The “Crazy/Stupid” Republican of the Day blog usually can just make a daily post where we talk about a member of the GOP who has run for, held, or currently holds office who is a bit extreme or unhinged, and cover it in a few hundred words. Donald J. Trump, is beyond most Republicans, and has spent decades running to the media to say racist, sexist, bigoted, and completely ignorant things. We covered his downright selfish and narcissistic tendencies from the first 69 years of his life in our first deep dive of this series…
Donald Trump- Full Timeline Part One: The Beginnings to his Presidential Run
Our second look featured events taking place from Donald Trump announcing his candidacy for president, to accepting the GOP nomination at the 2016 Republican National Convention…
Donald Trump- Full Timeline Part Two: The Path to the 2016 Nomination
In our third chapter, we covered the absolutely bonkers final four months leading to Election Day 2016:
Donald Trump- Full TimelinePart Three: The Final Run to Election Day 2016
And now, we resume our look back with our fourth part in this series, where we discuss the Trump transition, a roughly three month period that any sane person who follows politics might have blocked out of their memory for the good of their own sanity.
- November 9th, 2016: The nation is in shock, and immediately a rash of incidents of open racism, intolerance, and bigotry-fueled violence begin throughout the country in the name of Trump. There is no call to end these disgusting behaviors from Trump, of course, who is likely flattered that people are committing acts of hatred in his name.
- November 10th, 2016: Trump tours Washington, including a visit to the White House, and Capitol Hill to probably finally start thinking about what he actually needs to do with the office he was elected to. He also, for the first time in a week, gets on Twitter, where he immediately returns to conspiracy theory talk, claiming that the large number of protests around the country to his election to office in spite of losing the popular vote were “incited by the media, very unfair!” Note, there is not only no evidence of these protesters being paid, there is not a single example of any media figure calling for these protests, at all.
- November 11th, 2016: Donald Trump goes to the White House to discuss his transition with President Barack Obama. The encounter is painfully awkward, perhaps so much so because as would later be learned, Obama warned Donald Trump against hiring General Michael Flynn to his Cabinet because he was being investigated by the FBI for being potentially compromised by the Russians. This advice was not taken, of course.
- November 12th, 2016: Thousands of protesters take to the streets to protest the election of Donald Trump, including outside of Trump Tower itself.
- November 13th, 2016: Donald Trump is interviewed on CBS’ 60 Minutes, and promises to be more “restrained” in his use of Twitter as president. (You may now all laugh.) He also promises to immediately deport 2-3 million undocumented immigrants who “have criminal records”. (He’s describing what sounds like the Obama administration’s immigration policy, DACA, but the future would show Trump would have ICE deport the most vulnerable undocumented immigrants, not the most criminal ones.)
Trump picks Reince Priebus to be his Chief of Staff, and Steve Bannon (the Alt-Right White Nationalist) as his chief strategist.
- November 14th, 2016: The Trump transition is as chaotic as the Trump campaign, as Chris Christie is fired from being the head of the transition, to be replaced by Mike Pence. While some media reports early on theorized that Christie’s firing may have been a result of Jared Kushner convincing his father-in-law to fire Christie as a personal grudge over sending his father to jail years earlier, the reason for this impactful change was far more petty. On election night, Christie offered his phone to Trump to use to call President Obama, and the germaphobic Trump flipped out at the thought of holding Christie’s “gross phone” near his face.
- November 15th, 2016: Trump’s obsession with having lost the popular vote is first expressed on Twitter, as he posts, “If the election were based on total popular vote I would have campaigned in N.Y. Florida and California and won even bigger and more easily”. He also does little to quell the fears of those in the country who thought that an unqualified reality television figure was elected to the presidency, when he also posted about his potential Cabinet picks, and referred to them as “finalists”. Oh, and Trump promised to improve relations with Vladimir Putin and Russia.
