Trump First Term Selected Highlights

Trump flouted conventions

• incited an insurrection against the government

• diverted military funding to build his southern border wall

• caused the longest government shutdown in US history

• called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate”

• lied over 30,000 times in office

• banned transgender people from serving in the military

• ejected reporters from the White House briefing room when they asked tough questions

• vetoed the defence funding bill because it renamed military bases named for Confederate soldiers

•  fired the head of election cyber security after he said that the 2020 election, which he lost, was secure

• refused to concede the 2020 election

• hired his daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House, in contravention of anti-nepotism guidelines

• repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people”

• refused to release his tax returns while in office

• gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two congressmen who amplified his conspiracy theories

• pressured the governor and secretary of state of Georgia to “find” him votes

• threatened to withhold federal aid from states and cities with Democratic leaders

• completely gutted the Voice of America, an international radio broadcasting state media network funded by the US government

• claimed without evidence that the Obama administration bugged Trump Tower

• summoned Pennsylvania state legislative leaders to the White House to pressure them to overturn the 2020 election

• tried to punish Amazon because the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote negative stories about him (which was not a problem in 2024) around)

• stopped holding press briefings for months at a time

• claimed that Article II of the Constitution gave him absolute powers

• lost 60 election fraud cases in court including before judges he had nominated

• allowed his staff to repeatedly violate the Hatch Act

• falsely claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent

• refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and kept his promise

Attacked human rights, justice, and the rule of law

• separated children from their families

• lost hundreds of those children in bureaucracy

• tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church

• tried to block all Muslims from entering the country

• tweeted so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him

• suggested he was fine with China’s oppression of the Uighurs

• stripped protective status from 59,000 Haitians

• tried to rescind protection from DREAMers

• suggested that police officers should assault suspects

• attacked and threatened judges, including Supreme Court judges, who didn’t do what he wanted

• claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts,”

• demanded “total loyalty” from the FBI director

• refused to allow his administration to comply with Congressional subpoenas

• fired the acting attorney general when she refused to go along with his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban

science, public health, and environment.

• mismanaged a pandemic that killed over a million Americans

• suggested that people should inject bleach into their bodies to fight Covid

• claimed that Covid would “magically” disappear

• opened up federal lands to development and drilling

• drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate tweet that Alabama was threatened by a hurricane

• rolled back more than 100 regulations that protected the public from environmental hazards, including toxins like asbestos and mercury

• pushed regulators to waste time studying snake-oil remedies for Covid

• attacked Dr Anthony Fauci

• allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues; claimed he had a ‘natural ability’ for healthcare

• suggested that the government nuke hurricanes

• suggested that wind turbines cause cancer

• went ahead with rallies filled with maskless supporters in the middle of a pandemic

• suggested that Covid wasn’t that bad because he recovered with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public

• overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported

• forced Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed while contagious with Covid

• withdrew the US from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic

• nominated a climate change sceptic to chair the committee advising the White House on environmental policy

Foreign policy

• abandoned Kurdish allies to Turkey

• withdrew the US from the Paris climate accord

• pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op

• called Haiti and African nations “s—hole” countries

• abandoned Iraqi refugees who’d helped the U.S. during the war

• tried to get Russia back into the G7

• praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticising allies

• promised that Mexico would pay for the wall (it didn’t)

• reduced the number of refugees the US accepts

• ordered US companies to leave China even though he has no such power

• announced withdrawal of troops from Syria, handing Russia and ISIS a win and prompting his defence secretary to resign in protest

National security

• took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community about Russian interference in the 2016 election

• failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies

• withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal

• ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings

• held multiple private meetings with Putin without staff present

• blurted out classified information to Russian officials

• openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago where everyone could hear them

• told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” in a televised debate during the 2020 re-election campaign

• forced through security clearances for his family

The economy

• increased the national debt by $4.8 trillion excluding Covid relief

• had three of the highest annual trade deficits in US history

• got into a losing tariff war with China that forced US taxpayers to bail out farmers, then claimed that his losing tariff war was a win for the US

• awarded $1.5tn in tax cuts for the wealthiest, resulting in them paying lower rates of tax than the poorest 50% of households for the first time in history.

Personal conduct

• mocked the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault

• mocked disabled New York Times reporter, Serge Kovaleski

• called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers and insulted war hero John McCain – even after his death

• told four American congresswomen of colour they should  “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came”

• refused to attend his successor’s inauguration

• called multiple African American public figures “low IQ” or similar

• claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won

• botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico then threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them

• claimed that migrants seeking a better life in the US were dangerous caravans of drug dealers and rapists

Misinformation 

• praised a conspiracy theory that Democrats are Satanic paedophiles

• refused to honour American war dead in France because it was raining

• gave shock jock Rush Limbaugh a Presidential Medal of Freedom at the State of the Union address

• named as head of federal personnel a 29-year-old who’d previously been fired from the White House for allegations of financial improprieties linked to his gambling

• claimed that the military was out of ammunition before he became President

• hired a senior staffer who cited the non-existent Bowling Green Massacre as a reason to ban Muslims

• falsely claimed Biden wanted to defund the police

• falsely claimed US rates of Covid would be lower if you didn’t count blue states

• suggested that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs

• ordered the re-release of more Covid vaccines when there weren’t any to release

Legal issues

• got impeached; twice

• pressured Ukraine to dig dirt on Joe Biden

• fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia

• interfered with plans to relocate the FBI because a new development there might compete with his hotel

• violated the emoluments clause

• charged the Secret Service inflated rates at his properties

• tried to pressure the UK to hold the British Open at his golf course in Scotland

• forced the G7 to hold their meeting at his failing golf resort in Florida

• attempted to get the federal government to defend him in a libel lawsuit from a woman who accused him of sexual assault

bizarre behaviour

• believed he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

• falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote

• forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history

• demanded the Pentagon throw him a Soviet-style military parade

• stood before the sacred CIA wall of heroes and bragged about his election win

• accused Democrats of treason for not applauding his State of the Union address

• hijacked Washington’s Independence Day celebrations to give a partisan speech

• insulted, amongst many others, his own Cabinet members on Twitter and forced them to praise him publicly

• continued lying about spending lots of time at Ground Zero with 9/11 responders