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, including all the collusion:
Donald Trump- Full Timeline Part Three: The Final Run to Election Day 2016
In the 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.
Donald Trump- Full Timeline Part Four: The Trump Transition
We discuss a great deal of stupid and sometimes illegal things done as Trump prepared to go to Washington, D.C., as well as his assemblage of his “Cabinet of Horrors”.
Donald Trump- Full Timeline Part Five: The First 100 Days
From an anemic inauguration, to the initial panic of having a moron running the country, the first hundred days.
Donald Trump- Full Timeline Part Six: Days 101-200
We continue as Trump blunders and fires FBI Director James Comey, the Mueller investigation begins, and Trump threatens “Fire and Fury” upon North Korea.
Donald Trump- Full Timeline Part Seven: Days 201-300
We continue as Trump blames “both sides” after Charlottesville, tells a Gold Star Widow “her husband knew what he signed up for”, freaks out as Paul Manafort gets indicted, and trusts the word of Vladimir Putin over the entire United States intelligence community about Russian election hacking.
And… regrettably, the tale goes on:
- November 16th, 2017: After three UCLA basketball players are briefly detained in China prior to an exhibition game to be played there, they are released by the Chinese government without major incident. Donald Trump takes credit for their release, posting a message on Twitter on telling them “you’re welcome”. Months later we would have it confirmed, Trump didn’t do a goddamned thing to help them.
He also starts posting like crazy about Sen. Al Franken being accused of sexual assault for groping a woman on a USO Tour, because he has no self-awareness and can’t remember that he himself has been accused of sexually assaulting over a dozen women, and had said nothing in the wake of multiple women coming forward to report harassment from U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore.
- November 17th, 2017: The Republican House approve Donald Trump’s tax overhaul plan, even though it will add an estimated $1.7 trillion to the annual budget deficit, and the burden of taxes would be upon the working class of Americans. But that’s by design, really.
Questioned about what the difference is between Sen. Al Franken’s accusations of sexual harassment (one woman) and Donald Trump’s (over a dozen women), White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders can only muster that Trump didn’t admit he did it.
- November 18th, 2017: Trump posts an insult directed at Hillary Clinton on Twitter. Please note, this is over a year removed from the 2016 election.
- November 19th, 2017: Trump immediately takes to Twitter to try and exploit the death of a border patrol agent as an excuse to build his border wall, with no facts as to who or more importantly what killed that agent. Months later, in March of 2018, it is revealed that the agent’s death was an accident.
Also on Twitter, Trump starts feuding with LaVar Ball, the father of one of the UCLA players from two days prior, calling them “ungrateful” after they stated the obvious… Trump was taking credit for helping the son without having done a thing. Trump was outraged enough to say that he “should have left them in jail!”.
- November 20th, 2017: The Trump administration sues to block the AT&T and Time Warner merger, because CNN is owned by the latter, and Trump’s a spiteful bastard who doesn’t like that the network doesn’t fawn over him.
On Twitter, he continued griping about NFL national anthem protests, naming Raiders running back Marshawn Lynch, in particular.
- November 21st, 2017: Trump officially endorses Roy Moore for U.S. Senate, even though he has a long track record of being a racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic loon, and more importantly, he has recently been accused by multiple women and much of the city he worked in while in his thirties of trying to prey upon teenage girls sexually. He also, in the same speech, stated his belief that he believes “women are special”. Suuuuure…
- November 22nd, 2017: Trump continues his feud with LaVar Ball on Twitter, calling him a poor man’s Don King. Just a reminder, Trump has decades of history with Don King, and fought but was ultimately talked out of having King, once convicted of manslaughter, appear on stage at the 2016 RNC.
Trump leaves with his family to spend Thanksgiving and the weekend after at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
- November 23rd, 2017: On Thanksgiving morning, Trump re-tweets an article by Washington Post reporter Greg Sargent, where Trump’s pattern of insults towards African Americans is documented, responding simply, “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” (It really sums it up, doesn’t it, that he thinks insulting a race of people is how to do that, huh?)
Michael Flynn flips, and starts cooperating with the Mueller investigation.
- November 24th, 2017: Trump claims he was offered to be Time’s “Person of the Year” for 2017, but turned them down. Time Magazine responds by saying they don’t even choose someone until December 8th.
- November 25th, 2017: An anonymous Republican Senator goes on record to reveal that Donald Trump tried convincing them that the audio on the Access Hollywood tape wasn’t really him, and he never bragged about committing sexual assault.
Trump promotes a blog on Twitter called MAGA Pill, after insulting CNN, and claims it is a reliable source of news. MAGA Pill spreads conspiracy theories about human sacrifice, and “certain bloodlines” dominating the financial industry.
- November 26th, 2017: Trump goes “all in” on Roy Moore, posting as many issues that Doug Jones is “WEAK” on that he can come up with.
- November 27th, 2017: Trump again rants about “Fake News” on Twitter.
Trump then has a press event to honor Native American Code-Talkers who served during World War II, chooses to hold it in front of the portrait of Andrew Jackson, the president who order the Trail of Tears, and during it, for whatever reason, he rambles on incoherently, and eventually starts a tirade about Senator Elizabeth Warren, calling her “Pocahontas” to faces the Native American heroes, who look like they would rather be anywhere else.