- November 16th, 2016: Against the advice of President Obama, Donald Trump picks General Michael Flynn to be his National Security Advisor. Trump, on Twitter, claims he is not trying to get top security level clearance for his children. In reality, just his daughter and son-in-law.
- November 17th, 2016: Donald Trump rejects recent precedent for his first meeting with a foreign leader to be the British Prime Minister, and instead first meets with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, bringing along his daughter Ivanka, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in spite of neither of them having the proper security clearance to attend such a meeting, or any diplomatic qualifications, at all.
On Twitter, Trump bizarrely takes credit for stopping a Ford factory from moving to Mexico. Note: The Ford factory never had plans to move to Mexico.
- November 18th, 2016: Trump, still under legal pressure for committing fraud in the Trump University settles the class action lawsuit out of court for $25 million and is forced to pay another $1 million to the state of New York for violating state education law.
On this date, he also selects Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama to be his Attorney General, and Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas to be his new CIA Director.
- November 19th, 2016: Trump posts on Twitter, demanding an apology from the cast of Hamilton after the crowd at a performance booed Vice-President-Elect Mike Pence when he attended a show the previous night.
- November 20th, 2016: Donald Trump gets on Twitter to resume his feud with Saturday Night Live and Alec Baldwin, upset about Baldwin’s impression of him being completely clueless about the job he’ll have to do as president.
- November 21st, 2016: A “media summit” is announced at Trump Tower, where Donald Trump asks to meet with the heads of several major newspapers and cable news networks. They attend, expecting a discussion of how media access to the Trump White House will go in the coming months. Instead, Trump starts tearing into those present, badmouthing several reporters (including Katy Tur, who he would name at his rallies to try to incite the crowd against her), and per witnesses, “Trump kept saying, ‘We’re in a room of liars, the deceitful, dishonest media who got it all wrong.’ He addressed everyone in the room, calling the media dishonest, deceitful liars. He called out Jeff Zucker by name and said everyone at CNN was a liar, and CNN was [a] network of liars”.
- November 22nd, 2016: Trump schedules a second media sit down with The New York Times, then cancels it via a Twitter announcement, without ever notifying the NYT directly. He gives his reason for the cancellation as they are “not nice”.
He also announces on Twitter that he will not reopen investigations into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails breaking a campaign trail promise to his supporters that he would do so, and posted that he was open to what was agreed upon in the Paris climate accords. (Please note that he will reverse position again on both Clinton’s e-mails and the Paris climate accords in the coming months.)
- November 23rd, 2016: Three picks for Trump’s “Cabinet of Horrors” are announced, Nikki Haley for U.N. Ambassador (the most reasonable of the three choices, but who still has no foreign policy experience), and Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education (DeVos supports Christian-focused charter schools over public education, and her resume actually acts in opposition to most educators).
- November 24th, 2016: The Washington Post first reports that a Russian propaganda campaign helped the Donald Trump campaign for president in 2016, using planted “fake news” stories on social media, particularly negative stories about Hillary Clinton, and spread them through the use of bot accounts.
- November 25th, 2016: The Trump transition team picked KT McFarland from Fox News to be their Deputy National Security Advisor, and long time Trump lawyer Don McGahn was picked to be White House Legal Counsel.
- November 26th, 2016: Trump gets on Twitter to celebrate the death of Fidel Castro. (Note: He still was promising to reverse Obama administration policies on normalizing relations with Cuba.)
- November 27th, 2016: Donald Trump cannot handle the idea that he only won the electoral college vote, and not the popular vote, and posts on Twitter, “Serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California - so why isn’t the media reporting on this? Serious bias - big problem!” and later in the day, “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally”.
Yes, the man is dumb enough to challenge the authenticity of an election he narrowly won.
- November 28th, 2016: As fallout continues from Trump’s Twitter post from the previous day, he takes time to attack the credibility of CNN, and claim he beat Hillary Clinton “in a landslide”.
