turned Trump into a national celebrity businessman, but it also taught Trump how to make himself compelling to watch on television and how to market himself as a brand.[110] But most importantly, to millions of Americans, it created the false image of Trump as someone who would be a great leader.
Outright scams[edit]
Trump University[edit]
In 2005, Trump was riding high off the fame from his new television show, and thousands of students were signing up to "Trump University" to learn his business wisdom.[111] Trump University was a scam. It was a con. It was bullshit. It was, in fact, not a university at all, but rather a company that purported to sell Trump's secret method to make massive amounts of money on real estate.[112]
Students attended a first seminar, which was free, and then a second seminar for $1,500 which was meant to compel them to sign up for a $35,000 partnership with one of Trump's "hand-picked" advisors.[113] After paying this money, students would be strongly encouraged to purchase more Trump products. The "university" recruiters were trained in classic scam tactics like manipulating buyers' emotions and telling them that it was okay to max out their credit cards, and the recruiters were strictly instructed to never give concrete promises about what students could achieve with Trump University.[113] What those students actually got was basic information they could've gotten for free elsewhere, taught by random people who were definitely not hand-picked by Trump.[114]
Trump was extensively involved in marketing Trump University and took a cut of its profits, although he did not personally run the company.[115] He was eventually hit by multiple class-action lawsuits from his defrauded students and another lawsuit from the New York Attorney General.[116] Trump settled the cases for $25 million shortly after being elected president.[117]
The Trump Foundation[edit]
Donald Trump established the the Donald J. Trump Foundation in 1987 to serve as a non-profit charitable organization, serving as its president until 2017.[118] Even this seemingly altruistic enterprise was turned on its head by Trump's shittiness.
In reality, the Trump Foundation was a slush fund for Trump and his businesses. In the words of New York's Attorney General, the Trump Foundation was "little more than an empty shell," and the board of directors that was supposed to be overseeing its operations stopped meeting in 1999.[119] Trump used donated money to benefit himself, such as $100,000 in 2007 to settle legal claims against his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and a $158,000 payment in 2012 to settle more legal claims against the Trump National Golf Club.[118] He even used $12,000 that had been donated to his foundation to purchase an autographed football helmet during a charity dinner for breast cancer, defeating the entire point of a charity dinner.[120]
In 2013, the Trump Foundation illegally donated $25,000 to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi's reelection fund as she was investigating Trump University for fraud; she then dropped the investigation.[121] Most egregiously of all, Trump held a charity dinner in 2016 to raise $2.8 million for veterans and then immediately put that money into his presidential campaign fund.[122] After a lengthy investigation by New York, the Trump Foundation shut down, and a state judge ordered Trump to pay $2 million in damages in 2019.[123]
The Trump Network[edit]
This one was especially scummy, because it started at the height of the Great Recession and promised to "give millions of people renewed hope ... with an exciting plan to opt out of the recession!"[124] The Trump Network was a partnership with, and rebranding of, a multilevel marketing business called Ideal Health, in which Trump would promote their scheme in exchange for money.[125]
In all respects, The Trump Network operated as a typical multilevel marketing scheme, offering steep incentives for "sales representatives" to sign up other sales representatives, all while encouraging them to spent ridiculous amounts of money on the scheme. In consumer complaints, one customer reported spending $8,956.20 on promotional materials, and another customer said they were encouraged to mortgage their home for $70,000 to buy shares in TV advertising.[125] The goal of the scheme, apart from scamming people, was to sell bogus multivitamins.[126]
Early political career[edit]
Trump spent a long time toying with the idea of running for president. In 1988, Trump says he was approached by Lee Atwater to potentially serve as George H.W. Bush's vice presidential pick.[127] In 2000, he actively sought the Reform Party nomination as a populist, but he quit the race due to his ongoing financial problems.[128]
During the Obama era, Trump was notable for his public and vehement dislike for the president.[129] In 2011, Trump seized on the racist birtherism conspiracy theory, bringing it up numerous times and offering to donate $5 million to anyone who could convince him that Obama was born in the United States.[130] At the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner, Obama mocked the thin-skinned Donald Trump for this right to his face.[131] Multiple of Trump's surrogates and followers listed this as the moment Trump decided to run for president. In the words of The Truth About Trump author Michael D'Antonio, "Donald dreads humiliation and he dreads shame... This is a burning, personal need that he has to redeem himself from being humiliated by the first black president."[131]
2016 presidential campaign[edit]
On 14 June 2015, Trump came down the elevator to the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City to deliver a meandering 45-minute speech in which he declared the "American dream" to be "dead" before making his iconic promise to "Make America Great Again."[132] His campaign's focus on anti-immigration policies and his willingness to embrace crass insults and racist rhetoric, combined with his celebrity status, set him apart from the crowded Republican primary field and inspired a surge in grassroots conservative support.[133] Central to his campaign were insults towards Mexico and a promise to order a wall built along the southern border.[134] Enthusiasm from Republican voters manifested as the highest voter turnout for the Republican presidential primaries since 1980.[135]
Trump also embraced a populist anti-free trade message[136] and highlighted his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States.[137] One of the defining elements of Trump's campaign was his all-out assault on the concept of political correctness,[138] which served the purpose of legitimizing his insults and bullying as acts of defiance against the political establishment.[139] This proved to be effective at motivating conservatives; The Washington Post noted that Trump supporters in polls and focus groups consistently said they liked him because "he says the things they feel they can't say."[140]
The latter part was the real takeaway from Trump's campaign. While his anti-globalization stance endeared him to disaffected Rust Belt Democrats who felt left behind by the party's commitment to trade agreements,[141] his real success came from his ability to tap into a growing sense of white racial resentment.[13] Republican political strategist Steve Schmidt described the Trump phenomenon as "a cultural backlash," and said that, "Millions and millions of people in this country, blue-collar people, feel that their values are under assault, that they're looked down upon, condescended to by the elites."[142] Patricia Aufderheide, a professor of communication at American University, put it differently: "Trump has given people permission to say things out loud that are usually tucked in until after the third drink at Thanksgiving dinner. But I think they’ve always been there."[142]
Trump's campaign strongly appealed to racism,[143][144]and he openly embraced sexist attacks on his opponent Hillary Clinton.[145] His campaign was also briefly imperiled by revelations that he had sexually assaulted women and then bragged about it on tape.[146][147] His rallies often featured violence from his supporters against protesters,[148] and Trump himself encouraged that violence.[149] The spectacle of him, the buffoonery of this celebrity con man who thought he could be president, earned him media attention estimated to have been worth $5.9 billion in free advertising.[150]
Despite not even expecting to win,[151] Trump ultimately won the election with 306 votes in the Electoral College by flipping longtime Democratic states and multiple swing states in the Rust Belt and Upper Midwest.[152] He also decisively lost the popular vote and only received 304 votes due to faithless electors.[153] But those last two facts didn't matter. Like an elaborate prank becoming reality, the scammer known for his spray tans and television antics had become the President of the United States.
American Carnage: Trump's first term (2017-2021)[edit]
“”I have the ultimate authority... When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total and that's the way it’s got to be.... It's total.
|
—President Donald Trump, 14 April, 2020.[154] |
How else could Trump start his presidency but with lies? Ever insecure, Trump ordered his Press Secretary to claim that his Inauguration Day crowd was larger than either of Obama's, a provably untrue statement.[155] Trump also claimed that his election victory was the "biggest Electoral College win" since Reagan, even though his number of electoral votes was actually much smaller than Obama's from four years previously.[156]
His inauguration did set one record, though. The Women's March on Washington, an anti-Trump protest event in Washington DC held the day after Inauguration Day, had the single largest number of protestors in one day in American history.[157]
Protesters during Trump's inauguration experienced police brutality and mistreatment in detention at the hands of DC police, resulting in a lawsuit from the ACLU.[158] Trump's repeated endorsements of political violence and hate groups,[159] his attacks on the free press and embrace of lies,[160] and his contempt for the rule of law[161] all set the stage for a presidency at war with American democracy.[162]
The swamp[edit]
During his campaign, Trump promised to "drain the swamp" by cleansing the government of corruption.[163] He then turned around and built his own swamp by stuffing the executive branch with every Wall Street lobbyist and Big Business plutocrat piece of shit he could find—all to a collective shrug from his anti-elite supporters.[164]
While Trump's Cabinet became a revolving door of hirings and firings,[165] the richest all stayed in place. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos (worth $2 billion), Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross ($600 million), and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin ($400 million) all survived Trump's term without being fired.[166] DeVos, while serving as Education Secretary, had financial stakes in for-profit colleges and student loan servicers, a clear conflict of interest.[167] Mnuchin's OneWest Bank committed numerous violations of California's foreclosure laws, but escaped prosecution due to a bizarre decision by then-state Attorney General Kamala Harris.[168] Wilbur Ross maintained financial stakes in Chinese-owned companies, Russian oligarch companies, and American auto parts companies that all stood to benefit from Ross' decisions as Commerce Secretary.[169]
Trump's children were also key components of his swamp. Trump's Justice Department overruled memos advising that it was illegal for the president to appoint his family members to his administration,[170] and Trump made his son-in-law Jared Kushner a senior advisor at the White House. Kushner was tasked with handling the ongoing opioid crisis and peace initiatives between Israel and Palestine; he accomplished basically nothing while earning millions from his businesses.[171] Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, together made up to $640 million in outside income related to Trump's businesses while working as senior advisors.[172] And those Trump businesses were directly profiting from Trump's presidency.
The for-profit presidency[edit]

Trump refused to release his tax returns during his campaign, and he fought a legal battle to keep them secret throughout his presidency.[173] He also placed The Trump Organization into a revocable trust managed by his sons that was structured in a way to allow him to retrieve funds from the company and potentially take control of it in the future.[174] Trump, therefore, had a personal financial stake as president in ensuring that his companies would profit.
And profit his companies did. Foreign countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Malaysia enriched the president by a collective total of $7.8 million by having their diplomats spend lavishly at Trump's hotels and apartments.[175] The Trump International Hotel in Manhattan recorded its first profits in two years due to a visit by the Saudi Crown Prince's entourage,[176] and a year later Trump earned criticism for doing nothing to retaliate for Saudi Arabia's murder of an American citizen.[177]
Trump used his office to encourage foreign leaders to hold events at his overseas properties, allow new Trump properties to be established, and he stayed at those Trump properties personally during presidential visits.[178] He also owned tens of thousands in stock in companies involved in the construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, a project he then pushed foward as president.[179]
In March 2018, Trump hit a milestone: 100 days spent golfing at his own golf courses on the government's dime.[180] During their time protecting the president at his own properties, Trump's companies charged the Secret Service over $2 million for the right to operate at those properties.[181] Trump ultimately paid over 500 visits to his own golf courses over the course of his presidency.[182]
During his time as president, Trump's companies hauled in $2.4 billion[183] and Trump himself made $1.6 billion.[184] A pretty nice racket. His profiteering from the presidency and his refusal to divest from his businesses stood in blatant violation of the US Constitution's Emoluments Clause.[185]
The federal government as another failed Trump business[edit]

Remember: Trump's business strategy during his casino days was to have those casinos pay him millions despite failing and then leaving investors to take the fall.[10] We've already established that Trump was profiting from the government. Now comes the failure.
In December 2017, Trump signed his main legislative accomplishment, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This tax reform bill was overwhelmingly skewed towards the rich. While the top 1% of Americans received an average tax cut of more than $60,000, the lower 60% only got an average tax cut of less than $500 per household.[186] Combined with the centerpiece of the law, its massive cut to corporate taxation from 35% to 21%, Trump officials claimed that the bill would "very conservatively" lead to a $4,000 boost in household income.[186] Households earning less than $114,000 on average saw no changes in their incomes, while corporate executive salaries increased dramatically.[186][187] Once again, supply-side economics failed to work as promised.[188] The distance separating America's highest and lowest income brackets grew by almost 9 percent annually during Trump's first term, a faster rate than even during the Great Recession and the worst years of George W. Bush.[189]
What Trump's tax cut bill did accomplish was slashing the federal government's revenue and costing the government $1.7 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2023.[190] Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the national debt started spiking under Trump's watch, and it had increased 39% and set a post-World War II record high debt-to-GDP ratio by the end of his term.[191] This is a financial burden that will weigh on the United States for decades; Trump once again left his investors, this time the American voting public, paying the price for his mismanagement.
Trump also gutted federal regulations protecting labor rights,[192]the environment,[193] and healthcare.[194] Thankfully, Trump's attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act failed, but it wasn't for a lack of trying.[195] The number of uninsured people still rose steadily from 2017 to 2019 thanks to Trump's efforts.[196]
Cranking up the heat on climate change[edit]
During his 2016 campaign, Trump promised to revitalize the US coal industry, and he quickly went about stuffing his administration with coal-industry executives and lobbyists.[197] Trump also declared himself to be a climate change denier and bizarrely claimed that the concept of climate change "was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive."[198]
As president, Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement (although this did not take effect until 2020[199]), weakened the Environmental Protection Agency,[200] and rolled back dozens of environmental regulations.[201] For example, in 2020, Trump rolled back federal regulations saying that coal plants can't just dump wastewater contaminated with lead and arsenic into the country's rivers.[202] Trump and toxic waste: like calls to like.
Despite Trump's efforts, the decline of the US coal industry continued to accelerate to the point where US coal production in 2020 was at its lowest since 1965.[203] By doubling down on a dying industry, Trump had placed himself against economics. And economics says that people will always choose cheaper and cleaner products; coal was simply and inevitably outcompeted by renewable energy and natural gas.[204]
Overall, Trump's first term represented a catastrophic setback for global efforts against climate change.[205] His environmental policies contributed to accelerating global warming and resulted in little economic growth.[206] All cost and no benefit, as usual for Trump.