White House Ethics Lawyer James Schultz resigns after just under a year on the job, likely because it’s impossible to keep track of all the ethics violations of the Trump administration.
- November 28th, 2017: After Trump insulted them both on Twitter prior to negotiations on a budget deal, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi cancel it a meeting with Trump at the White House.
Behind closed doors within the White House, Trump has reportedly pushed conspiracy theories
at the White House that he actually on the popular vote in 2016, and that he continues to question the authenticity of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.
- November 29th, 2017: During what is supposed to be a speech about tax policy, Trump veers far off topic and again insults Kim Jong Un, calling the North Korean dictator “Rocket Man” and “a sick puppy”.
On Twitter, Trump insinuates that MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough was involved in the death of an intern at his Florida office back in 2001. The case is closed, the woman’s death was caused after she fainted due to an irregular heart rhythm, and no foul play is even suspected. But hey, Donald Trump will never avoid exploiting anyone’s death for his own personal gain.
He also shares videos from the leader of an anti-Islamic hate group from the United Kingdom on his Twitter account. When British PM Theresa May shows her displeasure, Trump at first attacks a random account of a woman named Theresa May with six followers, before telling the leader of our main ally that she isn’t doing enough to stop “Radical Islamic Terror”. Any relationship the two have never recovers.
At a rally that night in Missouri, Trump tells the crowd that he wouldn’t be benefiting from the new GOP Tax Plan. Fact-checkers confirm that is utterly false, and it seems almost tailor fit to cut Trump’s taxes (that he still won’t show the public, and what little is known, he has managed to pay zero taxes).
- November 30th, 2017: The Trump White House releases a statement on World AIDS Day that neglects to mention LGBTQ Americans. This comes one day after reports come out that the Trump campaign is planning to remove $800 million of funding from HIV/AIDS prevention.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders defends Trump for sharing videos from a hate group, saying it “elevates the conversation”.
Reports emerge that Trump pressured top Senate Republicans to end the Russia inquiry. He manages to light the White House Christmas tree without insulting Jesus, at least.
Erik Prince, brother of Betsy DeVos and former head of Blackwater, testifies before Congress in a closed-door hearing about his meetings with Russian oligarchs in the Seychelles rumored to have been put in place to set up a back-channel of communicaton between Trump transition officials and the Kremlin.
- December 1st, 2017: The first rumors emerge that Trump wants to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, a move that all diplomatic experts know will jeopardize any and all chance at peace between Israel and Palestine.
On Twitter, Trump declares any reports that Rex Tillerson will be fired or resign are “FAKE NEWS”. This comes after a report that Tillerson is going to be pushed out, and replaced by Mike Pompeo (which would, in a few months’ time, prove to be accurate).
A report comes out about Michael Flynn having to spoken to Russians on the orders of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, after Flynn pleads guilty to lying to the FBI.
The GOP continues to try to push a plan for tax reform through Congress for Trump, and are in such a hurry that the version supplied to Democrats literally has illegible hand-written notes in the margins.
- December 2nd, 2017: On Twitter, Trump admits that he knew General Michael Flynn had lied to Mike Pence and the FBI, and cites that is the reason he reluctantly fired him. This opens up Trump further to obstruction of justice charges for firing James Comey. Trump also starts slagging his own DOJ and FBI, and claiming a perceived double standard between how investigations are being handled when it is into Hillary Clinton versus himself (that doesn’t exist).
An e-mail surfaces from former brief National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland where she says during the transition period that Russian sanctions imposed by the Obama administration would make it much harder for Mr. Trump to ease tensions with Russia, “which has just thrown the U.S.A. election to him.” Among those in the e-mail chain included Michael Flynn, Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, and Sean Spicer.
- December 3rd, 2017: On Twitter, Trump denies that he ever pressured Comey to stop investigating Michael Flynn. He also says the FBI’s reputation is “in Tatters, worst in history!”
- December 4th, 2017: Trump signs executive orders to reduce the size of the protected lands in Utah’s Bear’s Ears Monument by 80% of Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument by 45%.
George Papadopoulos is arrested stepping off a plane at JFK airport by the FBI.
Trump’s lawyer, John Dowd, argues that the president cannot obstruct justice “because he is the nation’s top law officer”. The Supreme Court already ruled that the opposite is true during Watergate so…
- December 5th, 2017: The Wall Street Journal releases a report that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly had to establish several rules in the White House to limit access to the president and keep him focused, but Trump has found loopholes to circumvent them like a spoiled child, and continues to accept “intelligence” from non-reliable sources that agree more with his warped mind.
- December 6th, 2017: Donald Trump Jr. spends 8 hours testifying before the House Intelligence Committee in a closed-door session about meeting agents from the Russian Government in Trump Tower during the 2016 election. Trump Jr. refused to provide information about his conversations with his father regarding their conversation on July 10th, 2017, prior to his public statement about the meeting, insisting that it was protected by attorney client privilege because both had their lawyers in the room of people while they were on the phone. (That’s not how attorney client privilege works.)
A whistleblower report was submitted by Rep. Elijah Cummings that a business associate of General Michael Flynn’s reported that on inauguration day, he was texted by Flynn and told Russian sanctions instituted by the Obama administration over Russian interference would be “ripped up”.