- November 29th, 2016: Trump, still outraged at protesters, gets on Twitter to post his thoughts on flag-burning, writing, “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!” (Please note: While we might not approve of burning the flag personally, it is still a Constitutionally-protected right of free speech, per the Supreme Court.)
Trump also announces he negotiated a deal with Carrier Air Conditioners to save about 800 jobs at a factory in Indiana. (Hint: Less 7 months later, the factory announces 600 layoffs.)
Trump names his pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services, and it’s Georgia Congressman Tom Price, a man obsessed with repealing the Affordable Care Act. He also named Elaine Chao to be Secretary of Transportation, and picks Goldman Sachs’ Steven Mnunchin to be Secretary of the Treasury (way to drain the swamp, eh?)
Later that evening, Trump dines with former Massachusetts Governor and 2012 Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney to discuss him being possible Secretary of State. Photos of the meeting are released to the public, and it becomes clear that the entire meeting was set up to not give Romney the job, and to publicly humiliate him.
- November 30th, 2016: Donald Trump announces a press conference on December 15th to explain how he will divest himself from his business empire and all his foreign investors to avoid any potential conflicts of interest. (Hint: He doesn’t know, and doesn’t actually care.)
- December 1st, 2016: Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak again goes to Trump Tower, and meets with Jared Kushner and Trump’s National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, as they tried to set up a “back channel” so the Trump transition team could still communicate with the Russians without Americans knowing about it.
- December 2nd, 2016: Trump breaks from decades… DECADES of U.S. policy and angering the Chinese government by making it publicly known that he had spoken with the President of Taiwan (which the Chinese government still considers to be part of China).
Trump also begins a “victory tour” where he goes back to attending rallies… but only in states he won in the electoral college.
- December 3rd, 2016: In another chilling foreign policy from Trump’s unsecured cell phone, he calls Rodrigo Duterte, the dictator of the Philippines who is carrying out a “war on drugs” in the most literal sense, as it has made him the focus of human rights investigations. Trump, however, lauds praise on Duterte for handling their drug problem “the right way”. Again, thousands have been killed without a trial for only accuse drug offenses.
Later that night, Trump attends a lavish Long Island Republican fundraiser’s event, themed as, “Heroes and Villains” with people attending in superhero and super-villain costumes. Trump comes dressed up as… himself. We’re just going to assume that’s a confirmed villain costume.
- December 4th, 2016: Trump threatens several U.S. manufacturers with a staggering 35% tariff if they move their factories overseas (please note that while we at CSGOPOTD do like keeping American jobs in America, the Trump organization, including Ivanka Trump’s clothing line, manufacturers goods primarily overseas.)
- December 5th, 2016: After much confusion following Ben Carson having interviewed for a Trump administration Cabinet post (which some thought might be Surgeon General), it is finally announced that Carson was picked to be the head of Housing and Urban Development, a field which he is completely unqualified in. Another note about Ben Carson? Carson ruled out serving in Trump’s Cabinet only days earlier.
Meanwhile, a Trump supporter and right-wing conspiracy theorist, Edgar Maddison Welch, takes an assault rifle and fires shots in a Washington, D.C. pizzeria, Comet Ping Pong, that Alt-Right websites claimed during the presidential campaign has a secret basement where Hillary Clinton and her friends sexually assault children. The pizzeria has no basement, and Welch no longer has his freedom. No one associated with posting the story online, spreading it, or the Trump campaign accept any responsibility for what amounts to an act of stochastic terror.
- December 6th, 2016: Trump gets on Twitter early in the morning and threatens to cancel an order with Boeing aircraft, who were working on a new Air Force One. This caused a temporary drop in Boeing’s stock price, because apparently Donald Trump is too stupid to realize the ripple effect of a president or president-elect’s announcements can have.