Violence and hate crimes[edit]
Trump's term coincided with a skyrocketing rate of hate crimes: the FBI recorded a 17% spike from 2016 to 2017, and then hate crime rates more than doubled from 2018 to 2019.[207] During and after his presidential campaign, academic studies consistently demonstrated links between Trump's rhetoric and a corresponding increase in hate crimes.[208] Counties that hosted Trump rallies in 2016 on average saw a 226% increase in hate crimes compared to similar counties that did not host Trump rallies.[209]
This trend continued with Trump as president. After a counter-protester was murdered at 2017's Unite the Right hate rally, the half-hearted nature of Trump's condemnation earned praise from white supremacists and neo-Nazis.[210] The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi webshite had this to say about Trump's comments: "No condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, [Trump] just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him."[211]
Overall, ABC News found 54 cases between 2015 and 2020 in which Trump's name was invoked by the perpetrator of a violent act.[212] The sheer number of people inspired to violence by Trump led to the creation of the so-called "Trump defense," under which defense attorneys would argue for more lenient sentences because their clients had been incited by the president's rhetoric.[213]
After Trump's "invasion" rhetoric was parroted by a domestic terrorist who shot 22 people in El Paso,[214] Trump showed up uninvited to a memorial event and told everyone that "my rhetoric brings people together."[215] This took place only a few months after Trump laughed and joked in response to a rally-goer's suggested that American should start shooting undocumented immigrants.[216]
Trump-Russia investigations[edit]
“”While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.
|
—William Barr quoting the Mueller report in his summary.[217] |
During Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, he "joked" that Russians should hack Hillary Clinton's e-mails,[218] and at least 12 of Trump's associates had contacts with Russian officials.[219]
The FBI, led by James Comey, opened an investigation in 2016 into what Trump called "this Russia thing with Trump and Russia."[220] In January 2017, President Obama declassified a joint report from the CIA, FBI, and NSA concluding that Vladimir Putin had indeed ordered Russian intelligence to interfere in the 2016 election to help Trump.[221] The same year, Trump told two senior Russian officials that he was unconcerned by the country's election interference,[222] and he fired James Comey to put an end to his investigation.[220]
In May 2017, the Justice Department appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to serve as a special counsel in a counterintelligence investigation into Russia's election interference and potential involvement by the Trump campaign.[223] The ongoing investigation haunted Trump's administration for years,[224] and Mueller indicted 34 people, 25 of them Russians.[225] Trump repeatedly denounced the investigation as a "witch hunt" and attempted to order Attorney General Jeff Sessions to end the investigation.[226]
Mueller's final report in 2019 noted that Trump's campaign welcomed and encouraged Russia's interference in the election,[227][228] but he was unable to find evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump personally colluded with the Russians or deliberately obstructed justice.[217] While Trump claimed this as an exoneration, Mueller had directly written in his report that it was no such thing, as Trump most certainly committed severe misconduct.[217] The report also listed 10 instances of behavior from Trump that could potentially constitute attempts at obstructing the investigation, but Attorney General William Barr did not believe the Justice Department had sufficient evidence to file charges for obstruction.[229]
Rights abuses and discrimination[edit]
In May 2017, Trump signed an executive order rolling back federal anti-discrimination protections for LGBT workers despite his previous campaign promise that he wouldn't do this.[230] Trump also banned transgender Americans from serving in the military, citing "disruption".[231] Trump also attempted to end federal anti-discrimination protections for transgender healthcare, but a federal judge ruled against this in 2020.[232] With no explanation, Trump disbanded the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS,[233] and he became the first president to deliver an address at an anti-LGBT hate conference.[234]
Trump, a longtime advocate for capital punishment,[235] ended a 17-year federal death penalty moratorium, and his administration conducted 13 executions, which was more than the previous 56 years combined.[236]
For women's rights, Trump signed a law in 2017 that allowed states to withhold federal healthcare from any clinics that provided abortion services, and he expanded to an unprecedented degree the "global gag" rule policy, which restricts US aid to international health organizations that support family planning and abortion services.[237] Amid a sexual assault epidemic on college campuses, the Trump administration cut federal protections for sexual assault survivors.[238] A policy to be expected from a president who is himself a predator.
Immigration crackdown[edit]

The administration's most infamous rights abuses were all connected to its immigration policy. In 2017, Trump signed an order that banned citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.[239] This sparked a wave of protests and legal challenges, but the Supreme Court upheld a modified version of the policy in 2018 because of course they did.[240]
And while deportation rates didn't change much from the Obama years, Trump did vastly increase rates of detentions and decrease admissions for refugees (especially Muslims).[241] Trump's administration then earned widespread outrage by implementing a "zero tolerance" immigration policy calling for the separation of children from families as a punitive measure for crossing the border illegally.[242]
Migrant detention facilities were dangerously overcrowded,[243][244] and a 2019 report from an inspection by the Department of Homeland Security contained some absolutely insane quotes like, "children at three of the five border patrol facilities we visited had no access to showers," or "cells smelled of what might have been unwashed bodies/body odour, urine, untreated diarrhea, and/or soiled clothing/diapers."[245] At least seven children died while in the custody of immigration enforcement due to poor conditions and inadequate healthcare.[246] Who knew that Republican family values included killing children?
Over the course of the Trump administration, immigration authorities separated over 5,400 children from their families, and the practice continued even after a federal judge ordered the policy to be scaled back.[247] The administration also never had a plan to reunite children with their families.[248] The president's immigration policies were motivated at least in part by the Trumpist movement and Trump himself embracing the Great Replacement conspiracy theory.[249]
And because Trump was always pretty bad at anything that didn't involve direct cruelty or criminality, Trump largely failed to build his beloved wall.[250]
Undermining America's foreign interests[edit]

Trump declared his foreign policy doctrine to be nationalist and "America First".[252] In practice, it's difficult to know what those terms even meant to him due to the erratic and ill-considered nature of his decisions.
He undermined America's interests by raising tensions with NATO allies,[253] and he considered diplomatically isolating the United States by withdrawing from the alliance.[254] Trump frequently praised American adversary Vladimir Putin,[255][256] and supported Russia's return to the G7.[257] After speaking to Putin during a 2018 summit in Finland, Trump declared that he trusted Putin's word over that of US intelligence agencies regarding Russian interference in the 2016 US election.[258]
Trump would also veer from one extreme to the other. After threatening to "totally destroy" North Korea and privately discussing using nuclear weapons to do so,[259] Trump met Kim Jong-Un at a summit after saluting a North Korean general[260] and started writing what he described as "love letters" to this enemy of the United States.[261] The summit and outreach resulted in no diplomatic agreements.[262] Another Trump failure.
Meanwhile, Trump forged close a relationship with Saudi Arabia's crown prince while having extensive personal business ties to that country.[263] He significantly increased the rate of drone strikes on foreign targets and stopped the government from reporting on civilian casualties.[264] His trade war with China cost the federal government tens of billions in bailouts to farmers impacted by China's reduced demand for American food imports.[265] His ill-considered agreement with the Taliban in 2020 contributed to a botched withdrawal from the Afghanistan War in 2021.[266]
One of Trump's closest foreign partners was fellow wannabe autocrat Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel,[267] which resulted in US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital[268] and the signing of the Abraham Accords. However, Trump's haphazard withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal
made Israel less safe due to Iran's decision to resume enriching uranium to defy reimposed US sanctions, leaving it far closer to developing a nuclear weapon than it had been before he took office.[269] Of course, Netanyahu's policies had also made Israel less safe,[270] so they both had that in common too.
Midterms and relations with Congress[edit]
Considering how divisive and controversial Trump's first two years had been, the Republicans expected a tough road ahead in the midterms. Instead on focusing on his achievements (he didn't have many), Trump decided terrify Republican voters with apocalyptic messaging about how Democrats would destroy the country if they won control of Congress.[271] Democrats, on the other hand, focused their messaging on defending the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans had nearly succeeded in repealing.[272]
Trump's unpopularity and the general anti-incumbent bias of American midterm elections proved too much for the Republicans to overcome; Democrats gained 41 seats in the House of Representatives, the largest Democratic gain since the post-Watergate election of 1974.[273] Goddamn. On the other hand, Democrats faced one of the worst Senate maps ever, having to defend 25 seats while the Republicans were only defending eight.[274] They ultimately suffered a net loss of two seats. However, considering the House and governership results, this was a blue wave election and a major rebuke of Trump.[275]
Almost immediately after the new Democratic House was sworn in, Trump started a budget fight with them over funding for his dumbass wall proposal, resulting in the longest government shutdown in American history.[276] Trump, the self-proclaimed master dealmaker, eventually caved to the Democrats.[276] He then resorted to circumventing Congressional authority by reallocating funds to his wall without Congressional approval, defying subpoenas, and placing executive officials without Senate approval.[277] The party of limited government put up little resistance to this executive overreach[277] because they were unprincipled cowards.
Ukraine scandal and impeachment[edit]
Trump filed to run for reelection within hours of his inauguration, and he announced his run no less than five times during his first term.[278] He was obsessed with securing a second term, and this obsession only grew in intensity as the election got closer.
Recognizing former vice president Joe Biden as his most serious political threat, Trump decided to strike first. In 2019, Trump was caught trying to condition military aid to Ukraine on its president Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly opening a criminal investigation into Biden's son, who had ties to a Ukrainian energy company.[279] He was abusing the power of the presidency for political advantage. For this, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, making this the third impeachment in US history.[280]
Unfortunately, the Democrats had failed to take control of the Senate in 2018, and even if they had, the Senate has a much higher two-thirds vote requirement to convict a president and remove them from office. The Senate predictably voted almost entirely on party lines to acquit Trump, although Mitt Romney cited his "oath before God" as reason to vote to convict Trump for abuse of power.[281] Afterwards, Trump declared victory and then fired two government officials who had testified against him before the Senate.[282]
Poisoning the judiciary[edit]
“”Some of Trump's judicial appointees really push the envelope in an ideological way. They do things because that's the result they want to achieve, and that’s just not how the legal system is supposed to work. It’s not supposed to be primarily driven to achieve a given outcome.
|
—Donald B. Ayer, former Deputy Attorney General under President George W. Bush.[283] |
One major consequence of the Democrats' failure to take the Senate: Trump was still able to get judicial appointments confirmed at a rapid pace. With the eager assistance of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Trump nominated judges at a feverish pace and pushed them through a compliant Senate, with the end result of 234 confirmed judges in his first term.[284] Perhaps the biggest reason for Trump's success here was McConnell's refusal to let the Senate act on President Obama's judicial nominees at every level.[285]
Thanks to Trump, radical conservative judges gained a majority on three more of America's 13 appeals courts, which play significant roles in shaping legal policy.[283] Trump placed 54 judges on America's appeals courts, while Obama only placed 55 while having twice as much time.[286] As former Deputy Attorney General Donald Ayer noted, Trump's appointees are also noted for their willingness to engage in judicial activism, making decisions based on politics rather than the law.[283] Some of Trump's notable appointees included a judge who claimed the "way to avoid a potential date rape is to stay reasonably sober," another judge who ruled that people should not be able to sue states for violating voting rights, and a judge who wrote that abortion is just like slavery.[287] Trump really does pick the best people, doesn't he? Perhaps his most notable appointment, other than those to the US Supreme Court, was Judge Aileen Cannon, who made headlines in 2024 for refusing to recuse herself from Trump's classified documents case and then actively sabotaging the prosecution from the bench.[288][289] Legal ethics is a disqualifying trait for Trump's judges.
His biggest impact was on the Supreme Court. Thanks to McConnell's refusal to consider any Obama nominee to replace the deceased Antonin Scalia near the end of the president's term in 2016[290] and then his abrupt reversal of that standard when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died even closer to the end of Trump's term,[291] Trump was able to appoint no less than three justices to the Supreme Court. All were noted for their judicial activism[292] and embrace of fringe legal theories,[293] and Trump later boasted that his appointments led to the overturning of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 2022.[294] That was only one of many authoritarian legal decisions meant to erode civil rights and enforce harmful policies.[295]
Days of rage[edit]
2020 saw the peak of Trump's authoritarian tendencies. In May 2020, off-duty Minnesota police officers murdered an unarmed Black man named George Floyd.[296] The resultant Black Lives Matter protests were one of the largest mass movements in American history, with between 15 and 26 million people estimated to have taken part in nationwide demonstrations.[297] While only 4% of the protests turned violent, and said violence was frequently instigated by police and counter-protesters,[298] the widespread nature of the protests meant that violent incidents resulted in a combined total of over 1$ billion in damage.[299]
Trump, who had repeatedly asserted that his presidential authority was "total," opposed the protests and seemed outraged at the defiance to his authority.[300] Trump called protesters "thugs"[301][302] and threatened them with "vicious dogs" and "ominous weapons."[303] The days of Trump's rage had begun.
The president's crackdown began almost immediately. After Trump flooded the nation's capital with National Guard,[304] Trump argued in private to Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley that US troops should "Crack their skulls!" or "beat the fuck out of them," or "Just shoot them!"[305] Trump's Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, confirmed that Trump genuinely did want to have protesters gunned down in the streets.[306] This was, let us remind you, the same man who praised the Tiananmen Square Massacre for showing "the power of strength".[307]
While police across America beat protesters and journalists,[308] Trump praised the perpetrators and mocked victims.[309] Trump personally ordered DC police to chase peaceful protesters away from a local church with tear gas so Trump could pose outside of it with a Bible.[310] Members of the church's clergy were also tear-gassed during this little stunt.[311]
Trump escalated again in July by sending badgeless federal police into Portland, Oregon to kidnap protesters from the streets.[312][313] When a US Navy veteran tried to ask Trump's federal forces a question, they tear-gassed him and beat him with batons.[314] Thank you for serving in the armed forces! Oh, and they also tear-gassed the fucking mayor of Portland.[315] All of this amounted to the federal government trampling on local authority, something the state's rights Republican Party had always claimed to stand against.
A diseased nation[edit]
As Trumpism itself is a disease, so did another sweep across the globe and through the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic became the defining crisis of Trump's final year in office. And boy did he fuck it up. Trump first tried to ignore medical experts,[316][317] then tried to publicly undermine those medical experts,[318] and he even abandoned a federal plan to send much-needed face masks to American citizens.[319] Instead, Trump promoted an anti-malaria medication as some kind of miracle cure[320] and bizarrely endorsed irradiating patients with ultraviolet light and injecting them with disinfectant.[321] This is what happens when the physical manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger effect becomes president.