The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum ask Donald Trump to not come to the opening, saying his presence would be an insult.
- December 7th, 2017: At a White House speech announcing the United States would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, reversing 70 years of policy, Trump’s words are horribly slurred, featuring him saying, “God blesh the United Statesh” in closing, most distinctly at the end. Theories about this vary from some form of drug intoxication to his dentures slipping out.
When reporters ask about Trump’s health following this, because for all anyone knows, he’s suffered a stroke, Sarah Huckabee chastises them and says that it’s “ridiculous” to question a president’s health. (About a year or so earlier, that was one of the main arguments the Trump campaign was making in talking points about why Hillary Clinton shouldn’t be president.)
Trump hits a new all time low for approval ratings in the Pew Research Poll, coming in at 32%.
- December 8th, 2017: Former Fox News Host Juliet Huddy became yet another woman to come forward and accuse Donald Trump of sexual assault, saying that he tried to force himself on her for a kiss in an elevator back in 2005.
The Trump White House hosts its annual Hanukkah Party, but does not extend the invitation to Congressional Democrats, breaking protocol going back through several presidencies.
Trump breaks a promise to not have the Trump Corporation do business on any real estate projects that receive funding from foreign governments, as a project to have a Trump hotel built in Indonesia partially funded by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Indonesia is announced. This is a violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution, the second such incident.
Researchers in Puerto Rico determine that the government’s death toll of 58 is actually about 20 times less than the actual number, and quantify a more accurate number is 1085. Power still remains out on over half the island. Meanwhile, a report comes out that a $30 million contract to a company called Bronze Star was awarded to distribute emergency tarps and plastic sheeting despite the company having never delivered so much as a tarp before.
Dina Powell resigns as Deputy National Security Adviser.
A media report comes out that White House aide Hope Hicks was repeatedly warned by the FBI during the 2016 presidential campaign about receiving e-mails from Russian operatives.
- December 9th, 2017: Trump hosts a rally in Pensacola, Florida, where he continues to whine about Hillary Clinton while crowds chant, “LOCK HER UP!”, and claims that “the system is rigged” and a “sick system from the inside”. He… he is the head of the system. (???) He goes on to claim that “Afghanistan is safer than Chicago”, and continues berating the press for reporting on him.
- December 10th, 2017: Trump, on Twitter, again refers to the media as “Fake News”.
U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley draws the ire of Trump for having the nerve to say that the women accusing Trump of sexual assault “should be heard”.
- December 11th, 2017: On Twitter, Trump rages about a New York Times report that he watches 4-8 hours of television a day, and takes time to gripe about cable news networks not named Fox News, before, at the end of the rant, singling out an African American journalist by name, CNN’s Don Lemon, to call him “the dumbest man on television”, because Trump loves to insult the intelligence of black people.
Echoing him at the White House, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders accuses the media of deliberately spreading false information about the Trump administration.
The White House issued a statement responding to the multiple women accusing Donald Trump of sexual assault, saying their claims were false.
- December 12th, 2017: Trump signs a $700 billion defense spending bill, but grouses about provisions in it that detail an aggressive policy towards Russia, because he’s not subtle about the whole “being Putin’s puppet” thing.
Trump posts on Twitter about how the women accusing him of sexual assault are “women I don’t know and/or have never met”, and suddenly a lot of people have photos or even video of Trump with several of his accusers on the day the alleged assaults occur.
Also on Twitter, Trump starts attacking Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand for commenting on the accusations of sexual assault against the president, calling her “a total flunky” and saying she came to his office “begging for campaign contributions not so long ago”.
The Washington Post, responding to Trump and Huckabee-Sanders the previous day, publishes a detailed article citing the number of women who accuse Trump of sexual assault, and notes the number of witnesses who can verify the accuser’s accounts, versus the almost non-existent witnesses who can provide Trump with any kind of defense.
Trump’s lawyers demand a second special counsel be appointed to investigate Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Yeah, that doesn’t happen.
The Republican Senate confirms Trump appointee Leonard Grasz to a lifetime federal court appointment, even though he is only one of four candidates for such a position to receive a “not qualified” rating from the American Bar Association.
- December 13th, 2017: After Doug Jones defeats Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race, Trump begins to play the sore loser, claiming that he never really believed Roy Moore could win (but endorsed him even though he was a racist, homophobic, alleged pedophile).
Stacia Robataille, wife of NHL star Luc Robataille, details a an encounter with Donald Trump while her husband played for the New York Rangers where, in an elevator, Trump aggressively approached her to have an affair, saying that she should “come home with me” because he “made more money than her husband”.
An ethics investigation begins into EPA Director Scott Pruitt’s use of a $25,000 soundproof booth in his office. (Note: This is one of almost a dozen scandals which will plague Pruitt in the coming months.)
Omarosa Manigault leaves the Trump White House, with some stories about her exit involving an escort from the premises after a great deal of drama and screaming for the president to intervene on her behalf in the late hours of the night. (which if you ever have seen Omarosa on a reality show, sounds entirely believable).
- December 14th, 2017: Current and White House officials go on record to say that Trump’s intelligence update, known as the president’s daily brief, or PDB, is often structured to avoid upsetting him. “If you talk about Russia, meddling, interference… that takes the PDB off the rails,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official.