TIME Magazine names Donald Trump their Person of the Year, and seems to make it a point to position the TIME logo so the M makes devil horns on Trump’s head. In his interview with Time Magazine, Trump tried waving off reports that the United States’ intelligence community had determined that Russia had hacked the 2016 U.S. election, saying, “It could be China.”
One day after the shooting at Comet Ping Pong Pizza, Michael G. Flynn, the son of General Michael T. Flynn is removed from the Trump transition team presumably because he was the moron within the Trump campaign spreading the conspiracy theory about that pizzeria having a child sex ring in its non-existent basement. General Flynn is still left on the Trump team, though, as National Security Advisor, even though he is still under investigation by the FBI.
Later in the day at one of his rallies in North Carolina, Trump names General James “Mad Dog” Mattis as his Secretary of Defense.
- December 7th, 2016: Trump picks General John Kelly to be his Director of Homeland Security. (He will only hold the job about six months.) He also picks Linda McMahon from WWE to be the head of the Small Business Administration.
Trump also gets into a Twitter feud with Chuck Jones, a union leader at the Indiana Carrier plant that Trump supposedly saved hundreds of jobs at, for saying the “big deal” Trump made with Carrier would actually not save hundreds of jobs (and it seems time is proving Mr. Jones correct, and the frequently lying Trump was just lying again).
- December 8th, 2016: Trump names Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. This could be his worst “Cabinet of Horrors” pick yet, because as Oklahoma Attorney General, Pruitt repeatedly sued the federal government to try and fight the EPA’s protections upon the environment.
Trump also refuses to step down as executive producer of The Apprentice, insisting that it would not interfere with his ability to serve as president. Well, no more than all the general incompetence and inability to focus on anything already, at least.
- December 9th, 2016: Trump names former Carl’s Jr. CEO Andy Puzder as his pick for Secretary of Labor. Puzder has a reputation of being terrible to his employees, and is widely known for being pretty misogynist, what with Carl Jr.’s ad campaigns being hyper-sexualized during his tenure at his direction, and his restaurants having two-thirds of its female employees polled reporting incidents of sexual harassment. Well, that an Puzder is a domestic abuser. But Trump only hires THE BEST PEOPLE!
A CIA report also comes out that the agency can say with “high confidence” that Russia deliberately interfered in the 2016 American election with the specific purpose of getting Donald Trump elected. The Trump transition team responded by throwing cold water on that, releasing an official statement to the press saying, “These are the same people who said that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.” (These were in fact, not the same people from the intelligence community.)
The Trump transition team also informed the Department of Energy it would like a list of names of employees who researched climate change. Because that’s not sinister, at all.
- Decemeber 10th, 2016: Trump names another Goldman Sachs banker to his Cabinet, picking Gary Cohn to run the National Economic Council. Draining that swamp, all right.
- December 11th, 2016: Trump goes on FOX News Sunday and belittles the intelligence community’s analysis that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, calling the claims “ridiculous”. He also again expressed his doubts about climate change in the interview, saying “nobody knows if it’s real”. That would be contrary to what about 98% of scientists say about it.
Trump then picks Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson to be his next Secretary of State, even though he has no previous experience in diplomacy, and… wait for it… he has ties to Russia, including having once been given a medal, for the Russian Order of Friendship by Vladimir Putin himself.
- December 12th, 2016: Three days before he was scheduled to announce how, exactly, he would divest himself from his businesses, Trump pushed back his planned discussion of how that would work to January of 2017… weeks before the inauguration.
- December 13th, 2016: Trump meets with Kanye West at Trump Tower, because it’s not like he has any more pressing business to attend to like finishing picking a Cabinet, or picking other administration nominees.
- Trump holds a rally in Wisconsin, where he praises House Speaker Paul Ryan, who he feuded with during his presidential campaign, and the crowd audibly boos.
The Energy Department publicly announces that they will not cooperate with the Trump administration to provide the names of employees who did research into climate change.
