Some people seem to have forgotten how bad a president Trump was, so I made a list of the worst things about the Trump presidency, in no particular order. Please share and add anything I missed.
To cover up the scheme, Trump ordered the White House and State Department to defy congressional subpoenas.For these reasons, on December 18, 2019, Trump became the third U.S. president to be impeached. He was charged with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.Even while he was being investigated for trying to get Ukraine to interfere in the U.S. election, Trump publicly called for China to interfere in the election.Trump undermined faith in our democracy. Long before Election Day in 2020, Trump started making false claims that the 2020 election would be rigged.After the election, Trump falsely claimed the election was stolen, even though his own inner circle, including his campaign manager, White House lawyers, and his own Justice Department, said it wasn’t. As his handpicked attorney general said: “The claims of fraud were bullsh*t.”Trump kept telling his Big Lie even after more than 60 legal challenges to the election were struck down in court, many by Trump-appointed judges.Trump ordered the Justice Department to falsely claim that the election “was corrupt.” Only when all the top officials of the department threatened to resign did he back down. Trump and his allies used threats to pressure state officials in Arizona and Georgia to falsify the election results. He was even caught on tape doing it.When none of the previous schemes worked, Trump and his allies produced fake electoral certificates for multiple swing states. His former White House chief of staff and Rudy Giuliani are among his associates who have been criminally indicted for this.Trump tried to bully Vice President Mike Pence into obstructing the certification of the election. Pence refused. Trump invited a mob to the Capitol on January 6 with his “be there, will be wild” tweet.Sworn testimony alleges that when Trump was warned that members of the crowd were carrying deadly weapons, he ordered security metal detectors to be taken down.Knowing the crowd had deadly weapons, he ordered them to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell.”Trump did nothing to stop the January 6 violence, which included threats on the life of Vice President Pence. Instead, according to witness testimony, he sat and watched TV for hours.On January 13, 2021, Trump became the only president ever to be impeached twice. This time he was charged with incitement of insurrection. It was a bipartisan vote.The majority of senators — 57 out of 100 — voted to convict Trump, including seven Republican senators.In a likely obstruction of justice, Trump pressured then FBI Director James Comey to stop the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and Flynn’s contacts with Russian agents. This was documented in the Mueller report.When Comey didn’t bend to Trump’s will, Trump fired him.Trump tried to shut down the Mueller investigation by ordering White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller. McGahn refused because that would be criminal obstruction of justice.When news got out that Trump tried to fire Mueller, Trump repeatedly told McGahn to lie — to Mueller, to press, to public — and even create a false document to conceal Trump’s attempt to fire Mueller.Trump ordered his staff not to turn over emails showing Don Jr. had set up a meeting at Trump Tower before the 2016 election with representatives of the Russian government.Trump convinced Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about Trump’s plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, and Cohen served prison time for lying to Congress.Trump wasn’t charged for criminal obstruction because it’s the Justice Department’s policy not to indict a sitting president, but more than 1,000 former federal prosecutors signed a letter declaring there was more than enough evidence to prosecute Trump.Trump publicly sided with Putin over the U.S. intelligence community — rejecting well-documented evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help elect him.Trump said he’d hire only the best people, but his campaign chair was convicted of multiple crimes. One of his closest associates was also convicted. His deputy campaign chair pleaded guilty to crimes. His national security adviser pleaded guilty to crimes. So did his personal lawyer. So did the chief financial officer of his business. As did his campaign foreign policy adviser. And one of his campaign fundraisers. They all committed crimes. Then what did Trump do? He pardoned most of them.Trump said he’d “drain the Washington swamp.” But he appointed more billionaires, CEOs, and Wall Street moguls to his administration than any administration in history.Trump intervened to get his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, top-secret clearance after he was denied over concerns about foreign influence.Trump then tasked Kushner with drafting a potential Middle East “peace plan” with zero Palestinian input.Trump sparked international outrage by moving the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem while closing the Palestinian diplomatic office in Washington, D.C.Trump recognized Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights, which is considered illegal under international law.Trump hosted a Russian foreign minister to the Oval Office, where Trump revealed top-secret intelligence.Trump promised that the average American family would get a $4,000 pay raise