Trump calls the conduct of the FBI “disgraceful” and promises that he will rebuild the agency “make it bigger and better”. This was as he was leaving to attend the graduate of 200 agents at Quantico.
FCC Director and all-around douchebag Ajit Pai releases a video of himself (paid for with taxpayers expense) where he dances around wearing a Santa Claus suit, plays with a fidget spinner, and wields a toy gun as part of his campaign to eliminate net neutrality. Sometimes, it’s almost like Trump Cabinet members are in a competition to be the most hated.
- December 15th, 2017: When asked by reporters, Trump would not rule out trying to pardon General Michael Flynn, saying, “We’ll see…” because he treats his corrupt presidency like it’s full of reality-show cliffhangers.
A report in the Wall Street Journal says that the Mueller Investigation is asking for e-mails between the Trump campaign and Cambridge Analytica, the first sign that the investigation is looking into the data operation of the Trump campaign and how it may have worked with Russia to disseminate stories on social media to aid Trump.
A judge blocks the Trump administration’s attempts to block access to birth control on health insurance.
- December 16th, 2017: Trump lies his ass off about the proposed GOP Tax plan, saying that it will send the economy “to rock” and the GOP to expand to 6% growth. (The GDP at any point barely cracks 4%, a feat bested during five separate quarters during the Obama administration.)
- December 17th, 2017: Trump and his lawyers react to the news that Robert Mueller had acquired thousands of e-mails from White House staffers by telling the media they had been taken “improperly” or even “illegally”. Trump bleated in his defense to the media, “No collusion… no collusion…”
Trump also reportedly was thinking of firing A.G. Jeff Sessions or Deputy A.G. Rod Rosenstein to end the Mueller investigation, with insiders at the White House reporting a paranoid Trump was trying to convince staffers that Rosenstein was secretly a Democrat. This will be the first, and definitely not the last time Trump realigns the party affiliation of investigators or FBI agents to fit his own narrative.
Vladimir Putin calls Trump to thank him for sharing intelligence information that averted a bombing in St. Petersburg.
- December 18th, 2017: NBC News puts out a report that in July of 2016, the FBI specifically warned Trump that Russia was making efforts to infiltrate his presidential campaign.
The Trump administration drops climate change from the list of the country’s national security threats.
- December 19th, 2017: Trump’s White House removes the “We the People” online petition from its website, without answering a single petition submitted during his presidency. The petition to release Trump’s tax returns, for example, had over one million people who signed it.
Trump’s pick for the head of the Export/Import Bank, former Congressman Tom Garrett, is blocked by a Senate vote when two Republicans defect and join Democrats to block the move.
- December 20th, 2017: Trump holds a second public “Cabinet Meeting” that opens with 12 minutes of him boasting about himself, before moving to a roundtable discussion of each Cabinet member praising him.
As the historically terrible GOP Tax Plan is jammed through Congress, Trump declares that they “repealed Obamacare” (it didn’t do that). At the time of its passage, a Wall Street Journal poll showed only 24% of the country thought the tax bill was “a good idea”.
Trump also threatens to cut off humanitarian aid to any country that votes for a U.N. resolution that condemns his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel. Apparently, no one took him seriously for the most part, because the vote was 128-9 (two of the nine being the United States and Israel).
- December 21st, 2017: On Twitter, Trump claims “House Democrats want a shutdown for the holidays in order to distract from the very popular, just passed, tax cuts.” One, they weren’t popular. Two, they didn’t. Three, what they were trying to do was get funding for the Children’s Healthcare Insurance Program.
- December 22nd, 2017: Trump signs the GOP Tax Plan/Scam bill.
A federal court again overrules Donald Trump’s Muslim travel ban.
Just in time for Christmas, the first word comes in that ICE is asking new Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirjsten Nielsen for permission to begin separating migrant children from their parents at the U.S. border as a horrifying deterrent to them from seeking asylum in the United States.
- December 23rd, 2017: Arriving at Mar-A-Lago for the Christmas holiday, Trump is quoted by CBS News as telling a club member at the resort, “You all just got a lot richer.” In regards to the GOP Tax Plan/Scam.
A New York Times article reveals that allegedly during a June 2017 White House meeting on immigration, Trump referred to immigrants from Haiti by saying “they all have AIDS”, and said of Nigerians, “they should go back to their huts”.
On Twitter, Trump reacts to the news that FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is planning on retiring in March 2018 once he is eligible for his pension by spreading lies about McCabe and his wife’s political history while accusing him of bias. He followed that up by spreading lies about the FBI’s General Counsel, James Baker.
He also re-tweeted an image of himself with a bloodstain on his heel labeled, “CNN”, in his latest attack against the news network.
- December 24th, 2017: Trump spent Christmas Eve, not as you would expect, being visited by three ghosts to teach him the spirit of the holiday, but instead, to continue his campaign of falsehoods against Andrew McCabe, and to whine about “Fake News” and “Fake Polls” on Twitter again.