- December 14th, 2016: On this date Trump picks Rick Perry to be his Energy Secretary… an agency Perry has advocated for shutting down. And in the days that follow, it becomes clear that the former Texas Governor doesn’t even know what exactly the Energy Secretary is supposed to do.
Trump also holds a meeting with several Silicon Valley executives to discuss technological innovation in his administration, and to smooth over a lot of the insults he threw at some of them during the campaign (including Jeff Bezos, the Amazon CEO and owner of the Washington Post). He specifically does not invite anyone from Twitter, because he is apparently upset at them that they wouldn’t make a “Crooked Hillary Emoji” for him during the campaign.
The Washington Post also publishes a report about how Trump’s pick for National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn, improperly shared military secrets while in the Army.
- December 15th, 2016: Despite the existence of nepotism laws that should make such a hire impossible, Kellyanne Conway announces Donald Trump’s intention to hire Ivanka Trump to a position at the White House, and claims nepotism laws don’t apply to White House hires. Trump also names Fox News commentator Monica Crowley to his National Security team.
- December 16th, 2016: Trump picks South Carolina Congressman Mick Mulvaney to be his Budget Director. Mick Mulvaney? Mick Mulvaney voted for the 2013 Government Shutdown, and threatens government shutdowns over any government funding toward any number of programs, including Planned Parenthood.
In other news, the FBI confirmed they also found Russia hacked and interfered in the 2016 elections, agreeing with the CIA, and disagreeing with the president.
- December 17th, 2016: Even though he is still only the president-elect, Donald Trump gets on Twitter to comment on China’s seizure of a U.S. underwater drone, calling the move “unpresidented” because he’s a moron who can’t spell. Even more shocking… he told China to go ahead and “keep it”.
- December 18th, 2016: Trump, on Twitter, forgets his reaction to the election only four years earlier, as well as the campaign where he invited his supporters to “knock the crap out of ‘em” writing, “If my supporters acted and threatened people like those who lost the election, are doing, they would be scorned and called names!”
- December 19th, 2016: Trump picks a billionaire investor, Vincent Viola, to be his Secretary of the Army. This is the sixth billionaire in his Cabinet.
- December 20th, 2016: The Obama administration announces some additional sanctions that will be placed on Russia because of their efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, that include hacking, based on the reports from the American Intelligence agencies.
A report surfaces that a Trump-sponsored charity was offering a chance to have access to Donald Trump after he was sworn in as president for $500,000. Once the media goes to report it, the Trump Organization cancels the offer, and the Trump family insists they had nothing to do with the planned “fundraiser”, even though it was organized by a charity that has Eric Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. on its board of directors (This will not be the only time half a million dollars is offered by a Trump family member for some sort of special privilege.)
Trump gets on Twitter to begin insulting Bill Clinton, because apparently Bill Clinton made the grievous offense of calling him after the election to congratulate him.
- December 21st, 2016: Trump again is on Twitter to tout his electoral college victory, gripe about media coverage of him, whining that he’s not being complimented enough on being frugal during the presidential campaign, saying, ”I have not heard any of the pundits or commentators discussing the fact that I spent FAR LESS MONEY on the win than Hillary on the loss.”
Reports start emerging that the Trump inauguration committee is struggling to find any entertainers who want to perform at the event. That includes, in some reports, even marching bands.
- December 22nd, 2016: Trump causes one of the greatest panics over nuclear warfare in our country in decades when he gets on Twitter to post, The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes ”The United States must greatly expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its sense on nukes”. (This is precisely the opposite way to solve such a problem.)
Trump names Kellyanne Conway as his special counselor in the White House, Sean Spicer as his Press Secretary, Jason Miller as his Communications Director, Hope Hicks as Strategic Communications Director, and Dan Scavino as his Social Media Director. Politico, in the story above, notes that Trump is creating competing power centers in his West Wing, the kind that created chaos in his presidential campaign.