He also sent mixed messaging by encouraging protests against governors who imposed pandemic lockdown measures while federal guidelines endorsed those governors' decisions.[322] He even attacked Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer after his "LIBERATE MICHIGAN" rhetoric inspired militia groups to plot to kidnap her.[323] Trump's inflammatory rhetoric tying Asians to the virus ("King Flu" and "China virus") resulted in a sharp increase in online hate directed towards Asian-Americans.[324] Anti-Asian hate crimes increased by nearly 150% in 2020.[325]
Trump's poor decisions and idiotic statements were widely blamed for worsening the situation and undermining his own administration's response to the crisis.[326][327][328] An October 2020 study from the University of Oxford found that Trump's mishandling of COVID resulted in a 28% greater rate of excess deaths than in Europe and potentially cost more American lives than did American combat fatalities in World War I.[329] Holy shit. Trump's COVID shitshow finally came home to roost in October 2020, when the president, his wife, and dozens of White House aides came down with the disease.[330]
One good thing he did, though, was sign off on an emergency measure that represented one of the largest expansions of the welfare state in modern American history,[331] spending over $5 trillion on critically-necessary policies like emergency food benefits, free school meals, unemployment benefits, Medicaid expansion, and moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures.[332] Trump's "Operation Warp Speed" did successfully develop working COVID vaccines, but vaccine distribution was botched due to poor planning by the administration.[333]
2020 presidential election[edit]

Donald, you're fired![edit]
Trump's reelection campaign was a dumpster fire. His team managed to burn through a $1.6 billion cash advantage before the proper campaigning season even started,[335] and his team was divided and shrouded by "an atmosphere of paranoia."[336] Communication broke down between the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee broke down over strategy disagreements, and the RNC decided to run its own advertisements independently.[337] Trump had no real policy proposals for his second term and had presented basically no vision for what that term would look like or why he was even seeking it.[338] It also probably didn't help that Trump was acting like a crazy person on the campaign trail.[339]
It also couldn't be ignored that Trump was campaigning for reelection amid the smoldering ruins of the American economy, which was experiencing worse rates of unemployment than during the Great Recession.[340] Voters also understood that Trump had botched the government's response to the pandemic, downplayed the severity of the crisis that was killing Americans, and had fucked up so bad that he managed to get the virus himself.[341]
The almost saving grace for Trump's reelection was his vocal opposition to lockdown measures. Trump's argument that lockdowns were a "cure worse than the problem itself" motivated voters who were worried about how the pandemic response was impacting the economy.[342] This "think of the economy" message contributed to a much higher degree of support and turnout for Trump on Election Night than polls had predicted.[343]
Combined with the large number of mail-in ballots in this election, the higher-than-expected support for Trump manifested as an early lead for the president.[344] After an agonizing waiting period lasting several days, mail-in ballot counts confirmed that Trump had narrowly lost this election to his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.[345]
Coup attempt and second impeachment[edit]

While the aforementioned phone call certainly qualifies as an impeachable offence, on January 6th, 2021, in perhaps the single most infamous and dangerous thing he has ever done, besides his horrible handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump instigated an attempted self-coup by egging his armed supporters into storming the fucking Capitol, so they could stop Congress from certifying Biden's win in 2020.[346] Said supporters were actively trying to assassinate multiple members of Congress, including Vice President Mike Pence, who refused to reject Biden's certification (which isn't even in his powers as VP, for obvious reasons), and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; and it's quite easy to infer that they likely would not have stopped there. The ensuing mob violence killed five people[347] and nearly led to the slaughter of an entire branch of government, as the entire Congress fled underground and evacuated the building, leaving the Capitol at the whims of Trump's mob until the National Guard came in to retake the building.[346] In the midst of this chaos, Trump refused to deploy the National Guard (Pence did it instead), ignored panicked calls from his fellow Republicans, and reportedly relished in the violence being done in his name and by his words (read: cruelty).[348]
After Congress reconvened and certified Biden’s victory, Donald Trump became the first President ever to be impeached twice. He is also the only incumbent president who refused to accept defeat during the election, the only one to have instigated insurrection, and the only one to have incited an attack on the Capitol. Although he was acquitted after leaving office,[note 1] the damage was already done; his legacy is marked forever by this event, and it can be brought up at any time to paint him as the extremist that he truly is. This mark will be hard to scrub off, as he was permabanned from most of his social media accounts right after this event, due to the very real fear of more violence incited by his dangerous rhetoric.[349][350] Gone was his ability to incessantly babble his way out of a bad situation, and people are left with this final memory of his first term.
With nothing else to do, he gave a Farewell Address in the tradition of most Presidents the day before he hit the road.[351] January 20th, 2021 was a day that many anticipated. He decided not to witness Biden's inauguration (The first President to skip inauguration since Richard Nixon, and left for Marine One in the morning. He made a speech at Joint Base Andrews, implying he could be back in some way, before getting on Air Force One for one last time to his Mar-a-Lago estate. To the cue of YMCA, Trump finally left D.C., and as one last act, pardoned tax evader Al Pirro.[352] Trump’s first term came to an end, but the post-Trump interim has begun.
Biden interregnum[edit]
Trump remained adamant about returning to the White House in 2024. While super early polls suggested Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, as a strong contender, Trump has claimed that he could beat him, and DeSantis has fallen behind in Republican primary polling, and eventually dropped out.[353][354] In March 2022, Trump announced that Mike Pence would not be his running mate, which if he follows through will be the first time since Ford, in his failed second term election bid in 1976, for a candidate to pick a different person than his first vice president as his running mate.[355]
On the Russian invasion of Ukraine[edit]
Unsurprisingly, Trump spoke favorably about Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine, calling him a "genius" and "savvy."[356]
Overturning of Roe v. Wade[edit]
On June 26, 2022, Trump held a rally for U.S. Representative Mary Miller (IL-15), in which she made a remark claiming the overturning of Roe v. Wade was "a historic victory for white life", with Miller clapping while Trump nodded and smiled in agreement.[357] In a January 2024 town hall with Fox News, Trump took credit for the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe: "For 54 years they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it. And I'm proud to have done it."[358]
FBI visit[edit]
On August 8, 2022, the FBI executed a search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, looking for documents meant to be turned over to the National Archives.[359] On August 12, the search warrant was released to the public alongside court records showing that top secret documents, including nuclear secrets,[note 2] were recovered during the search.[359] The warrant specifies three federal laws suspected to have been violated, including the Espionage Act (18 U.S. Code § 793).[361] Many of Trump's supporters were furious over the raid and has led to multiple violent threats and acts towards the FBI, with some politicians even calling for abolishing the Bureau altogether.
In a filing by Trump's legal team, outlining their defense strategy, they argued that he still had "Q clearance" at the time that the FBI raided his residence. Q clearance, which is issued by the Department of Energy, allows people to view nuclear secrets. What the filing apparently did not mention, however, was that even with Q clearance, a person is not to allowed to view nuclear secrets except on a need-to-know basis, which Trump would not have had as an ex-president.[362] The lawyers were most likely feeding a bone to anyone still in the QAnon sphere of influence.[note 3]
2024 bid[edit]
On November 15, 2022, Trump formally announced he would run in 2024.[363] The DOJ said that Trump's 2024 candidacy won't stop criminal proceedings against him.[364]
NFT, WTF?[edit]
—Baked Alaska, Capitol rioter, after Trump's big NFT cards reveal[365] |
On December 14, 2022, Donald Trump posted a video on his Truth Social account with the caption, "AMERICA NEEDS A SUPERHERO! I will be making a MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT tomorrow." The post featured a video featuring a comic book cartoon of Trump ripping off a suit to reveal a superhero costume with a letter "T" as laser beams shot out of his eyes. Speculation was rife on social media what this announcement could be, with possibilities for the announcement including Trump announcing a running mate for his 2024 campaign or Trump announcing a return to his recently un-banned Twitter account.[366]
The next day's big reveal: NFT digital trading cards. At $99 each, the cards feature (hilariously) machismo-style, cartoonish images of Trump cosplaying as an astronaut, a fighter pilot, and more. Reportedly, many of the cards' images were lifted, crudely-altered stock footage and clothing photos found online.[367] Even by the low standards of NFTs, the cards were widely seen as ugly, cringe, beyond parody, and an obvious grift of his supporters.[368][369] The announcement was met with mockery on social media.[370] Even many conservatives (including Steve Bannon, Fox News editor Chris Pandolfo, BlazeTV host Chad Prather, and others) were flabbergasted and embarrassed by Trump's "Pokémon cards" (as Prather put it in a tweet).[371][372]
Despite the WTF nature of the NFTs, the grift was successful: all 45,000 pieces sold out in 12 hours, raising millions for the company that produced the NFTs[note 4] and for Trump (who licensed his name and likeness to the company).[373][374]
Indictment, arrest, and convictions[edit]
On March 31st, 2023, Trump was indicted for falsification of business records to cover up hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.[377] Shockingly, he did not take it very well, claiming it was a political "Witch-Hunt" and that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg was "doing Joe Biden's dirty work".[378] Certain other groups claimed it was a sign that the deep state would soon be exposed; the credibility is non-existent.[379] To add another bucket of salt to poor ol' Donnie's wounds, he is now to face 34 felony charges.[380] He was arrested on April 4, 2023.[381]
On May 30 2024, Trump was found guilty of every single one of these 34 felony charges. This is the first time that a former or sitting U.S. president has ever been convicted of criminal charges.[382]
Kicking him while he's down[edit]
Before the hush money case had even gone to trial, Trump was indicted again on federal charges in June 2023, alongside his valet Walt Nauta.[383] The initial charges against Trump (37 in all) related to the above-mentioned documents Trump had been hoarding at Mar-a-Lago and included 31 charges under the Espionage Act of unlawfully retaining national defence information.[384] An updated copy of the indictment brought further charges against Trump and Nauta, and charged Trump employee Carlos de Oliveira with helping to conceal the documents from subpoena.[385] A copy of the original indictment can be found here for those interested, and the updated version is here. Unfortunately, the federal judge assigned to the case was a Trump appointee named Aileen Cannon who proceeded to repeatedly undermine the prosecution through either incompetence or bias.[386] Judge Cannon eventually dismissed the case completely, claiming that the appointment of the special prosecutor on the case was illegal and unconstitutional; the Justice Department will appeal the ruling.[387]
But wait, THERE'S MORE![edit]
On August 1st, 2023, after 2 years of debates and legal proceedings, Donald Trump was finally indicted for interfering in the 2020 election following his defeat and the subsequent January 6th Capitol insurrection[388] He was indicted on four counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.[389] Fittingly, he was charged under Section 241 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, which was originally adopted in 1870 as part of the Ku Klux Klan Acts to protect rights guaranteed by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution that were enacted during Reconstruction.[390] An annotated copy of the indictment is available here courtesy of CNN. Unsurprisingly, he pleaded not guilty and call his arrest "a sad day for America." Top that all off, he went as far as to threaten the people investigating him. Totally something an innocent person would do.
Where will it end?[edit]
In the latest chapter in the Trump indictment saga, on 15 August 2023 Trump, several of his lawyers (including Rudy Giuliani), his former Chief of Staff, the state GOP chair and assorted co-conspirators were all indicted on racketeering and conspiracy charges in Georgia.[391] Like his third indictment, these charges related to his illegal attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state via fake electors and pressuring state officials to "find" votes.[392] He was booked in the Fulton county PD on August 24 and released on a $200,000 bond. Fulton county made sure to get an unartistic photo of him that captured his character.[393]
His arrest was not only justice, but also karma: the son of a klansman[394] was indicted by District Attorney Fani Willis, the daughter of a Black Panther Party member.[395] Surprise, surprise, he pleaded not guilty.
For most people, indictments and jailing would bring a political career to a disgraceful end; for Trump it's an opportunity to double down. He has gone so far as to use his mugshot in campaigning,[396] and to sell alleged pieces of the suit that he wore for the mugshot.[397]
Descent into fascism[edit]
“”Trump’s opening himself up to the Hitler comparison...You could say the ‘vermin’ remark or the ‘poisoning the blood’ remark, maybe one of them would be a coincidence. But both of them pretty much makes it clear that there’s something thematic going on, and I can’t believe it’s accidental.
|
—Mike Godwin, stating that comparing Trump's rhetoric to Hitler's is apt, and not an example of Godwin's Law.[398] |
Trump, with his rhetoric and tactics (such as directly quoting Mussolini in a tweet[399] or keeping a book of Hitler’s speeches[400]) was classified by political analysts and historians (including Umberto Eco and Jason Stanley) as an authoritarian, even a fascist, since his presidential run in 2016.[401][402] The capitol insurrection on January 6th strengthened his classification as a fascist, and it’s only gotten worse from there.[403]
In late 2023, Trump made two remarks that critics found disturbingly close to the rhetoric of fascist regimes. In a Veterans Day speech, Trump stated:
We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections... They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream.[404]
The usage of the word "vermin" attracted particular rebuke, drawing comparisons to the rhetoric of Hitler, Mussolini, and other authoritarian dictators.[404] In particular, the Nazis were very fond of slurring Jews as "the vermin of mankind."[405]
In a speech in Durham, New Hampshire in mid-December 2023, Trump described immigrants as "poisoning the blood of our country":[406]
They’re [Immigrants] poisoning the blood of our country... That’s what they’ve done. They’ve poisoned mental institutions and prisons all over the world — not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They’re coming into our country, from Africa, from Asia — all over the world. They’re pouring into our country, nobody's even looking at them, they just come in, the crime is going to be tremendous..."[407]
The phrasing was criticized for the similarity in his rhetoric that Adolf Hitler used in Mein Kampf.[note 6] The rhetoric drew criticism not only from Democrats like Joe Biden (who noted the similarity to Hitler), but even from a few Republicans, including Mitch McConnell and Susan Collins.[409]
Trump again drew condemnation for his fascist rhetoric in a campaign ad his team posted, where a heading titled “a unified reich” appeared halfway in the video. Although it was discreet, many people caught a glimpse in pauses, and showed that Trump’s team are sympathetic to fascists (many of them being Nick Fuentes fans, much like DeSantis’ former speechwriter who created the Nazi laced ad that ultimately killed DeSantis’ campaign).[410]
Assassination attempts[edit]
On July 13th 2024 at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, a man named Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed to a rooftop nearby where Trump was speaking and opened fire with a legally purchased AR-15 style assault rifle owned by his father.[411][412] Trump was struck near the top of his right ear by a single shot, thus completing his apotheosis amongst conservatives. Early reports indicated[413] that one rally attendee was killed, and at least one other badly injured. Crooks was killed by Secret Service agents at the scene. Trump's campaign almost immediately confirmed that he was 'fine'.[414] The attack was swiftly denounced by Joe Biden.[415] Despite this, outrage towards Biden came from the right in full force. This ranged from criticizing his rhetoric, to arguing that he and the Deep State were in cahoots with each other in order to take him down. There were also some on the left who pushed the theory that Trump himself staged the incident.[416]
As the investigation progressed, it was revealed that not only had members of the crowd been trying to alert the police to a man crawling across the roof of a nearby building, [417] the building itself had been identified as a potential problem before the rally, yet no team was placed where Crooks eventually fired from.[418] A major security / planning fuckup was impossible to deny.[citation NOT needed] The Republican party and their mouthpieces took the opportunity to blame the whole situation on DEI hiring in the Secret Service. [419] United States Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle
resigned after acknowledging in a congressional hearing that, as director, responsibility for the incident fell on her. To her credit, she owned it from the outset.[420] Conservative pundit Meghan McCain demonstrated support for her gender by retweeting self described theocratic fascist Matt Walsh who said "There should not be any women in the secret service. They are supposed to be the very best, and none of the very best at this job are women." [421]
… and again[edit]
This was not the end of violence however. On September 15, Ryan Wesley Routh fired shots near Mar-A-Lago, but was quickly detained.[422]
Second term[edit]
This section requires updating. |
Despite all the madness, and chaos inflicted by the MAGA world, when Election Day came, none of those things mattered. The frustrations of inflated prices were what drove people most to reelect him, complete with a new legion of yes men by his side. He even won the popular vote, the first time a Republican did so since 2004. Voter concerns for right leaning voters were about the economy, immigration secondly, and foreign policy in third.[423] Despite the fears of inflation,[424] during the Biden presidency, 16 Nobel economists were in agreement prior to that election that Trump would make inflation worse.[425]
Upon his second inauguration, Trump immediately pardoned 1500 January 6 defendants and convicts, including Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who violently attacked police. [426] [427] [428]
His first day was marked by a series of executive orders reversing many of Biden's own policies. Trump declared a national emergency at the Mexican border, began the process of withdrawing from the World Health Organization and Paris Climate Agreement, proclaimed an end to birthright citizenship, ending remote work for federal workers, removing protections for trans people in federal prisons, removing all climate policies under Biden, allowing offshore oil drilling in Alaska, reversing Biden's ban on offshore drilling for 625 million acres of federal waters, issuing a federal hiring freeze, making it easier to fire federal workers, and consider designating Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organization, among many other such directives and orders. [429]
Things only got worse from then on. Despite one of his most popular promises being removing taxes on tips, overtime, and social security, his press secretary confessed that Trump would do zero of those things. His so-called ‘big, beautiful bill’ slashed approximately one trillion dollars used to fund SNAP benefits, Medicaid, and other social programs, and used it to fund tax cuts for his billionaire cronies. He has facilitated the unlawful deportation of legal immigrants without any due process, as well.[430]
Rare moments of sanity[edit]
“”Our country is divided and out of control. The world is watching. Our country is totally divided and our enemies are watching.