He then takes credit for “leading the charge” so that people can proudly say “Merry Christmas” again, to garner some support from really stupid Christians with perceived victimization against them. How he could lead such a charge with his bone spurs is truly a Christmas miracle.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, announces a policy shift that will make it harder for nursing homes who abuse or risk harm to patients in their care to be fined for any malicious or negligent care.
- December 25th, 2017: The Wall Street Journal reports that during Trump’s first year in office, he has spent nearly one third of it at Trump-owned properties. The Daily Beast noted that Trump had broken his promise to separate himself from these businesses, as well, as he still would ask about banquet revenues and demographics.
- December 26th, 2017: Trump, on Twitter, posts an entire rant about the Steele Dossier, claiming it was “bogus” and a “pile of garbage” before declaring that “FBI TAINTED”.
Trump also lies and claims that the GOP Tax Bill “repeals Obamacare”.
And, Trump posted on Twitter that “tomorrow it’s back to work to Make America Great Again!” He then, of course, spent the next seven days golfing. During this stretch, reporters note that a view of the golf course is at first blocked by a ridiculously large white van, and then two trees are planted to obscure the view so that the media cannot accurately show how much Trump is actually on the links.
Meanwhile, Politico noted that Trump’s Cabinet are the most secretive in decades, and their daily schedules and agendas are almost completely unavailable to the public in most instances.
- December 27th, 2017: The Trump administration fires the remaining 16 members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, giving no explanation for the move.
At an event at West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump claims he “I have signed more legislation than anybody. We broke the record of Harry Truman.” That’s not just a lie, it’s an outrageous one… you would have to go back ten presidencies to find someone who had signed less.
- December 28th, 2017: Trump gives a terrifying, rambling interview with the New York Times where he claims “I have an absolute right to do what I want with the Justice Department,” that “Virtually every Democrat has said there’s no collusion.” (HINT: Not a single Democrat said that.), and finally, saying “and even if there was, it’s not a crime. But there’s no collusion.” No less than 25 false claims were made during the interview overall, nearly one a minute.
White House staff were not informed by Trump that he was sitting down for this interview, and were less than pleased with how insane the boss seemed during it.
On Twitter, Trump attacks Vanity Fair magazine for apologizing for posting a misleading video about Hillary Clinton, and then, for whatever reason, starts insulting Anna Wintour, who has nothing to do with Vanity Fair, as she’s the editor of Vogue.
A photo emerges of Trump with a group of White House interns, and in it, Jack Breuer, an intern working for Trump’s White Nationalist stooge, Stephen Miller, flashes a “white power” sign for the photo.
- December 29th, 2017: Trump returns to attacking Amazon again on Twitter, grousing about how Amazon was somehow to blame for the Post Office losing money, and that they “SHOULD BE CHARGING MUCH MORE” to Amazon for deliveries.
He also opines about the weather being cold, and by that we mean he posted a bit of climate change denial, writing, “In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!" Since pappy was clearly sundowning, the Weather Channel decided to intervene and explain to the president the difference between weather and climate.
The Trump administration waives fines for five megabanks totaling in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars, including Deutsche Bank, which is already under investigation for suspicious loans it issued to the family of Jared Kushner prior to the 2016 election.
- December 30th, 2017: A report in the New York Times details how the FBI began their inquiry into Russia colluding with the Trump campaign in May of 2016 after George Papadopolous bragged about the Russians “getting dirt on Hillary” for the Trump campaign while drunk in a bar to an Australian diplomat. The Aussies tipped off the Americans. But this report debunks the idea that the FBI investigation began because of the Steele Dossier, a narrative Trump and his legal team have been pushing to cast doubt on the investigation.
Only 55% of Puerto Rico has electricity as of this date, three months after Hurricane Maria. That’s 1.5 million Americans.
- December 31st, 2017: Trump becomes the first president since Calvin Coolidge to end his first year in office without hosting any foreign dignitaries for a state dinner. Trump also becomes the first president ever to not visit Canada during the first year of his presidency. Only 240 of 624 positions that require Senate approval have been filled thus far in his presidency.
On Twitter, he sends out a New Year’s message where he wishes “all of my friends, supporters, enemies, haters, and even the very dishonest Fake News Media, a Happy and Healthy New Year.”
- January 1st, 2018: On Twitter, Trump blasts one of the United States’ key allies in the War on Terror, Pakistan, saying that they have given us “nothing but lies and deceit for 15 years”, sending diplomats and Pakistani government officials scrambling.
He probably should have been paying more attention to North Korea, considering Kim Jong Un threatened the United States that the nuclear button was on his table, and the “entire area of the Mainland U.S. is within our nuclear strike range.”
- January 2nd, 2018: Trump responds to Kim Jong Un’s speech, where else, on Twitter, where he channels his inner second-grader and writes, “Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” But he’s not overcompensating, or anything.
Also on Twitter, for whatever reason, Trump talked of “Hillary Clinton’s top aid, Huma Abedin”, before citing multiple conspiracy theories about her, and then demanding she be jailed, along with “James Comey and others”.
Trump also takes credit for being “very strict” on commercial aviation, creating what he calls “the best and safest year on record”, because there were zero deaths in 2017. (There hasn’t been a death in a plane crash in the aviation industry, at all, since 2009.)