- December 23rd, 2016: Trump doubles down on his statement from the previous day about nuclear proliferation, calling Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski to say, “Let it be an arms race.”
- December 24th, 2016: After months of scrutiny and criticism onto the shady dealings of the Trump Foundation, Donald Trump’s charity, he finally announces he’s shutting it down. On Christmas Eve, of all times.
- December 25th, 2016: Trump’s planned White House Communications Director, Jason Miller, suddenly resigns, believed to be because he’s been carrying on an extramarital affair, and was outed by another Trump campaign staffer.
Meanwhile, Trump receives a standing ovation at Christmas mass at a church in Palm Beach, Florida. But he’s humble, and very religious, and clearly thought the moment should be about him and not, y’know, Jesus.
- December 26th, 2016: A Politico report hits that the Trump transition team is planning a White House “War Room” to make sure that all of Trump’s Cabinet picks get confirmed.
On Twitter, Trump literally posts, “The world was gloomy before I won - there was no hope. Now the market is up nearly10% and Christmas spending is over a trillion dollars!” (Yes, he will take credit for anything, and blame for nothing.)
Later that afternoon, he again posted on Twitter, this time to bash the United Nations, writing, “The United Nations has such great potential but right now it is just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time. So sad!”
- December 27th, 2016: New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman responds to the news from three days prior that Donald Trump would be shutting down the Trump Foundation, informing him that because it’s already under legal investigation, it can’t just shut down.
- December 28th, 2016: Donald Trump again takes credit for something he didn’t actually do. On Fox News, Trump says he talked Sprint into moving 5,000 overseas jobs to the U.S. Sprint’s spokesperson clarified, saying they were already going to do this, and the company just told Trump, who actually did nothing to make it happen.
On Twitter, Trump badmouths the Obama administration, posting, “Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks.Thought it was going to be a smooth ransition - NOT!” This was hours after he assured reporters the transition was going smoothly.
- December 29th, 2016: The Obama administration lays out what the further sanctions being placed on Russia will look like as policies. This leads General Michael Flynn, working for the Trump transition, to call Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to discuss what the Trump campaign can do to remedy Russia’s “problem” with these sanctions. (This is where Flynn royally f***s up.)
Meanwhile, soon to be White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer talks to conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt, and says “business as usual is over” in regards to how the White House deals with the media. However, Trump still has not taken questions directly from the media in a press conference in five months.
- December 30th, 2016: Trump responds to Vladimir Putin’s announcement that he would not immediately react to new U.S. Sanctions against Russia by complimenting him, writing, “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) - I always knew he was very smart!” Again, Donald Trump is not very self-aware, and if there was any doubt, later in the day he again praised the Russians on Twitter, this time for fooling any cable news network that isn’t Fox News.
- December 31st, 2016: During a brief discussion with reporters at his Mar-A-Lago estate in Florida, Trump again casts doubt on Russians having hacked the U.S. election saying he “knows a lot about hacking” that “hacking is hard to prove”, and that intelligence should be handled over computers because “no computer is safe”, instead suggesting written messages should be passed “by courier”. When asked for clarification, Trump simply said, “You’ll find out on Tuesday or Wednesday.” Like virtually all Trump “cliffhangers” where he promises information at a later time, he is, of course, full of s*** and never clarifies.
On Twitter, Trump was definitely himself in his New Year’s Eve salute to the world, writing, “Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do. Love!” (We have chosen to, whenever possible, include a link to Mark Hamill, as Joker from Batman the Animated Series, read Trump’s tweets to make them more tolerable. If that makes sense.)
- January 1st, 2017: Trump finally leaves Mar-A-Lago after spending all of the holidays there.
- January 2nd, 2017: Trump continues trying to conduct foreign policy and talk tough over Twitter as president-elect, writing, “North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won’t happen!”