|
—Trump accidentally says something truthful, but lacks the self-awareness that he is both the benefactor and partial source of the divisions.[431] |
Despite his deplorable reputation, Trump is no exception to the stopped clock principle. Here is an incomplete list of the [somewhat] right things he has done.
- He regularly calls out the neoconservatives and their hired help.[432] His annihilation of the Club for Growth was also on point.[433]
- Trump's comments on George Bush having advance foreknowledge
of the September 11 attacks and the lack of strategy post-9/11 from the Bush administration have led some in the right-wing news media[434] (even confessed truther Alex Jones[435]) to label him a "truther", although this isn't very accurate, as Trump backtracked from some of the advance knowledge comments, and he is not known for trutherism.[436] He also believes the famous “28 pages” redacted from the official 9/11 report were done to please the Saudis,[437] which would appear to be partially accurate.[438]
- On the bureaucracy front, he dropped a requirement that federal government agencies report on their Y2K preparedness 17 years after it came and proved to be a big pile of nothing.[439]
- His administration sided with South Dakota in a Supreme Court case that allows states to collect sales tax for all online stores, even if they don't have physical establishments in the charging state.[440]
- His claims on the troubles with (unfettered) free trade are largely correct.[441][note 7][note 8] The Trump administration withdrew the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and worked on modernizing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
- He signed into law a bill that upgrades the birthplace of the famed civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta, Georgia, into a national historical park. He also signed bills linking historical sites related to the civil rights movement and commemorating the first Africans' arrival in the English colonies in Point Comfort, Virginia, in 1619.[442]
- Despite his "tough on crime" policies, he commuted the sentence of Alice Johnson, a first-time offender who was sentenced to life imprisonment on nonviolent drug-related charges.[443] Trump later granted Johnson a full pardon.[444]
- He issued an executive order forcing the Department of Defense to provide army veterans with mental health facilities after they leave the service.[445]
- His administration banned bump stocks by defining them as "machineguns", which are illegal under the National Firearms Act.[446][note 9]
- Even though it was a jab at the Obama administration, he issued a pardon posthumously to former heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson (1878-1946). In his lifetime, Johnson was prosecuted for transporting a white woman across state lines in his car.[448]
- During the 2016 Presidential Campaign, he advocated for allowing people to purchase health insurance across state lines. However, he did not implement this plan.[note 10][449]
- He supports paper backup ballots.[450]
- On March 16th 2021, in a blow to Trump-worshipping anti-vaccination conspiracy theory movements such as QAnon, Donald Trump urged America to get vaccinated for COVID-19, calling it "safe" and "something that works."[451] His followers booed him at a rally in Alabama, but he tried to quell them by saying they have freedom.[452] Trump repeatedly continued to recommend the COVID-19 vaccine.[453]. This is despite his previous attempts to stop isolation and mask-wearing, so it may be less of a startling moment of sanity and more of a consistent practice to side with whatever keeps his businesses afloat. On the insanity side, though, it was later revealed that the Trump White House overruled a proposed 2020 CDC policy that would have put some limitations on church gatherings during the pre-vaccine phase of the pandemic, likely resulting in increased deaths of Trump's supporters.[454]
Iraq War?[edit]
In 2002, Trump appeared on Howard Stern's show and voiced his support (such as it was) for the Iraq War based on the "business opportunity" in the region (as Clinton put it) in 2011. However, Trump personally had a financial interest in opposing the war in Iraq and expressed concerns about the war soon after it had started: by 2004, it was well-known that Trump was an opponent of the Iraq War.[455] In 2015, visiting Las Vegas, Trump swerved the entire Republican Party, blasting the war louder than any Democrat would have:
Thousands and thousands of lives, we have nothing. Wounded warriors all over the place who I love, we have nothing for it.[456]
Then, during the election, Trump used the Iraq War as one of the most common sticks to beat Clinton with, even going to far as to suggest Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton were the "founders" of Daesh for leaving a power vacuum in the region: a power vacuum Trump also would have left, as he was calling for the immediate withdrawal of the US from Iraq as early as 2007.[457] When asked about running mate Mike Pence's decision to vote in favor of the Iraq War, Trump rather patronizingly said that Pence was "entitled to a mistake", and as for Hillary, "she's not."[458]
It is clear then that Trump's views on Iraq are not as well-informed as they initially appear.
List of nicknames[edit]
“”Long live Emperor Trump!
|
—A Chinese fan on social media[459] |
Donald Trump is a man of many nicknames: "The Donald",[460] "John Miller",[461] "John Barron",[462] "David Dennison",[463] "Don the Con",[464] "God-Emperor Trump",[465] "Mr. Brexit",[466], Honest Don [467] and Cadet Bone Spur.[468] One might also add "The Waanald", in light of his constant whining on Twitter and elsewhere whenever someone says something about him he doesn't like.
During his second term in office, the fat man gained the nickname "TACO" (short for "Trump Always Chickens Out"), alluding to his noticeable habit of talking a big, BIG game and then reneging on deals, policies, or pretty much just about anything that could potentially make him look bad.[469]
During the George Floyd protests, Trump hid in the White House basement and turned off the lights, a feat that earned him the nickname "Bunker Boy."[470]
Trump supporters[edit]

La Familia Trump consists of the usual suspects: a pack of celebrities as unfit to hold office as the man himself. We have dossiers on most of them:
- Jake Angeli: Became a terrorist to defend Trump.
- Joe Arpaio: Cartoonishly-corrupt sheriff of Maricopa County. Arpaio, whose department has been sued multiple times for racist policing practices by the federal government, declared "I'm with him to the bitter end."[472] Subsequently repaid in full with a presidential pardon for his sundry crimes and human rights violations.
- Herman Cain: 2012 Presidential candidate for the Republican nominee. Died after catching COVID at a rally.[473]
- Kenneth Copeland: Creepy televangelist who plays as a spiritual advisor for Trump. Supported him in 2016, and maniacally laughed at Biden's victory.[474]
- Anti-PC crusader Ann Coulter: Hopped on the Trump Train early[475] but appeared to sour on his 'half-baked tweets at midnight'. What's that old saying about a speck in your neighbor's eye?
- Dinesh D'Souza: Such a big Trump supporter he made a movie about it.[476]
- David Duke: Practically inevitably, the former head of the KKK tweeted that Trump was "the only way to stop the commie Bolsheviks." Bizarrely, Duke also endorsed Tucker Carlson for VP.[477]
- George Galloway: Here's a tricky one: Who would be a more terrible president, Donald Trump or George Galloway?[478][479] Fellow Brexiteer Nigel Farage appears to agree with Galloway on this one.[480]
- Sean Hannity: His inner construction worker cannot resist.[481] Compared Trump to King David, who "had five hundred concubines", ffs.[482]
- Alex Jones: Vaunted anti-government loon, is spreading the Trump Gospel – in essence, becoming a cheerleader for torture, the surveillance state, deportations, and zero-percent corporate taxes – all in exchange for a plug from Donald on his show.[483] Has since defected to Ron DeSantis, calling him "way better than Trump."[484]
- Arthur Laffer: Trickle-down needs to be brutally murdered because it won't fucking die on its own.[485] (Shouldn't you be wrecking Australia's economy right now?)
- Greg Locke: Pastor who denies Joe Biden won, and that Trump is the legitimate winner. Also thinks there is a pedophile ring in D.C. tunnels.[486] Locke has recently renounced his support for Trump, due to his promotion of COVID-19 vaccinations.[487]
- Michelle Malkin: Sees which way the wind is blowing and announced she would be "pulling the lever for Donald Trump." This from the woman who called him a "conservafraud" two years before. Others might have taken offense at Trump calling them "born stupid", but not Malkin: she couldn't Stump The Trump, and hopefully gained "wisdom" from the experience.[488]
- Ted Nugent: Of course, no collection of wingnuts would be complete without Nugent.[489] Political life lessons from him are like filling the seats at the BET awards with KKK members.
- Mehmet Oz: He looks healthy to me! What do you think, studio audience?
- Dennis Prager: Admits he only supports Trump out of hate for the left. One of the most adamantly anti-Trump talk show hosts of the past year was, in fact ... Dennis Prager.[490]
- Dan Quayle: The people who know what the job actually entails want nothing to do with Trump.[491] That should tell you everything you need to know. Dan Quayle does, so there's that.[492]
- Donald Rumsfeld: Trump's not doing so well in endorsements; he'll take what he can get.[493] Let's speculate on other stupid endorsements he may get. Lynndie England? Ollie North? Is G. Gordon Liddy dead yet?
- Michael Savage: Called Trump "the Winston Churchill of our time."[494] We live in savage times indeed.
- Phyllis Schlafly:
Marital rape supporterstay-at-home mom and Equal Rights Amendment opponent.[495] Now deceased. - Martin Shkreli:
"Most hated CEO in America" and convicted fraudster.[496]
- Ben Stein: Once a flack, always a flack. "He wants a peaceful, calm America."[497]
- Brenton Tarrant: Made the questionable decision to express his support for the Donald in his manifesto published before a terrorist attack.[498][note 11]
- Peter Thiel: Though he initially supported Carly Fiorina during the 2016 election, after she dropped out, Thiel supported Trump, donating $1.25 million to his campaign.[499] After Trump's victory, Thiel was named to the executive committee of his transition team.[500]
- Andrew Wakefield: In case you thought Trump was the stupidest person in the room.[501]
- Allen West: Wanted Trump to constantly visit Texas in 2020 in order to fanboy over him.[502] Not surprising, given their shared love of unorthodox interrogation techniques.
- Kanye West: Along with Herman Cain and Ben Carson, one of Trump's token black supporters.
- Milo Yiannopoulos: Refers to Trump as "Daddy."[503] As the official spokesman for the Internet's sewer, Yiannopoulos half-jokingly yearns for a God-Emperor Trump to transform America into some sort of a fascist monarchy.[504]
Similar people[edit]
- Benito Mussolini: Trump has adopted from him, consciously or not, many of the same gestures, rhetoric, body language, scapegoating tendencies, and authoritarian impulses all the way back when he was first a candidate for president.[505] After serving President and campaigning for president once more, these parallels are now no longer just parallels, but profoundly problematic executive policy and ideology with millions of followers.[506]
- Silvio Berlusconi: Il Trump Italiano. Just subtract a foot of height and add underage Moroccan prostitutes.