Trump again attacks the media, writing on Twitter, “I will be announcing THE MOST DISHONEST & CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS OF THE YEAR on Monday at 5:00 o’clock. Subjects will cover Dishonesty & Bad Reporting in various categories from the Fake News Media. Stay tuned!”
And then, he posts, and has to delete, a Twitter post where he tells his followers to “Watch Sean Hannity at 8 PM”, because it’s an ethics violation for the president to endorse a TV show.
Speaking of Trump and ethics violations, McClatchy wrote an article about foreign governments finding ways to do favors for Trump businesses to curry favor with the administration, which is a direct violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution.
Meanwhile, Glenn Simpson and Peter Frisch, the founders of Fusion GPS, publish an op-ed in the New York Times where they voice their serious displeasure with the fact that Republicans are concealing what they actually said in 21 hours of closed-door testimony, and demand that it be made public, rather than have Republicans lie about what was said.
- January 3rd, 2018: Word that a soon-to-be released tell-all book is coming from Michael Wolff called “Fire and Fury”. The Trump White House gave Wolff unprecedented levels of access into the administration for the effort, and surprise… he saw all sorts of crazy s*** going on and wrote about it. When the early passages include Steve Bannon telling him that he believes Donald Jr. absolutely brought the Russians from the Trump Tower meeting up to meet his father and he knew they were there. Bannon described the meeting in his own words as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic”. Trump responds by trying to pretend Steve Bannon never had anything to do with his campaign or presidency, and eventually started Twitter posts over several days where he called Bannon “Sloppy Steve”.
- January 4th, 2018: Trump’s Election Integrity Commission disbands, an utter failure that finds no proof of voter fraud. Don’t celebrate too much, because on this day, the Trump Justice Department opens what will be yet another fruitless investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server.
The New York Times publish a report that Trump attempted to stop Jeff Sessions from recusing himself in the Mueller investigation, ordering White House Counsel Don McGahn to try and stop him from doing so in order to protect himself.
North Korea agrees to peace talks with South Korea without the United States being involved.
Trump attacks Michael Wolff on Twitter, writing, ”I authorized Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book! I never spoke to him for book.", trying to cast doubt on his forthcoming “Fire and Fury” book by claiming he didn’t have White House access. Politifact says that’s a total load. Oh, and there were more insults directed at “Sloppy Steve” as well as sending him a “cease and desist” letter.
Trump originally had planned to speak to the media to crow about the GOP Tax Plan/Scam at the White House Daily Press Conference. Realizing that “Fire and Fury” would be all they would ask him about, the craven old man instead had Sarah Huckabee Sanders play a pre-recorded video where he did so in order to avoid any questions, making him more appropriate for being the despot in Emerald City than the POTUS.
Huckabee Sanders also called on Breitbart to fire Steve Bannon.
- January 5th, 2018: Trump asks Congress to set aside $18 billion over 10 years to build his stupid border wall. Congress tells him to pound sand.
The Washington post listed 8 times that Trump attempted to end the Mueller investigation already by this date.
Shannon McGahn, wife of White House Counsel Don McGahn, resigns from a senior position in the U.S. Treasury.
- January 6th, 2018: Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” book hits the stands, and he details almost a full year of events from within the White House, that include that former Trump lawyer Mark Corallo resigned because he felt Trump crafting Donald Jr.’s letter explaining the meeting would constitute obstruction of justice, Trump called Sally Yates a “c***”, he told Hope Hicks she was “the best piece of tail” Corey Lewandowski would ever have, that Trump never thought he would win and that’s why he can’t staff a White House, that Melania cried on Election Night, Ivanka thinks of herself as the first woman president, because she’s that damned delusional of a little rich girl. And that frankly, Donald Trump is, quite obviously mentally ill, based on various accounts, including that he is mentally degrading to the point where he can’t recognize his old friends. That last part is the thing we think, if anything, isn’t true, because Donald Trump doesn’t actually have friends.
On Twitter, Trump tries to assure everyone he’s not insane, insisting he’s “a very stable genius”. Which is exactly how not to look like one. Oh, and he also claimed that any Russian collusion is a “total hoax” created by Democrats.
- January 7th, 2018: Trump pushes his “fake news awards” back to January 17th.
On Twitter, he also posts about his “consensual presidency” before someone within the White House tells the idiot-in-chief that he meant to say “consequential presidency”. Honestly, either is disputable, since Trump isn’t known for being a fan of consent.
- January 8th, 2018: Trump gives a speech in Nashville where he tells a crowd it was THEIR privilege to have voted for HIM.
The Trump administration removes the protected status of 200,000 immigrants from El Salvador who have peacefully lived in the United States as refugees since 2001.
Trump nominates K.T. McFarland to be Ambassador to Singapore for a second time, even though she had knowledge of meetings between General Michael Flynn and Russian diplomat Sergei Kislyak during the presidential campaign and transition.
The first discussions between Trump’s lawyers and Robert Mueller begin about when Donald Trump will be interviewed regarding Russian collusion as part of his investigation.
- January 9th, 2018: In a meeting with Congressional leaders to discuss DACA, Trump suddenly agrees with Democrats (because they’re the last ones who spoke) and flips on his position and says he supports a “clean” bill to protect Dreamers. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy has to correct him, but this doesn’t do much to avert the claims from “Fire and Fury” about Trump’s mental well-being. Immediately following the meeting, Trump took to Twitter to sabotage any effort at a compromise by insisting funding for his border wall be included in the bill.