- January 3rd, 2017: Trump, again on Twitter, continues undermining the intelligence community with quotation marks, writing, “The ‘Intelligence’ briefing on so-called “Russian hacking” was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!” What really was strange was that when the media asked for comment, several intelligence agencies seemed surprised they had any meeting with Trump scheduled. This was, of course, the day Trump promised to reveal more information on New Year’s Eve.
- January 4th, 2017: Trump perhaps tips his hand too much, with reports that he plans on reorganizing the United States Intelligence Community. Perhaps because they keep contradicting him with pesky facts.
- January 5th, 2017: Trump, on Twitter, makes an empty threat towards Toyota for choosing to build a new factory in Mexico, writing, “Toyota Motor said will build a new plant in Baja, Mexico, to build Corolla cars for U.S. NO WAY! Build plant in U.S. or pay big border tax.”
Meanwhile, House Republicans tell the media that they’ve been approached by members of the Trump transition team to use taxpayer money to build his idiotic border wall… the first indication that they are well aware Mexico isn’t paying for it.
January 6th, 2017: The CIA, FBI, NSA, and other intelligence agencies release a report confirming their universal belief that not only did Russia interfere in the 2016 election, but did so under the direction of Vladimir Putin himself.
FBI Director James Comey, as he would later reveal, met with Trump at Trump Tower on this date, and when Trump asked if he was under investigation in Russia’s interference, Comey told him no, he wasn’t under investigation individually, but that could change depending on what evidence was found.
- January 7th, 2017: Trump responds to the report from the intelligence community the prior day as you would expect, by posting on Twitter, “Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Only “stupid” people, or fools, would think that it is bad! We….” This is the first attempt by Trump to use the, “I didn’t do it, but if I did, it would actually be a good thing…” defense.
The incoming Trump administration orders all U.S. Ambassadors to leave their posts and to return to the United States by Inauguration Day. Historically, while this is not unprecedented, giving such a short timeline for return is.
Meanwhile, the Office of Government Ethics notes that Trump Cabinet (of Horrors) nominees are not actually cooperating with their background paperwork.
And Monica Crowley, the Fox News contributor named to Trump’s proposed National Security Council, was exposed as a serial plagiarist.
- January 8th, 2017: For the first time, Trump beings whining about “leaks” on Twitter, upset that the Intelligence Community gave information to NBC News, writing, “Before I, or anyone, saw the classified and/or highly confidential hacking intelligence report, it was leaked out to @NBCNews. So serious!”
Reince Priebus is interviewed, and claims Donald Trump “accepts the fact that this particular case was entities in Russia” in relation to hacking, and meddling in the 2016 elections.
Jared Kushner begins separating himself from his business ties, making it clear for the first time that he will be seeking employment in the Trump White House, in spite of nepotism laws.
- January 9th, 2017: Trump as a meltdown, outraged at criticism he receives from actress Meryl Streep as she accepted a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes, and goes into a full Tweetstorm rage, writing, “Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn’t know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a….. Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never “mocked” a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him……. “groveling” when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!”
Earlier in the day, Trump announces Jared Kushner will be a senior White House Advisor. This is but a week and a half prior to Inauguration Day, and is still questionably a violation of nepotism laws.
- January 10th, 2017: Cabinet hearings begin to confirm Trump’s “Cabinet of Horrors”. In his Senate confirmation hearing to become Attorney General, Jeff Sessions lies under oath and says he did not have any meetings with Russians as a member of the Trump campaign. (He met with Russians at least 3 times, including Sergey Kislyak.)
Meanwhile, it is revealed to the media that both President Obama and Donald Trump were made aware of the Steele dossier by the intelligence community, that contained salacious information that Russia had gathered against Donald Trump.
Trump announces his desire after taking office to “repeal and replace Obamacare quickly” in an interview with the New York Times.
The Trump transition also talks about moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a move that would almost eliminate any chance of peace between Israel and Palestine.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also went public, claiming the Trump transition had approached him about starting a commission to investigate vaccines. The Trump transition denies this, but insane conspiracies and urban legends are hardly unheard of from them.