- Boris Johnson: British Trump, from the anti-Obama racism and anti-immigrant stances to the terrible hair and larger-than-life comedic image as a clownish man with a huge media personality. As Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris also caught flak for his less than stellar response to the coronavirus pandemic and tested positive for COVID-19.[507] He also purges members of his own party for disagreeing with his policies, causing some of his ministers to also resign in protest.[508][509] He also ran afoul of the Supreme Court, which unanimously found he illegally dismissed parliament to prevent them from scrutinizing his no-deal Brexit plan.[510]
- Rodrigo Duterte: Former president of the Philippines who's also the oldest to be elected to their respective countries' highest office. He's been called the "Trump of the East" due to both being "self-professed political outsiders with a penchant for tough talk and shocking turns of phrase." They're known for misogynistic comments, outlandish bombast, impulsive and violent rhetoric, and being in favor of the death penalty for drug users.[511] He was praised by Trump himself for mass murdering thousands of suspected drug users and is one of the few Filipinos he respects.[512]
- Janez Janša:
Former Prime Minister of Slovenia, Ivan Janša is known for making false claims, dressing up bald-faced lies as truths, accusing critics of being puppets to George Soros, promoting conspiracy theories on Twitter, including 2020 election denial-ism, which has earned him the nickname of Marshal Twito. He is a fan of Trump, an ally of Viktor Orban, and a notorious bigot who rails against migrants and journalists, even calling reporters "presstitutes." His career reads like a mix of Orban and Trump: beginning as a pro-democracy advocate, he turned hard right while in power, presiding over cronyism and corruption, dabbing into Antisemitism and Islamophobia, embracing climate change denial and anti-migrant rhetoric, and parading misogynistic language, up to publicly calling female journalists "washed-up prostitutes." With a coalition government in power, he has taken steps to degrade democracy and defeat any limitations to his power, including passing a law that removes the rights of most NGOs to take part in environmental assessments of infrastructure projects.[513][514][515][516]
- Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's most dangerous man who served as president from 2018 to 2022, Jair reads like he was bred from a Trump cloning factory. He once said to a woman who accused him of rape, "I would never rape you because you aren't worth it." He's incited violence from his supporters, and he is a notorious homophobe, racist, misogynist, and an incendiary reactionary on every social issue imaginable; he praised a dictator (Alberto Fujimori) for strong leadership, paid homage to a fascist colonel
who tortured dissidents (including former President Dilma Rousseff), and repeatedly scapegoats society's ills on the weak and vulnerable. He even says "the only difference [between me and Trump] is that I'm richer!"[517][518][519][520] Like Trump, he was also a sore loser.[521]
- Doug Ford:
Canadian premier of Ontario, a "businessman turned anti-establishment politician", a "son of a wealthy entrepreneur" who "rails against elites" and "often shuns expertise." But similar to Boris, he has a stranglehold on power despite his own party not really liking him very much.[522][523] He also awards family friends and political allies with patronage,[524] and also attacks basic democracy by willfully ignoring court rulings in defiance of what the people say, as he changed the size of the Toronto city council to prevent them from voting against his policies in defiance of the courts saying such a thing was unconstitutional.[525]
- Sebastián Piñera: Former President of Chile, another businessman-turned-chief of state, who resembles 2020-stage Trump, as an outright authoritarian who ordered the deployment of the military against peaceful protesters.
- Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: President of Turkey, another bloviating, loud-mouth racist authoritarian who ushered in a rise in xenophobia, racism against minorities (Kurds), violence against leftists (mostly Kurds and Turks), and attempts to overturn election results that didn't go his way (i.e. redoing the mayoral election of Istanbul only to then have his party lose by an even bigger margin).
- Benjamin Netanyahu: Prime Minister of Israel, who used fearmongering tactics against Arabs and Muslims to get elected, conducted a sterilization programme against minorities (Ethiopian Jews for Bibi, ICE detainees for Trump), antagonized Iran to help his reelection efforts, caused a political crisis that reached downright authoritarian levels (Bibi trying not to get indicted for corruption while navigating Israel's parliamentary politics; just about every major policy for Trump), refused to vaccinate a huge segment of the population (Palestine for Bibi, all of America for Trump), and dealt with a corruption investigation while in office.
- Narendra Modi: Prime Minister of India, infamous for presiding over thousands of religion-related murders and inciting violence (against Muslims and Christians) as Chief Minister of Gujarat, with many criticizing his inaction at best and his outright hateful language as escalating the crisis at worst. Just like Trump, his party is known for courting fascists (the BJP even came into being from a group that was actively inspired by the Nazis).
- Mohammad Hosseini: An Iranian dissident and leader of a far-right group inspired by QAnon that engages heavily in political violence, he and his group took inspiration from Trump and have even praised the former president for his stance against the Ayatollah, even copying his motto “Make America Great Again” but adopting it for Iran, “Make Iran Great Again.”
Fiction foreshadows fact[edit]
“”And every fictional depiction of Trump I’ve seen has fallen flat. He transcends parody, and he’s not a deep enough person to carry a meaningful drama.
|
—Drew Magary[526] |
Given that so much of Trump's life is already fictionalized,[527]:232-233 it's entirely redundant to make new fiction about his life. There are nonetheless some fictional works that foreshadowed the rise of Trump.
- In Sinclair Lewis' 1935 dystopian novel It Can't Happen Here,[528] the protagonist Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip rises to power in the United States to become dictator, parallelling the contemporaneous rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany.[529] Elmer Gantry was made into an Academy Award winning film in 1960.
- Stephen King wrote the science fiction thriller The Dead Zone in 1979.[530] In 2024, King wrote: "45 years ago I wrote a book about Donald Trump. It was called THE DEAD ZONE. I named him Greg Stillson."[531] Stillson is a malevolent "successful businessman" who rises to political power. The novel also contains a time-traveling killing Hitler plot element. The novel was made into a film in 1983 by David Cronenberg,[532] and was also made into a 2002 TV series.[533]
- The hero of the 2016 children's animated The Angry Birds Movie[534][note 12] (based on the gaming franchise that started in 2009) is unapologetically angry and the film has been interpreted as being metaphorically anti-immigration,[537] and 90% Trumpy.[538] The neo-Nazi website Counter-Currents reviewed the film approvingly, stating, "It’s hard to avoid the idea the movie is simply a giant metaphor for the European refugee crisis. A spoiled island of happy birds doesn’t recognize the threat of interlopers." and compared the hero to neo-Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell.[539]
See also[edit]
Spawn of Trump[edit]
- Trumpism
- Authoritarianism of Donald Trump
- COVID-19 pandemic#Calling Doctor Howard, Doctor Fine… Doctor Trump
- Foreign policy of Donald Trump
- Infrastructure policy of Donald Trump
- Rhetoric of Donald Trump
- Conservapedia:Donald Trump achievements
Trump shell companies[edit]
- Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House
- Know Nothing Party
- Ultracrepidarian
- Nepotism
- Paradise Papers
- Pissgate
- Secure the border
Trump, the game[edit]
- Fun:A day in the life of Donald J. Trump
- Fun:Quantum Trump
- Fun:Trump insult generator
- Fun:Trump synonym generator
- Fun:Trump tweet generator
Trump subsidiaries[edit]
- Pat Buchanan
- Charles Coughlin
- Paul LePage
- Ron DeSantis
- Rush Limbaugh
- Joseph McCarthy
- Richard Nixon
- Sarah Palin
- Vladimir Putin
- Ronald Reagan
- Shinzō Abe
- George Wallace
External links[edit]
- "Donald Trump Campaign Offered Actors $50 to Cheer for Him at Presidential Announcement", The Hollywood Reporter.
- "Donald Trump: 'I Could ... Shoot Somebody, And I Wouldn't Lose Any Voters'" – We're not sure the world is ready for a mad emperor Gordon Gekko.
- "The End of the World" — a 1958 episode from a TV show featuring a conman named Walter Trump, eerily similar[540]
- Sesame Street mocking Trump: Ronald Grump Builds The Grump Tower, Grouch Apprentice with Donald Grump. Trump is so petty, this is why he wants to destroy the National Endowment for the Arts, which funds Sesame Street.[541]
- Match of the Millennium. Trump Alert!
- See the Wikipedia article on Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations.
- How intelligent is Donald Trump?
- The many nicknames of President Donald J. Trump.
- In four years, President Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims: The Fact Checker’s database of the false or misleading claims made by President Trump while in office. (Updated Jan. 20, 2021) The Washington Post.
- His YouTube channel
- His Twitter Account - Elon Musk unbanned him
- A Rake's Progress
— Trump's life story foretold in the 18th century
Trump language[edit]
- His insults toward other candidates, The New York Times.
- The language he uses – is it "bigly" or "big league"? Neither – it's big lie.
- Donald Trump limerick generator
- Donald Trump Insult Generator, TIME.
Videos[edit]
- Never forget.
- RNC Prays For Democratic Defeat, Trump Victory - The fact that they're literally praying in an empty room is a powerful statement. So alone in their righteous anger.
- Donald Trump is the President!
- Building Trump's Wall. The B1M.
- The Tsar Spangled Banner. Sheet Music Boss.
- Donald, where's your trousers? Performed by Garret Dillahunt (as John Henry) and Mackenzie Smith (as Savannah Weaver) in Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Notes[edit]
- ↑ Insane from the Republican party, who were on the edge of being slaughtered by a fascist mob.
- ↑ The Onion saw this coming in 2017.[360]
- ↑ In other words, grasping at straws to keep Trump's personality cult going.
- ↑ An obscure entity based in a shopping mall in Park City, Utah called NFT INT.
- ↑ "…the number one selling mug shot in history", according to the subject.[376]
- ↑ A sample from Mein Kampf: "Alle großen Kulturen der Vergangenheit gingen nur zugrunde, weil die ursprünglich schöpferische Rasse an Blutsvergiftung abstarb."[408] This translates to: "All great cultures of the past only perished because the original creative race died of blood poisoning."
- ↑ For a more in-depth and nuanced look on the deceptive promise of free trade, there is this excellent DW documentary.
- ↑ The worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, ever!
- ↑ That is, until the Republican-appointed majority Supreme Court he helped pack overturned the executive order banning them in 2024.[447]
- ↑ It should be noted that this isn't necessarily a good idea. First off, the "state lines" thing isn't due to federal law – it's a state issue. Each state has its own rules and regulations for what it considers acceptable insurance policy levels; this is the cause of the so-called "state lines." Second, forcing a state to follow another state's lower policy levels could cause problems — this document summarizes these issues.
- ↑ Although the truthfulness of Tarrant's manifesto is disputed and some have claimed he was simply trying to cause division.
- ↑ The film was under development as early as 2011,[535] with a trailer release in August 2015.[536]
References[edit]
- ↑ The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America by Timothy Snyder (2018) Tim Duggan Books ISBN 0525574468.
- ↑ https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-protecting-americas-founding-ideals-promoting-patriotic-education/
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/04/is-trump-a-fascist
- ↑ https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/why-trump-is-a-fascist-extended-version
- ↑ Federal judge finds that Trump lied under oath about voter fraud in Georgia while trying to overturn the 2020 election results by Sonam Sheth (Oct 19, 2022, 5:01 PM PDT) Business Insider. Archived here.
- ↑ Judge clarifies: Yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll by Aaron Blake (July 19, 2023) The Washington Post. Archived here.
- ↑ Schmunk, Rhianna (2024-05-30). "Donald Trump is the 1st convicted felon president. Here's what that means". CBC.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 O'Harrow, Robert Jr.; Boburg, Shawn (2016-06-16). "The man who showed Donald Trump how to exploit power and instill fear". Washington Post.
- ↑ "Fact Check: Has Trump declared bankruptcy four or six times?". Washington Post. 2016-09-27.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Yglesias, Matthew (2016-06-12). "How Donald Trump made billions running failed casinos in Atlantic City". Vox.
- ↑ Sellers, Frances Stead (2015-11-06). "What Trump learned on 'The Apprentice'". Washington Post.
- ↑ Brownstein, Ronald (2016-06-02). "The Rhetoric of White Nostalgia". The Atlantic.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Lopez, German (2017-12-15). "The past year of research has made it very clear: Trump won because of racial resentment". Vox.
- ↑ Sheehey, Maeve (2021-06-30). "Trump debuts at 41st in C-SPAN presidential rankings". POLITICO. Retrieved 2025-02-04.
- ↑ Zurcher, Anthony (2023-07-31). "Why Trump's poll lead went up after criminal indictments". BBC Home.
- ↑ Paxton, Robert O. (2021-01-11). "Robert Paxton: I've Hesitated to Call Donald Trump a Fascist. Until Now". Newsweek.
- ↑ Micek, John L. (2022-06-22). "Trumpism is fascism, American-style". Pennsylvania Capital-Star.
- ↑ French, Howard W. (2024-10-30). "So, Is Trump Really a Fascist?". Foreign Policy.
- ↑ Snyder, Timothy (2024-11-08). "What Does It Mean That Donald Trump Is a Fascist?". The New Yorker.
- ↑ "Trump and racism: What do the data say?". Brookings. 2024-08-07.
- ↑ Dale, Daniel (2020-09-02). "Fact check: A guide to 9 conspiracy theories Trump is currently pushing". CNN.
- ↑ Saric, Ivana (2022-05-02). "The times Trump has advocated for violence". Axios.
- ↑ Kessler, Glenn; Rizzo, Salvador; Kelly, Meg (2021-01-24). "Trump's false or misleading claims total 30,573 over 4 years". Washington Post.
- ↑ Schwartz, Tony (2018-01-18). "I wrote The Art of the Deal with Trump. He's still a scared child". the Guardian.
- ↑ Bump, Philip (2016-02-29). "In 1927, Donald Trump's father was arrested after a Klan riot in Queens". Washington Post.
- ↑ Dean, Michelle (2016-03-26). "Making the man: to understand Trump, look at his relationship with his dad". the Guardian.
- ↑ Karni, Annie; Rogers, Katie (2020-07-28). "Like Father, Like Son: President Trump Lets Others Mourn". The New York Times.
- ↑ Diamond, Jeremy (2015-10-26). "Donald Trump describes father's 'small loan': $1 million". CNN.
- ↑ 29.0 29.1 29.2 "NY Times: Trump got $413M from his dad, much from tax dodges". AP News. 2018-10-03.
- ↑ Buettner, Russ; Craig, Susanne (2024-09-17). Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created The Illusion of Success. Penguin Group. ISBN 978-0-593-29864-0.
- ↑ Press, Associated (2017-10-23). "McCain issues veiled criticism of Trump's Vietnam deferment". Military Times.
- ↑ Stracqualursi, Veronica (2018-12-26). "New York Times: Daughters of foot doctor say he diagnosed Trump with bone spurs as 'favor' to Fred Trump". CNN.
- ↑ Cummings, William (2018-12-27). "Trump's Vietnam bone spur diagnosis made as 'favor' to father: report". USA TODAY.
- ↑ Rim, Christopher (2019-02-28). "Here's Why Donald Trump Doesn't Want Anyone To Know His Grades Or SAT Scores". Forbes.
- ↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 Valania, Jonathan (2019-09-15). "Fact-Checking All of the Mysteries Surrounding Donald Trump and Penn". Philadelphia Magazine.
- ↑ Tanenbaum, Michael (2019-07-08). "Former Wharton admissions officer on Donald Trump: 'Certainly not a super genius'". PhillyVoice.
- ↑ 37.0 37.1 37.2 Kranish, Michael (2019-07-08). "Trump has referred to his Wharton degree as 'super genius stuff.' An admissions officer recalls it differently". Washington Post.
- ↑ Chapman, Steve (2017-11-03). "Column: Donald Trump's biggest flaw: He's not that bright". Chicago Tribune.
- ↑ Paz, Giovanna; Cohen, Max (2019-02-27). "Michael Cohen testifies that he threatened Penn not to release Trump's grades". The Daily Pennsylvanian.