The Trump administration reportedly makes moves to loosen nuclear weapons constraints and move to make more warheads “usable”.
CNN reports on exhaustion among White House staffers because of the president’s wild mood swings and inability to find people deranged enough to work for him that are capable means there’s not enough bodies to share all the work.
- January 10th, 2018: Trump hosts his first Cabinet meeting of the new year, beginning by saying, “Welcome back to the studio”, because he thinks he’s still on a reality show. He also again attacked the free press by stating his desire to create stricter libel laws so that the media can’t write stories about him he doesn’t like.
A federal judge orders that Dreamers under the protection of DACA will maintain their protected status, and will not be deported until the case is finally ruled on. The Trump White House attacks the authority of the courts again, calling the ruling “outrageous”.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand blocks the nomination of Geoffrey Berman, a former law partner of Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, to be named the Attorney General of the Southern District of New York, citing an obvious conflict of interests.
Not to be outdone, Sen. Diane Feinstein releases the testimony of Glenn Simpson from Fusion GPS, instantly wiping away any credibility Republicans had about casting doubt on the Steele Dossier. To be specific, Steele contacted the FBI in July 2016 on his own how easily that Donald Trump could be blackmailed by Russians. Pee tape, and all that. By the time Steele met with the FBI in Rome in September of 2016, the FBI already had come to the same conclusion, that a crime was in progress.
Trump responds to Feinstein’s move on Twitter, writing, “The fact that Sneaky Dianne Feinstein, who has on numerous occasions stated that collusion between Trump/Russia has not been found, would release testimony in such an underhanded and possibly illegal way, totally without authorization, is a disgrace. Must have tough Primary!” (Spoiler alert, she won the primary and looks like she’s coast to victory in November.)
Despite Trump’s promise not to have his businesses expand overseas if he was elected, the Trump Tower in India opens in Delhi on this date.
- January 11th, 2018: A day after Trump’s White House supported the new FISA bill, early in the morning Fox News’ Andrew Napolitano stated his opposition to the bill. The next thing you knew, Trump, informed by the least reliable cable news network… Trump criticized it on Twitter, claiming that it may have been used to spy on his presidential campaign. About two hours later, he flip-flopped again on Twitter and stated his support for it, likely after White House staff had to chastise him like a child.
During a joint press conference with Norwegian PM Erna Solberg, Trump begins whining about Hillary Clinton, insists the Mueller investigation is a “Democratic hoax”, says there is “no collusion” seven times, and then lauds delivery of “F-52” fighter jets to Norway, when no such plane exists outside of video games.
During a White House meeting to discuss protections for Haitian immigrants, Trump refers to them, and African immigrants by asking “Why do we have to have all these people from s***hole countries come here? Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out.” Senator Dick Durbin was present, and confirmed the story. Trump, of course, lied and said he didn’t. Some Republican senators present tried to lie on the president’s behalf, but Sen. Lindsey Graham further confirmed it happened. Eventually, the other Republicans present tried to say it was “s***house countries”, which isn’t any better. Anyway, the White House spends days trying to deal with the fallout, which includes Trump not responding when reporter April Ryan asking him if he’s racist.
The Trump administration attempts to roll back guidelines for Medicaid and force those on it to meet work requirements. This is the first such requirement in the program’s five decade history.”
Trump gives an interview to the Wall Street Journal where he muses that “I should get credit for firing James Comey” and insisting that he had a good relationship with Kim Jong Un (who he repeatedly insults on Twitter).
- January 12th, 2018: Trump cancels a trip to the United Kingdom to attend the opening of the new U.S. Embassy in London, amid fears that he’ll be mocked by crowds and politicians. So of course, he blames the cancellation on former President Barack Obama, for moving the site of the embassy “off-location” in a “bad deal”, saying that Obama sold the old embassy for “peanuts”. We’ll note, embassies are not exactly handled like real estate deals, and that’s all a bunch of nonsense from Donald Dotard.
The U.S. Ambassador to Panama resigns, citing Donald Trump as the reason.
The Wall Street Journal first breaks the story that in October of 2016, Donald Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid off adult film actress Stormy Daniels with $130,000 to get her to sign a non-disclosure agreement and not discuss their affair from over a decade earlier.
- January 13th, 2018: Hawaii’s emergency warning system goes off, warning of an impending nuclear strike, due to a state employee pushing the wrong button. During the entire crisis, Trump is brainlessly playing golf and oblivious to the entire event, not clarifying with the Pentagon for almost an hour.
Trump, on Twitter, posts “AMERICA FIRST”, an expression not seldom used in politics because of its long and sordid history of being used by Klansmen and Nazi sympathizers.
- January 14th, 2018: Sarah Huckabee Sanders uses her official White House Twitter account to post “Looks like Fake News is at it again!” responding to the interview Trump gave the Wall Street Journal three days earlier, with Trump joining in on the attack on the press.
Per conservative columnist Eric Erickson, Trump allegedly called some high-ranking supporters to brag about his “s***hole countries” statement, musing that it “plays well with the base”.
- January 15th, 2018: Rather than honor Martin Luther King Day like any normal president would, Trump goes golfing. Again.