- January 11th, 2017: Guess who didn’t take the report about the Steele dossier and Russian hookers doing all those golden showers well? If you guessed Donald Trump, you would be correct, as nine days before he would take the Oath of Office (presumably with his fingers crossed behind his back), he would go full-on Godwin’s Law in his latest attack against the intelligence community, writing, “Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to “leak” into the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?”
And, Trump finally got around to hosting a press conference, to announce that he would not divest himself from his business empire as president, but would just have his sons run it instead. Trump and one of his lawyers provided a table full of folders that he claimed were filled with documents that he claimed proved he had signed paperwork to transfer control of his empire to his sons, but would not actually let reporters observe them more closely, and they eventually got wind of the fact that the folders were full of blank paper and that they were just props. The head of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, summed up Trump’s plan as “wholly inadequate”.
- January 12th, 2017: Trump, on Twitter, goes off on CNN, saying, “.@CNN is in a total meltdown with their FAKE NEWS because their ratings are tanking since election and their credibility will soon be gone!”
- January 13th, 2017: Donald Trump continues to downplay Russia’s interference in the U.S. elections, saying that he would be willing to lift sanctions put in place by President Obama, offering, “If you get along and if Russia is really helping us, why would anybody have sanctions if somebody’s doing some really great things?”
- January 14th, 2017: Trump kicks off Martin Luther King holiday weekend by getting on Twitter to attack Civil Rights hero and Democratic Congressman John Lewis, writing, “Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not tomention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk – no action or results. Sad! Congressman John Lewis should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the U.S. I can use all the help I can get!”
- January 15th, 2017: Trump truly begins writing checks his *** can’t cash, promising that his proposed replacement plan for Obamacare will “provide healthcare for everybody”. In an interview with the Times of London, he reversed course on his plan for a nuclear arms race with Russia, saying he would lift President Obama’s sanctions in exchange for nuclear arms reduction, and yet again talked about NATO being “obsolete”, panicking most of the nations in the alliance.
In an interview with the German magazine Bild, Trump threatens another auto manufacturer with excessive taxes if they build a factory in Mexico.
- January 16th, 2017: It becomes known that Donald Trump will not, as previously intimated, start posting on Twitter less as president. In fact, on this date it becomes known that he will continue using the same Twitter account the whole time.
Monica Crowley, at the last moment, pulled herself out of the running to be on Donald Trump’s National Security Council, due to her growing plagiarism scandal, which now not only included plagiarism discovered in her books, but in her PhD dissertation.
- January 17th, 2017: After making promises to deport millions of illegal immigrants in his first hours in office, and various other impossible promises to his supporters on his first day on the job… Trump states that his first day on the job will not, in fact, be on his inauguration on January 20th, but the following Monday, January 23rd. He still would not keep first day promises, on either day.
Trump gives an interview with the Wall Street Journal where he criticizes Paul Ryan’s tax plan. As a result, the U.S. markets see the dollar fall by 0.7%.
On Twitter, he begins commenting on his low incoming approval rating polls being inaccurate, and continues badmouthing Civil Rights hero and Congressman John Lewis, for boycotting his inauguration.
- January 18th, 2017: Two days before his inauguration, after a Today show fact-check report that casts doubt on Trump’s own touting of his “job creation” during the transition and deems he had little or not impact, Donald Trump is outraged, and gets on Twitter to call the show “fake news” and that it is “doing badly” in spite of it being the top morning show in network television.
- January 19th, 2017: As of Inauguration Eve, Trump has only named 29 of the 660 executive jobs he has to make appointments for. Trump, at a lunch prior to the festivities, declares that those 29 people have “by far the highest I.Q. of any Cabinet in history”. In reality, if there is an accolade they have, it’s that they have the greatest combined net worth of any Cabinet in history.
Next up…
Donald Trump- Full Timeline Part Five: The First 100 Days