- ↑ 40.0 40.1 40.2 40.3 40.4 40.5 40.6 Mahler, Jonathan; Eder, Steve (2016-08-27). "'No Vacancies' for Blacks: How Donald Trump Got His Start, and Was First Accused of Bias". The New York Times.
- ↑ Rothman, Lily (2016-09-28). "Trump's 1973 Discrimination Case Was Part of Larger Case". TIME.
- ↑ "Decades-Old Housing Discrimination Case Plagues Donald Trump". NPR. 2016-09-29.
- ↑ "AP FACT CHECK: Trump on discrimination in his business". AP News. 2016-09-27.
- ↑ Gerstein, Josh (2017-02-15). "FBI releases files on Trump apartments' race discrimination probe in '70s". POLITICO.
- ↑ Levingston, Ivan (2016-08-02). "Trump fires back at the Oracle: 'I don't care much about Warren Buffett'". CNBC.
- ↑ Tecotzky, Alice (2024-12-13). "The Trump Organization: Everything to know about the Trump family business". Business Insider.
- ↑ Horsley, Scott (2018-03-19). "Sworn To Secrecy: Trump's History Of Using Nondisclosure Agreements". NPR. Retrieved 2025-02-07.
- ↑ Mangan, Dan (2019-09-27). "FBI releases files on President Trump's late lawyer, Roy Cohn". CNBC.
- ↑ Elliott, Justin (2011-04-28). "Donald Trump's racial discrimination problem". Salon.
- ↑ James, Caryn (2024-05-17). "Roy Cohn: The mysterious US lawyer who helped Donald Trump rise to power". BBC Home.
- ↑ Haberman, Maggie; Swan, Jonathan (2024-04-30). "Trump Vents About Lawyer in His Hush-Money Criminal Trial". The New York Times.
- ↑ 52.0 52.1 52.2 52.3 Johnston, David Cay (2021-01-27). "Just What Were Donald Trump's Ties to the Mob?". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved 2025-02-06.
- ↑ O'Harrow, Robert Jr. (2015-10-16). "Trump swam in mob-infested waters in early years as an NYC developer". Washington Post.
- ↑ Calabresi, Massimo (2016-08-25). "What Donald Trump Knew About Undocumented Workers at His Signature Tower". TIME.
- ↑ Beckwith, Ryan Teague (2017-11-28). "Read the Legal Settlement Donald Trump Signed in Dispute Over Undocumented Workers". TIME.
- ↑ Frates, Chris (2015-07-31). "Donald Trump and the mob". CNN.
- ↑ Helderman, Rosalind S.; Hamburger, Tom (2016-05-17). "Former Mafia-linked figure describes association with Trump". Washington Post.
- ↑ Burgis, Tom (2016-10-19). "Dirty money: Trump and the Kazakh connection". Financial Times.
- ↑ Unger, Craig (2017-07-13). "Trump's Russian Laundromat". The New Republic.
- ↑ 60.0 60.1 Buettner, Russ; Bagli, Charles V. (2016-06-11). "How Donald Trump Bankrupted His Atlantic City Casinos, but Still Earned Millions". The New York Times.
- ↑ Murse, Tom (2017-10-02). "The Details About the 6 Donald Trump Corporate Bankruptcies". ThoughtCo.
- ↑ Neiger, Chris (2010-09-07). "Casino Stats: Why Gamblers Rarely Win". Investopedia.
- ↑ 63.0 63.1 Buettner, Russ; Bagli, Charles V. (2016-06-11). "How Donald Trump Bankrupted His Atlantic City Casinos, but Still Earned Millions". The New York Times.
- ↑ Laura Dolan, Jessica Schneider (2016-09-14). "The small business owners Trump never paid in full". CNN.
- ↑ Lopez, Linette (2017-05-10). "The Trump Taj Mahal casino sold for 4 cents on the dollar — here's how Trump bankrupted it twice". Business Insider.
- ↑ 66.0 66.1 Pagliery, Jose (2017-05-22). "Trump's casino was a money laundering concern shortly after it opened". CNN.
- ↑ 67.0 67.1 "The last time a Trump company went public it didn't go well for investors". NBC News. 2024-03-23.
- ↑ Hobbs, Thomas (2019-04-08). "Atlantic City: 'Trump turned this place into a ghost town'". the Guardian.
- ↑ "Transcript of the 2015 GOP debate (9 pm)". CBS News. 2015-08-07.
- ↑ Bertrand, Natasha (2017-11-23). "The Trump Organization is set to distance itself from one of its biggest headaches in the Russia probe". Business Insider.
- ↑ Weiss, Brennan (2018-02-21). "Trump's oldest son said a decade ago that a lot of the family's assets came from Russia". Business Insider.
- ↑ Flitter, Emily (2016-07-17). "Art of the spin: Trump bankers question his portrayal of financial comeback". Reuters.
- ↑ 73.0 73.1 73.2 Hirsh, Michael (2018-12-21). "How Russian Money Helped Save Trump's Business". Foreign Policy.
- ↑ 74.0 74.1 Unger, Craig (2019-03-29). "Trump's businesses are full of dirty Russian money. The scandal is that it's legal". Washington Post.
- ↑ O&apos, Timothy L. (2017-06-21). "Trump, Russia and a Shadowy Business Partnership". Bloomberg.com.
- ↑ Nesbit, Jeff (2016-08-02). "Donald Trump's Many, Many, Many, Many Ties to Russia". TIME.
- ↑ Alexander, Dan (2020-08-20). "Trump's Business Partners Allegedly Involved In Human Trafficking, Mafia Matters, Probable Money Laundering". Forbes.
- ↑ Zarroli, Jim (2017-11-07). "Trump SoHo: A Shiny Hotel Wrapped In Glass, But Hiding Mysteries". NPR.
- ↑ Bump, Philip (2018-04-12). "Here's how Trump Soho was marketed to Russians". Washington Post.
- ↑ "Russian elite invested nearly $100 million in Trump buildings". Reuters. 2017-03-17.
- ↑ Harding, Luke; Kirchgaessner, Stephanie (2017-10-19). "Russian scrutinised for ties to Trump investigated in Monaco". the Guardian.
- ↑ Bump, Philip (2018-01-04). "How money laundering works in real estate". Washington Post.
- ↑ 83.0 83.1 83.2 83.3 "A Definitive History Of Trump Steaks™". ThinkProgress. 2016-03-04.
- ↑ Murphy, Tim (2015-07-31). "Everything you need to know about Donald Trump can be learned by rolling these dice". Mother Jones.
- ↑ Smith, Oliver (2020-10-01). "Trump Shuttle: Looking back at Donald Trump's failed, forgotten airline". The Sydney Morning Herald.
- ↑ Independent, The (2016-03-01). "A reminder of the one quote from Donald Trump that shows why he can't be trusted with the economy". The Independent.
- ↑ Bryan Dent. The Rise and Fall of Trump Vodka. Brutal Hammer. September 24, 2015.
- ↑ 88.0 88.1 Purcell, Carey (2021-01-27). "I Survived 'Trump' Magazine—Barely". POLITICO Magazine.
- ↑ Rappeport, Alan (2016-07-18). "'I Feel a Deep Sense of Remorse,' Donald Trump's Ghostwriter Says". The New York Times.
- ↑ Kurtzleben, Danielle (2015-11-05). "Trump's New Book Doesn't Say Much, But Neither Do Lots Of Political Books". NPR.
- ↑ Buncombe, Andrew (2018-07-04). "Trump just boasted about writing many books. His biographer's response has gone viral". The Independent.
- ↑ Mayer, Jane (2016-07-18). "Donald Trump's Ghostwriter Tells All". The New Yorker.
- ↑ Zuckerman, Alex; Farhi, Arden (2019-05-24). "Trump's ghostwriter says writing "The Art of the Deal" is the greatest regret of his life". CBS News.
- ↑ Schwartz, Tony (2017-05-16). "I wrote 'The Art of the Deal' with Trump. His self-sabotage is rooted in his past". Washington Post.
- ↑ Lozada, Carlos (2015-12-08). "I just binge-read eight books by Donald Trump. Here's what I learned". Washington Post.
- ↑ 96.0 96.1 Sankin, Aaron (2015-08-23). "Donald Trump's 15-year-old book on public policy reveals what kind of president he'd be". The Daily Dot.
- ↑ Updated, Last (2015-12-31). "Donald Trump's ghostwriter won't vote for him". theweek.
- ↑ Diamond, Jeremy (2015-11-03). "The 5 things you need to know about Donald Trump's new book". CNN.
- ↑ 99.0 99.1 "Trump bragged that he walked in on naked beauty pageant contestants". ThinkProgress. 2016-10-12.
- ↑ 100.0 100.1 Stuart, Tessa (2016-10-12). "A Timeline of Donald Trump's Creepiness While He Owned Miss Universe". Rolling Stone.
- ↑ "Meet Alicia Machado, the woman Trump allegedly called 'Miss Piggy'". NBC News. 2016-09-27.
- ↑ Redden, Molly (2016-10-13). "Miss USA 2001 contestant: Trump barged into room when we were naked". the Guardian.
- ↑ Neidig, Harper (2016-10-12). "Report: Trump walked into teen beauty pageant changing room".
- ↑ "Why Trump will keep his Hollywood star". BBC Home. 2018-08-07.
- ↑ Puente, Maria (2015-06-29). "NBC to Donald Trump: You're fired". USA TODAY.
- ↑ 106.0 106.1 Buettner, Russ; Craig, Susanne (2024-09-14). "How 'The Apprentice' Fueled Donald Trump's Rise to the Presidency". The New York Times.
- ↑ 107.0 107.1 107.2 Miller, John D. (2024-10-16). "We Created a Monster: Trump Was a TV Fantasy Invented for 'The Apprentice'". US News & World Report.
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- ↑ Burke, Garance (2016-10-03). "AP: 'Apprentice' cast and crew say Trump was lewd and sexist". AP News.
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- ↑ Pruitt, Bill (2024-05-30). "For 20 Years, I Couldn't Say What Donald Trump Did on the Set of The Apprentice. Now I Can". Slate Magazine.
- ↑ Cassidy, John (2016-06-02). "Trump University: It's Worse Than You Think". The New Yorker.
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{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ Severns, Maggie (2016-03-03). "Tales from the Trump University legal vault". POLITICO.
- ↑ Sahadi, Jeanne; McGowan, Karen (2015-07-24). "Donald Trump still battling lawsuits from defunct Trump University". CNNMoney.
- ↑ Kennedy, Merrit (2016-11-18). "New York Attorney General Says Trump Agrees To Trump University Settlement". NPR.
- ↑ 118.0 118.1 Wang, Vivian (2018-06-14). "The Donald J. Trump Foundation, Explained". The New York Times.
- ↑ Nahmias, Laura (2018-12-18). "Trump Foundation to shut down under agreement with New York attorney general". POLITICO.
- ↑ Fahrenthold, David A. (2016-07-01). "Donald Trump used money donated for charity to buy himself a Tim Tebow-signed football helmet". Washington Post.
- ↑ Sack, Kevin; Eder, Steve (2016-09-15). "New Records Shed Light on Donald Trump's $25,000 Gift to Florida Official". The New York Times.
- ↑ "Donald Trump's troubled charity foundation to shut down". BBC Home. 2018-12-18.
- ↑ Kennedy, Merrit (2019-11-07). "Judge Says Trump Must Pay $2 Million Over Misuse Of Foundation Funds". NPR.
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- ↑ 125.0 125.1 Swanson, Ana (2016-03-23). "The Trump Network sought to make people rich, but left behind disappointment". Washington Post.
- ↑ "Exactly How Bogus Were Those 'Trump Vitamins?'". HuffPost. 2016-06-02.
- ↑ Bradner, Eric (2015-11-08). "Trump says Bush 41 adviser approached him about becoming VP". CNN.
- ↑ Clift, Eleanor (2016-07-18). "The Last Time Trump Wrecked a Party". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2025-02-10.
- ↑ Kevin Liptak, Athena Jones (2017-06-28). "Trump-Obama relationship is historically sour". CNN.
- ↑ "The birth of the Obama 'birther' conspiracy". BBC News. 2016-09-16.
- ↑ 131.0 131.1 Taddonio, Patrice (2016-09-22). "WATCH: Inside the Night President Obama Took On Donald Trump". FRONTLINE.
- ↑ Diamond, Jeremy (2015-06-16). "Donald Trump jumps in: The Donald's latest White House run is officially on". CNN.
- ↑ Cassidy, John (2016-05-04). "How Donald Trump Won the G.O.P. Nomination". The New Yorker.
- ↑ "Donald Trump Announces Presidential Bid By Trashing Mexico, Mexicans". NBC News. 2015-06-16.
- ↑ DeSilver, Drew (2024-04-14). "Turnout was high in the 2016 primary season, but just short of 2008 record". Pew Research Center.
- ↑ Long, Heather (2017-02-16). "NAFTA is 'killing the American Dream,' Michigan workers say". CNNMoney. Retrieved 2024-12-02.
- ↑ Taylor, Jessica (2015-12-07). "Trump Calls For 'Total And Complete Shutdown Of Muslims Entering' U.S." NPR.
- ↑ Cillizza, Chris (2018-10-30). "The dangerous consequences of Trump's all-out assault on political correctness". CNN.
- ↑ Taub, Amanda (2016-01-29). "How Donald Trump uses "political correctness" to make sexist bullying seem like heroism". Vox.
- ↑ Guo, Jeff (2015-12-12). "The real reasons Donald Trump's so popular". Washington Post.
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- ↑ Waldman, Paul (2015-11-25). "Donald Trump is running the most explicitly racist campaign since 1968". theweek.
- ↑ Schaffner, Brian F.; Macwilliams, Matthew; Nteta, Tatishe (2018-03-01). "Understanding White Polarization in the 2016 Vote for President: The Sobering Role of Racism and Sexism". Political Science Quarterly. 133 (1): 9–34. doi:10.1002/polq.12737. ISSN 0032-3195.
- ↑ Keith, Tamara (2016-10-23). "Sexism Is Out In The Open In The 2016 Campaign. That May Have Been Inevitable". NPR.
- ↑ Liptak, Kevin (2016-10-14). "Obama on Republicans disavowing Trump: Too little, too late". CNN.
- ↑ Nelson, Libby (2016-10-08). "Donald Trump's history of misogyny, sexism, and harassment: a comprehensive review". Vox.