because of his tax cuts that mostly benefited the wealthy and big corporations. Average American families did not get a $4,000 raise. America’s billionaires, however, doubled their wealth.Trump vowed to protect American jobs, but offshoring increased and manufacturing fell.Trump said he would fix America’s infrastructure, but it never happened. He announced so many failed “infrastructure weeks” they became a running joke.Trump said he would be “the voice” of American workers, but he filled the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union flaks who made it harder for workers to unionize.Trump’s Labor Department made it easier for bosses to avoid paying workers overtime, which cheated 8 million workers of extra pay.Trump repeatedly said he might serve more than two terms, in violation of the U.S. Constitution.When he started to realize he would lose, Trump suggested delaying the 2020 election.Trump called Haiti and African nations “sh*thole” countries.Trump tried to terminate DACA, which protects immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. This was struck down by the courts.Trump called climate change a “hoax.”Trump pulled out of the Paris climate agreement.Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental protections.Every budget Trump proposed included cuts to Social Security and Medicare.Trump tried (and failed) to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would have resulted in 20 million Americans losing insurance. He’s still saying he’ll repeal the ACA and still has only “concepts of a plan” to replace it.Trump made it easier for employers to remove birth control coverage from insurance plans.By the end of Trump’s term, the number of people lacking health insurance had risen by 3 million.Trump allegedly took hundreds of classified documents from the White House, reportedly including nuclear secrets, which he then left unsecured in various parts of Mar-a-Lago, including a bathroom. He was even caught on tape showing them off to people.Trump seriously discussed the idea of nuking a hurricane.Trump seemed to think he could redirect the path of a hurricane with a Sharpie.Trump suggested withholding federal aid for California wildfire recovery and said the solution was to “clean” the “floors” of the forest. Trump tried to buy Greenland.Trump canceled a diplomatic trip to Denmark, reportedly because he wrongly thought Denmark was blocking his plan to buy Greenland.Trump repeatedly denigrated German Chancellor Angela Merkel, seemingly because he resented her for beating him out as Time’s Person of the Year in 2015. He’s that petty.Trump vetoed a bipartisan congressional resolution to end U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, which has killed tens of thousands of civilians.Trump referred to fallen U.S. service members as “losers” and “suckers.” This has been confirmed by multiple sources, including Trump’s former chief of staff, retired Gen. John Kelly.According to Kelly, Trump praised Hitler, saying he “did some good things.”Trump complained that the military wouldn’t place personal loyalty to him over their oath to the Constitution, saying, “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had.”Trump proposed having the military shoot Black Lives Matters demonstrators.Trump tried to cut $460 million for unhoused veterans.Trump has repeatedly turned his ire on Gold Star families. Army widow Myeshia Johnson said Trump reduced her to tears when he dismissed her fallen husband, Sgt. La David Johnson, saying, “He knew what he signed up for.”Instead of apologizing to Myeshia Johnson, Trump went on to publicly attack her.In 2020 Trump risked the lives of Gold Star families by visiting them when he reportedly knew he had tested positive for Covid. Trump later tried to blame the families for his infection.Trump demonized the free press, calling any coverage he didn’t like “fake news” and smearing journalists as “the enemy of the people.”Trump constantly lied. He made 30,573 false or misleading claims while president — an average of 21 a day, according to Washington Post fact-checkers.Trump’s administration was in constant chaos. He went through four chiefs of staff, four press secretaries, and seven communications directors in just four years.He even contested the only election he won, falsely claiming that “millions” had voted illegally in 2016 and that that was the only reason he lost the popular vote.Trump’s haphazard use of tariffs is estimated to have cost the average family $1,277 extra per year.He was literally the laughingstock of the world, prompting guffaws from the UN General Assembly and mockery from world leaders.He banned transgender service members from the military.He spent $5.4 million of taxpayer money on a dictator-style military parade in D.C.He attempted to remove protections from nearly 35 million acres of public lands — roughly the size of the entire state of Florida. There's so much more, from exchanging “love letters” with North Korea’s brutal dictator to late-night tweet binges.
I can understand why a lot of people want to block all this out of their memories. But we cannot afford to forget just how terrible Trump’s time in the White House was for this nation.
And remember this, too: Trump would have done far worse but for people around him who refused to follow his orders. If he gets another shot at the White House, he’ll make sure he’s surrounded by lapdogs who will do whatever he wants.
We sure as hell can’t afford to put him back there.
Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/