- ↑ Nguyen, Tina (2016-03-11). "Donald Trump's Rallies Are Becoming Increasingly Violent". Vanity Fair.
- ↑ Jacobs, Ben (2016-03-11). "Trump campaign dogged by violent incidents at rallies". the Guardian.
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- ↑ Cillizza, Chris (2020-06-15). "Let's dispel the biggest myth of the 2016 election". CNN.
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- ↑ "No, Trump's electoral college win was not the biggest since Reagan". NBC News. 2017-02-16.
- ↑ Chenoweth, Erica; Pressman, Jeremy (2017-02-07). "This is what we learned by counting the women's marches". Washington Post.
- ↑ Nelson, Louis (2017-06-21). "ACLU sues D.C. police over alleged mistreatment during Trump inauguration protests". POLITICO.
- ↑ Cineas, Fabiola (2020-10-09). "A timeline of hate: Trump's history of encouraging violence, from 2015 to 2021". Vox.
- ↑ Siddiqui, Sabrina; Smith, David (2018-08-02). "Trump's attacks on media raise threat of violence against reporters, UN experts warn". the Guardian.
- ↑ Biskupic, Joan (2020-02-22). "Trump's unbroken pattern of disdain for the rule of law". CNN.
- ↑ Snyder, Timothy (2017-03-03). "Donald Trump and the New Dawn of Tyranny". TIME.
- ↑ Stanley-Becker, Isaac; Dawsey, Josh (2024-10-11). "Eight years ago, Trump vowed to 'drain the swamp.' Now he swims in it". Washington Post.
- ↑ Tesfaye, Sophia (2016-12-02). "Fill the swamp! Donald Trump's voters don't seem upset by all the Wall Street insiders and D.C. lobbyists". Salon.
- ↑ "Tracking turnover in the Trump administration". Brookings. 2024-12-23.
- ↑ Tindera, Michela (2019-07-25). "The Definitive Net Worth Of Donald Trump's Cabinet". Forbes.
- ↑ Espey, Mishka; Shepherd, Madeline (2017-01-27). "Inside the Financial Holdings of Billionaire Betsy DeVos". Center for American Progress.
- ↑ Dayen, David (2017-01-05). "Kamala Harris Fails to Explain Why She Didn't Prosecute Steven Mnuchin's Bank". The Intercept.
- ↑ Yglesias, Matthew (2018-06-20). "Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is tied up in major financial conflicts of interest". Vox.
- ↑ Gerstein, Josh (2017-10-03). "DOJ releases overruled memos finding it illegal for presidents to appoint relatives". POLITICO.
- ↑ Libowitz, Jordan (2021-02-15). "How Ivanka and Jared made millions while refusing White House salaries". NBC News.
- ↑ "Jared and Ivanka made up to $640 million in the White House". CREW. 2021-04-16.
- ↑ Epstein, Kayla (2022-12-30). "The long journey to getting Trump's taxes released". BBC Home.
- ↑ "Donald Trump: A list of potential conflicts of interest". BBC News. 2016-12-01. Retrieved 2025-02-10.
- ↑ Brice, Makini (2024-01-04). "Trump business got at least $7.8 million in foreign payments during presidency -report". Reuters.
- ↑ Fahrenthold, David A.; O'Connell, Jonathan (2018-08-03). "At President Trump's hotel in New York, revenue went up this spring". Washington Post.
- ↑ Batrawy, Aya; Press, Associated (2019-06-24). "Trump puts Saudi arms sales above inquiry into Khashoggi killing". PBS News.
- ↑ Jacobs, Rebecca; Maguire, Robert (2023-08-15). "Trump made up to $160 million from foreign countries as president". CREW.
- ↑ "Donald Trump's stock in Dakota Access oil pipeline raises concerns". CBS News. 2016-11-25.
- ↑ Merica, Dan (2018-03-03). "Trump spends 100th day at golf club as president". CNN.
- ↑ Libowitz, Jordan; Moniz, Caitlin (2023-08-16). "The Secret Service spent nearly $2 million at Trump properties". CREW.
- ↑ "Trump has made 500 visits to his properties while in office". CREW. 2020-09-17.
- ↑ Alexander, Dan (2021-07-19). "Trump's Business Hauled In $2.4 Billion During Four Years He Served As President". Forbes.
- ↑ "Trump reported making more than $1.6 billion while president". CREW. 2021-04-16.
- ↑ Lezra, Gabe (2019-10-01). "Profiting off the Presidency: Trump's Violations of the Emoluments Clauses". American Constitution Society.
- ↑ 186.0 186.1 186.2 Marr, Chuck; Jacoby, Samantha; Fenton, George (2024-03-05). "The 2017 Trump Tax Law Was Skewed to the Rich, Expensive, and Failed to Deliver on Its Promises". Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
- ↑ Nadeau, Sarah; Shepherd, Madeline (2024-04-30). "The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Failed To Deliver Promised Benefits". Center for American Progress.
- ↑ Nadeau, Sarah; Cusick, Julia; Shepherd, Madeline (2019-09-26). "Trump's Corporate Tax Cut Is Not Trickling Down". Center for American Progress.
- ↑ Jeffrey Kucik (2021-01-21). "How Trump fueled economic inequality in America".
- ↑ Miller, Meghan (2024-05-08). "Tax Cuts Are Primarily Responsible for the Increasing Debt Ratio". Center for American Progress.
- ↑ Allan Sloan, Cezary Podkul (2021-01-14). "Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big (Even Before the Pandemic) That It'll Weigh Down the Economy for Years". ProPublica.
- ↑ "Ten actions that hurt workers during Trump's first year: How Trump and Congress further rigged the economy in favor of the wealthy". Economic Policy Institute. 2017-01-20.
- ↑ "The Trump administration's major environmental deregulations". Brookings. 2022-03-09.
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{{cite web}}
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- ↑ Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by Twitter Inc. (8 January 2021) Twitter (archived from 13 Jan 2021 15:58:55 UTC).
- ↑ Facebook bans Trump account indefinitely, along with Instagram, USA Today
- ↑ Farewell Address
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- ↑ Trump calls Putin ‘genius’ and ‘savvy’ for Ukraine invasion by Joseph Gedeon (February 23, 2022 10:15 AM), Politico.
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- ↑ Read the warrant that allowed the FBI to search Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. AP News. August 12, 2022.
- ↑ Trump lawyers say document shows he kept ‘Q’ clearance for nuclear secrets: In Florida trial involving classified documents, Donald Trump’s lawyers are seeking more information about a Department of Energy clearance list by Perry Stein (January 17, 2024 at 1:43 p.m. EST) The Washington Post.
- ↑ Donald Trump says he'll run for president again in 2024 by Sarah Smith and Jude Sheerin, BBC News
- ↑ "Trump's 2024 bid for president won't stop DOJ criminal probes" - MSN
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- ↑ "We have a nation going down the toilet, and Donald Trump is selling Pokémon cards. No thanks. And those of you with your secret decoder ring trying to figure out why need to STFU." by Chad Prather, @WatchChad, Twitter, 2022 December 15, archived on 15 Dec 2022
- ↑ "Donald Trump's NFT Collection Sells Out, Raising $4.45M" by Daniel Van Boom, CNet, 2022 December 15
- ↑ "What is NFT INT LLC? (And Who Owns It?)" by Alex Borden, NFT Lately, 2022 December 16
- ↑ "Here Is Trump's Mug Shot, the First Ever of a Former President" by Brian Bennett and Nik Popli, Time, 2023 August 24
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- ↑ Donald Trump indictment: Ex-US president to be charged over hush money, by Anthony Zurcher & Jude Sheerin BBC News
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- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
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- ↑ Who is Walt Nauta, the Trump aide charged in classified documents case?. BBC News. 9 June 2023.
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- ↑ Donald Trump's co-defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, appears in court over classified documents by Bart Jansen and Hannah Phillips
- ↑ “Dopey and Constitutionally Dubious”: Legal Experts Blast Judge Aileen Cannon’s Latest Pro-Trump Rulings. Vanity Fair. 8 August 2023.
- ↑ Trump documents case dismissed by federal judge, with special counsel vowing to appeal. CBS News. 15 July 2024.
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- ↑ "Donald Trump has been indicted in special counsel’s 2020 election interference probe" By Tierney Sneed, Holmes Lybrand, Marshall Cohen, Zachary Cohen, Devan Cole, Hannah Rabinowitz, Holmes Lybrand and Katelyn Polantz, CNN, 2023 August 1
- ↑ Trump is charged under civil rights law used to prosecute KKK violence: The provision was originally adopted in 1870 and was intended to protect the newly codified rights of Black citizens after the Civil War by Isaac Stanley-Becker & Spencer S. Hsu (August 1, 2023) The Washington Post.
- ↑ The latest on Trump's indictment in the Georgia 2020 election probe by Leinz Vales, Aditi Sangal and Adrienne Vogt (August 15, 2023) CNN.
- ↑ A look at the 19 people charged in Georgia indictment connected to Trump election scheme by Kate Brumback and Jonathan J. Cooper (August 15, 2021) ABC News.
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- ↑ You Can Call Her Madam DA; Fani Willis on Making History As Fulton County’s First Woman District Attorney by Ashtin Rose (January 20, 2021) South Atlanta Magazine (archived from November 25, 2021).
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- ↑ Donald Trump sells pieces of suit worn during Georgia booking by Brian Niemietz (December 13, 2023 at 12:55 PM PST) Daily News via Yahoo News.
- ↑ "‘Trump Knows What He’s Doing’: The Creator of Godwin’s Law Says the Hitler Comparison Is Apt" by Calder McHugh, Politico, 2023 December 19
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{{cite web}}
: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=
(help) - ↑ Donald Trump's history with Adolf Hitler and his Nazi writings: ANALYSIS ABC News
- ↑ Trump announced a 'surge' of federal agents to cities led by Democrats. The author of 'How Fascism Works' says Trump is 'performing fascism.'[a w], Business Insider
- ↑ Umberto Eco on Donald Trump: 14 Ways of Looking at a Fascist[a w], Literary Hub
- ↑ I've Hesitated to Call Donald Trump a Fascist. Until Now.[a w], Newsweek
- ↑ 404.0 404.1 "Trump calls political enemies ‘vermin,’ echoing dictators Hitler, Mussolini" by Marianna LeVine, Washington Post, 2023 November 3, archived on 2023 December 4
- ↑ "It’s Official: With “Vermin,” Trump Is Now Using Straight-up Nazi Talk" by Michael Tomasky, New Republic, 2023 November 12
- ↑ "Trump repeats 'poisoning the blood' anti-immigrant remark" by Nathan Layne, Reuters, 2023 December 16
- ↑ "Former President Trump Holds Rally in Durham, New Hampshire", C-Span, Campaign 2024 video, time: 47:40-48:05
- ↑ Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945. Mein Kampf. Page 257
- ↑ "Trump sparks Republican backlash after saying immigrants are 'poisoning the blood' of U.S." by Megan Lebowitz, NBC News, 2023 December 19
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- ↑ FBI identifies Trump rally shooter as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks by Jessie Yeung (July 14, 2024) CNN.
- ↑ Eyewitnesses describe scene at Trump rally shooting: ‘It’s pure insanity’ by Kate Sullivan (July 13, 2024) CNN.
- ↑ Trump campaign says former president is ‘fine’ after shooting at rally by Caroline Vakil (Jul 13, 2024) KTSM.
- ↑ President Biden, political leaders condemn violence after shooting at Trump rally by Victor Brand (July 13, 2024, 6:00 PM PDT) MSNBC.
- ↑ ‘BlueAnon’ conspiracy theories flood social media after Trump rally shooting by Taylor Lorenz (July 14, 2024 at 3:45 p.m. EDT) The Washington Post.
- ↑ Witness says he saw gunman on roof near Trump rally by Gary O'Donoghue (13 July 2024) BBC.
- ↑ Rooftop where gunman shot at Trump was identified as a security vulnerability before rally: sources by Sarah Fitzpatrick (July 14, 2024, 4:46 PM PDT) NBC News.
- ↑ What to Know About Women in Secret Service as Critics Blame ‘DEI’ for Trump’s Shooting by Koh Ewe (Updated: July 17, 2024 12:30 AM EDT) TIME.
- ↑ Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigns by Evan Perez et al. (July 23, 2024) CNN.
- ↑ This is why the notion that men and women are the same is just absurd. You need to be taller than the candidate to protect them with your body. Why do they have these short women (one who can’t holster a gun apparently) guarding Trump? This is embarrassing and dangerous. by Meghan McCain (7:29 AM · Jul 14, 2024) Twitter (archived from 6 Oct 2024 20:49:55 UTC).
- ↑ Trump safe after apparent 'attempted assassination'; Sources identify detained man By Katherine Faulders, Rachel Scott, Jack Date and Leah Sarnoff September 15, 2024, ABC News
- ↑ "Issues and the 2024 election", Pew Research Center
- ↑ "The Trump policy that scares economists the most", Matt Egan, CNN
- ↑ "Nobel Letter Final", Zach Basu (Axios)
- ↑ "Trump grants sweeping pardon of Jan. 6 defendants, including rioters who violently attacked police," Associated Press
- ↑ "Proud Boys and Oath Keepers among over 1,500 Capitol riot defendants pardoned by Trump," Max Matza, BBC
- ↑ "They assaulted cops and tried to overturn an election. What to know about Trump’s mass pardons for January 6 rioters," Marshall Cohen, CNN
- ↑ "Trump’s Executive Orders: Reversing Biden’s Policies and Attacking the Deep State," New York Times
- ↑ Knutson, Jacob (May 27, 2025). "Judge Rips Trump Administration Over Failure to Give Deportees Due Process". Democracy Docket. Democracy Docket. Retrieved May 27, 2025.
- ↑ Sinclair, Harriet (July 18, 2016). "Trump to discuss US safety at Republican Convention 2016 in wake of terrorism and gun violence". International Business Times.
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- ↑ Weiss, Phillip, "Adelson will mold Rubio into 'perfect little puppet'", Mondoweiss 10.13.15. Remember, Shelly is even richer and crazier than Trump. He wants to nuke Iran and wishes he had served in the Israeli military instead of the U.S. Army.
- ↑ Strauss, Daniel, "Donald Trump sends Club for Growth cease and desist letter", Politico (09/22/15 03:00 PM EDT, Updated 09/22/15 03:51 PM EDT).
- ↑ "Fox News Calls Trump A Truther", via The Young Turks' official YouTube channel. Published on October 20, 2015.
- ↑ "Donald Trump: The Latest 9/11 Truther", from Alex Jones's official YouTube channel. Published October 20, 2015.
- ↑ David Weigel. "Trump's foes say he's a 9/11 truther. Truthers would disagree.". Washington Post. February 15, 2016.
- ↑ Hains, Tim, "Donald Trump on 9/11: 'You Will Find Out Who Really Knocked Down The World Trade Center'", RCP 2.17.16.
- ↑ "Congress Releases Secret 9/11 Document Detailing Possible Saudi Ties to Al Qaeda" (16 July 2016). New York Times.
- ↑ "Trump Orders Government to Stop Work on Y2K Bug, 17 Years Later", Bloomberg.
- ↑ "Supreme court rules states can collect sales tax from online retailers", The Guardian. "The Trump administration had urged the justices to side with South Dakota."
- ↑ G7: Fact-checking Trump's tweets about trade. BBC News. June 11th, 2018.
- ↑ Trump signs bill to upgrade Martin Luther King's birthplace to national historic park. USA Today. January 8, 2018.
- ↑ Trump commutes sentence of Alice Marie Johnson (June 6, 2018) CNN.
- ↑ Trump pardons Alice Johnson (August 28, 2020) CNN.
- ↑ President Donald J. Trump signs Executive Order to Improve Mental Health Resources for Veterans Transitioning from Active Duty to Civilian Life (January 9, 2018) U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
- ↑ Bump Stocks (February 21, 2019) Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
- ↑ Supreme Court strikes down Trump-era ban on rapid-fire rifle bump stocks, reopening political fight by Lindsay Whitehurst (6:39 PM PDT, June 14, 2024) AP.
- ↑ Eligon, John; Shear, Michael D. (2018-05-24). "Trump Pardons Jack Johnson, Heavyweight Boxing Champion (Published 2018)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-02-25.
- ↑ Health plans, regulators pan Trump's plan to allow purchase of insurance across state lines, Politico, September 27, 2017
- ↑ Trump floats idea to secure elections: 'It's always good to have a paper backup' by Ayanna Alexander (03/06/2018 05:15 PM EST) Politico.
- ↑ "Trump urges Americans to get Covid-19 vaccine: 'I would recommend it'" by Paul LeBlanc, CNN, 2021 March 17
- ↑ Trump booed at Alabama rally after telling supporters to get vaccinated NBC News
- ↑ Blake, Aaron (2021-12-21). "Dear Republicans: Your favorite president wants you to get vaccinated". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2024-10-07.
- ↑ Trump officials muzzled CDC on church covid guidance, emails confirm: The documents offer new details about how the White House delivered on the priorities of religious communities that were key to the president’s base. by Dan Diamond (April 29, 2022) The Washington Post.
- ↑ Eugene Kiely. (February 19, 2016). "Donald Trump and the Iraq War".
- ↑ Meghashyam Mali "Trump: GOP rivals want to 'start World War III over Syria'", The Hill.
- ↑ Juan González, Scott Anderson (August 12, 2016). "Donald Trump Claims Obama & Clinton Founded ISIS, But Bush Negotiated U.S. Withdrawal from Iraq". Democracy Now!
- ↑ Savransky, Rebbecca, "Trump: Pence entitled to make mistakes, Hillary's not", The Hill (7/17/16 at 7:01 pm).
- ↑ 'Uncle Trump' Finds Fans in China by Javier C. Hernández & Iris Zhao (November 9, 2017) The New York Times.
- ↑ Why does everyone call Donald Trump 'The Donald'? It's an interesting story. by Amy Argetsinger (September 1, 2015) The Washington Post.
- ↑ "Donald Trump's 'John Miller' interview is even crazier than you think" (May 16, 2016), The Washington Post
- ↑ Marc Fisher and Will Hobson, "Donald Trump masqueraded as publicist to brag about himself", WaPo 5.13.16.
- ↑ The 7 most interesting aspects of Stormy Daniels's lawsuit against Trump by Aaron Blake (March 7, 2018 at 8:52 AM) The Washington Post.
- ↑ Michael Avenatti Follows Up 2020 Talk by Workshopping Trump Nicknames on Twitter: 'Don the Con' by Josh Feldman (Jul 6th, 2018, 11:38 am) Mediaite.
- ↑ God Emperor Trump Facebook.
- ↑ McCarthy, Tom (August 18, 2016). "Trump says he'll be known as 'Mr Brexit' despite poor poll showing – politics live". The Guardian.
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ Duckworth to Trump: I won't be lectured by a draft dodger. CNN. January 21, 2018.
- ↑ [2]. DelawareOnline. June 13, 2025.
- ↑ Trump branded 'bunker boy' for 'hiding in the basement' and turning off White House lights: 'Total lack of leadership', Raw Story, June 1, 2020, Accessed June 1, 2020
- ↑ Shearlaw, Maeve, "Rodman and North Korea: A Short History", The Guardian (9/30/14, 10.31 EDT). Say what you will about North Koreans, they're really solid on border control.
- ↑ "Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio endorses Trump". washingtonpost.com. Retrieved on 4 August 2016.
- ↑ Herman Cain dies from Coronavirus
- ↑ Watch Televangelist Kenneth Copeland Laugh Maniacally at Media for Saying Biden Won
- ↑ Joshua De Leon, "Coulter Endorses Trump – Says Bush, Rubio and Perry Are Midgets Who Would Doom GOP", Ring of Fire.
- ↑ D'Souza's New Film 'Trump Card' Slashes the 'Deep State' to Ribbons
- ↑ Former KKK leader endorses Trump for president again – and Tucker Carlson for VP
- ↑ Nelson, Louis, "George Galloway: trump Better Than Clinton", Politico (06/07/16 01:25 PM EDT).
- ↑ "The serial litigant finally says 'sorry'", Private Eye #1421.
- ↑ europarl, (8 June 2016). "Nigel Farage: I think Hillary Clinton is a crook". Retrieved on 26 June 2016 – via YouTube.
- ↑ Ludlum, Judd, "The Truth About How Sean Hannity Covers Donald Trump", ThinkProgress (4/22/16 12:26 pm).
- ↑ Michael, Brett, "Sean Hannity's Defense Of Trump Is Now Beyond Parody", Uproxx 10.8.16.
- ↑ Conspiracy Theorist Alex Jones Says President-Elect Trump Called To Thank His Audience. Jones: Trump Says He Will "Be On In The Next Few Weeks" by Ben Dimiero ( November 14, 2016, 9:52 AM EST) Media Matters for America.
- ↑ Alex Jones abandons Trump for Ron DeSantis: ‘We have someone way better’, The Independent.
- ↑ Tankersly, Jimm, "One part of the Republican establishment actually loves Donald Trump", WaPo 4.19.16. Won't someone think of the billionaires?
- ↑ Pastor Greg Locke Says Biden Is 'Demon-Possessed,' Insists Trump is 'Legitimate President'
- ↑ Right-Wing Pastor Blasts Trump for Vaccine Support: 'He Is Going to Lose His Voter Base'
- ↑ Josiah Ryan, "We Asked Michelle Malkin If Donald Trump Would Make Good President. She Had This to Say", The Blaze.
- ↑ Neetzan Zimmerman, "Ted Nugent: President Trump 'would kick ass and take names'", The Hill.
- ↑ Goldstein, Aaron, "Dennis Prager had me, but then he lost me.", The American Spectator (5/10/16, 11:54 pm).
- ↑ Samuelshon, Darren, "George H.W. Bush to vote for Hillary Clinton", Politico (09/19/16 11:20 PM EDT).
- ↑ Collins, Eliza, "Dan Quayle: Trump is 'more qualified' than Clinton in this election", USA Today (5/12/16 at 12:55 p.m. EDT).
- ↑ Levitz, Eric, "Donald Rumsfeld Will Vote for Trump Because He's a 'Known Unknown'", New York Magazine (6/23/16 at 5:19 p.m.) Officially a self-parody.
- ↑ Cathy Burke, "Michael Savage: Trump Is the 'Winston Churchill of Our Time'", Newsmax.
- ↑ Phyllis Schlafly Faces Ouster Attempt Following Trump Endorsement by Brian Tashman (Monday, 4/11/2016 12:15 pm) Right Wing Watch.
- ↑ 'Most hated man in the world' announces his support for Republican nominee
- ↑ Kelley, Marty, "Pretend Smart Person Ben Stein Thinks Donald Trump's A Moron, Endorses Donald Trump", Wonkette 6.7.16.
- ↑ Christchurch shootings suspect said Trump is 'symbol of white supremacy'
- ↑ Donor Lookup - Peter Thiel. OpenSecrets.
- ↑ Silicon Valley Investor Peter Thiel Will Join Trump’s Transition Team by Kia Kokalitcheva (November 11, 2016), Fortune.
- ↑ How disgraced anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield was embraced by Trump's America
- ↑ State GOP Chair Allen West calls on Donald Trump to visit Texas before Election Day
- ↑ Milo Yiannopoulos ひ✘ (09 January 2016). "Tweet Number 685895852368506880". Twitter.
help me daddy @realDonaldTrump
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(help) - ↑ The Rubin Report. "Milo Yiannopoulos Loves Donald Trump". March 24, 2016.
- ↑ An American Authoritarian The Republican presidential candidate is not a Fascist, but his campaign bears notable similarities to the reign of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. by Ruth Ben-Ghiat (Aug 10, 2016) The Atlantic.
- ↑ It Is Happening Here, (President) Trump is Already Early Stage Mussolini by Clive Irving, The Daily Beast.
- ↑ "PM Boris Johnson tests positive for coronavirus." BBC News. 27 March 2020. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
- ↑ "Twenty-one Tory rebels lose party whip after backing bid to block no-deal Brexit." PoliticsHome.com. 4 September 2019. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
- ↑ "PM's brother quits as Tory MP and minister." BBC News. 5 September 2019. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
- ↑ Bowcott, Owen (24 September 2019). "Boris Johnson's suspension of parliament unlawful, supreme court rules." The Guardian.
- ↑ "The 'Trump of the East' could be the next president of the Philippines", Washington Post
- ↑ Trump praises Duterte for ‘unbelievable job’ cracking down on drugs in the Philippines by Louis Nelson (05/24/2017 07:27 AM EDT0 Politico.
- ↑ Whole article in German.
- ↑ Slovenia's PM Janša channels Orbán with attacks on media and migrants by Shaun Walker (4 May 2020 05.31 EDT) The Guardian.
- ↑ Slovenian premier endorses Trump’s reelection, joins others (9:11 AM PDT, October 23, 2020) AP.
- ↑ End of Trump era deals heavy blow to rightwing populist leaders worldwide by Shaun Walker et al. (11 Nov 2020 07.05 EST) The Guardian.
- ↑ Meet Brazil's Donald Trump: He's Deliberately Outrageous and He Wants to Be President: Legislator Jair Bolsonaro has always been brash and, often, deeply offensive. Now his refusal to be "politically correct" is turning him into one of the big winners of Brazil's current political crisis. by James Armour Young (Apr 27, 2016, 11:20 am) Vice.
- ↑ Is this the world's most repulsive politician? THOUGHT Donald Trump was bad? Meet the could-be Brazilian president whose repulsive beliefs have shocked the world. by Gavin Fernando (May 2, 20168:46am) news.com.au.
- ↑ Brazil has a Donald Trump, and his chances at the presidency are looking better every day by Chayenne Polimédio (June 20, 2017) Quartz.
- ↑ The Most Misogynistic, Hateful Elected Official in the Democratic World: Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro by Glenn Greenwald & Andrew Fishman (December 11, 2014, 7:48 a.m.) The Intercept.
- ↑ Former Brazil military chiefs implicate Bolsonaro in coup conspiracy, Lisandra Paraguassu and Ricardo Brito, Reuters 15 March 2024
- ↑ Kassam, Ashifa (April 30, 2018). "Canada's Trump moment? Doug Ford rises in conservative party." The Guardian.
- ↑ Porter, Catherine (June 2, 2018). "Will a Canadian Donald Trump Become Ontario's Leader?." The New York Times. Retrieved June 2, 2018.
- ↑ Benzie, Robert (July 6, 2018). "Ford rewards key Tory adviser with $348K patronage job to curb hospital overcrowding." The Toronto Star.
- ↑ "Doug Ford’s decision to cut the size of Toronto city council heads to Canada’s top court on Tuesday." - The Toronto Star.
- ↑ I hate Trump, and I loved the new Trump movie 'The Apprentice' by Drew Magary (Oct 11, 2024) SFGate.
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
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- ↑ It Can't Happen Here: A Novel by Sinclair Lewis (1935) Doubleday, Doran & Company.
- ↑ See the Wikipedia article on It Can't Happen Here § Presidency of Donald Trump.
- ↑ The Dead Zone by Stephen King (1979) Viking Press. ISBN 0670260770.
- ↑ 45 years ago I wrote a book about Donald Trump. It was called THE DEAD ZONE. I named him Greg Stillson. by Stephen King (8:35 PM · Sep 30, 2024) Twitter (archived from 6 Oct 2024 15:24:15 UTC).
- ↑ See the Wikipedia article on The Dead Zone.
- ↑ See the Wikipedia article on The Dead Zone.
- ↑ See the Wikipedia article on The Angry Birds Movie.
- ↑ Angry Birds (2015) IMDb (archived from July 14, 2011).
- ↑ The Angry Birds Movie — Official Teaser Trailer (HD) (Sep 23, 2015) YouTube.
- ↑ White supremacists have a new hero: Red, the Angry Bird. by Jeet Heer (May 31, 2016) New Republic (archived from June 1, 2016).
- ↑ The Angry Birds Movie would be better if it went full Trump. Instead, it’s flat. by Emily St. James (May 22, 2016, 11:50 AM PDT) Vox.
- ↑ The Angry Birds Movie by Gregory Hood (May 2016) Counter-Currents (archived from May 23, 2016).
- ↑ Trackdown Shakedown: An episode of the 1950s western TV series 'Trackdown' featured a character named Walter Trump who claimed he would build a wall to protect a town from the end of the world by Dan Evon (Updated: Jan 12, 2017) Snopes.com.
- ↑ Trump wants to defund PBS. 'Sesame Street' brutally parodied him for decades by Avi Selk (March 21 at 12:25 PM) The Washington Post.
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