- January 16th, 2018: Trump hosts another dictator at the White House, this time it’s Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan. As Trump invites the press into the Oval Office for their meeting, CNN reporter Jim Acosta starts asking Trump questions he doesn’t particularly like about what kind of immigrants he wants in the United States, asking if they need to be white. Trump starts yelling, “OUT! OUT!” at Acosta, throwing him out of the Oval Office.
The Trump Department of Justice appeals to the Supreme Court to end DACA.
- January 17th, 2018: After Trump’s annual physical, he makes White House Physician Ronny Jackson trot out for a press conference to declare Trump is supposedly in “excellent mental and physical health” and credits Trump’s “great genes”. The praise is scoffed at as propaganda by most other experts who note how much this sounds like the medical assessments North Korea gives for the Kim dynasty, especially because Jackson lists Trump’s weight at 239 pounds,which conveniently is the number just under what a man at Trump’s height would have to be listed at to avoid being rated as “obese”. Trump starts crowing
Trump, again reacting to a Fox News show, posts their “non-facts” on Twitter, that his approval ratings with African Americans had doubled, and African American employment was at an all time low.
Trump also releases his “Fake News Awards” on the Republican National Committee’s website, which crashes because it can’t handle the amount of traffic generated by people coming to laugh at the president’s insecurities. Virtually all recipients treat Trump’s derision as a badge of honor, and some late night comedians left out of notice actually lament not rating as more of a thorn in Trump’s side.
- January 18th, 2018: Mother Jones Magazine gets the details of the Donald Trump/Stormy Daniels affair, including that Trump tried to initiate their sexual relationship while watching Shark Week, that Daniels at one point spanked him with a copy of Forbes that featured Trump on its cover with his daughter, Ivanka, and that Trump compared Daniels to his daughter after sex.
The name of the company Michael Cohen started to arrange payments to Stormy Daniels is revealed to be Essential Consultants LLC, as well as the pseudonyms used for both Trump and Daniels.
Trump campaigns on behalf of Pennsylvania Republican Rick Saccone, who will be running in a special election against Democrat Connor Lamb in a few months. Trump’s idea of campaigning for people? Keep talking about himself and ramble like an idiot, what else?
Trump responds to reports that his own White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly, called his views on immigration “uninformed” by proving him right and further showing he’s clueless about trade, getting on Twitter to call NAFTA a “bad joke”,
Steve Bannon gets a subpoena to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, but refuses to testify, citing executive privilege, leading to confusion because the White House had not officially done so. Bannon’s lawyer was invoking executive privilege in case, at some point, Trump decided he wanted to invoke it. Anyway… it’s complicated, stupid, and when Bannon ended up sitting down with Robert Mueller, he wouldn’t get to invoke any executive privilege, so we’re just going to move to the next development.
McClatchy is the first to report that the FBI is conducting an investigation into whether the NRA helped illegally funnel foreign campaign donations from Russian oligarchs like Alexander Torshin to the Trump 2016 campaign.
USA Today reports that a year after Trump’s inauguration, there is no accounting as to what the $107 million raised for it was spent on.
- January 19th, 2018: On the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration, there is a government shutdown, the first time in history that one happens when one party controls the House, Senate, and White House at the same time.
Twitter estimated that over 50,000 Russian bot accounts were working to help get Trump elected in 2016, and spread well over half a million articles towards that effort online. Among the articles they are also sharing are Devin Nunes’ insistence that he has a secret memo that reveals some sort of “Deep State plot” against the president and the FBI’s investigation is highly biased (Spoiler alert, it eventually comes out and it’s bulls***.)
- January 20th, 2018: The Trump White House takes finger-pointing to the next level and changes the automated message on the White House Comment Phone Line to say they couldn’t answer because Democrats shut down the government (they didn’t).
- January 21st, 2018: A document acquired by Trump’s department claims that 73% of terrorists were “foreign-born”, which is not factually correct, but it does stir up fears over immigrants, doesn’t it?
A Washington Post report cites unnamed White House staffers who claim Trump puts on a fake Indian accent to mock the country’s PM, Narendra Modi, when talking about him to those within the White House.
- January 22nd, 2018: Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign releases a super-racist ad on his Youtube channel which accuses Democrats of being “complicit” in murders it claims were carried out by immigrants. And wouldn’t you believe it, Russian bots were helping to try and spread Trump’s messaging all over the internet.
A report by Rachel Maddow reveals that Trump wanted to fire FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and Jeff Sessions had to talk Trump out of it because if McCabe was fired, Trump’s FBI Director Christopher Wray was going to quit. Trump, of course, denies the report, saying, "He didn't at all. He did not even a little bit. Nope. And he's gonna do a good job."
Trump’s attacks to foment hatred upon CNN from his supporters produce a near-miss, as a Michigan man planning to attack the network’s headquarters and commit mass murder is arrested by the FBI making various threats. Would you believe he also is a fan of Hitler and a Holocaust denier, as well as listening to Trump’s calls for stochastic terror? He is!
One year after Trump takes office, the Treasury Department reports that Trump has reneged on his promise to donate any profits his businesses make from foreign entities to be donated to the Treasury, and no money has ever been sent.
- January 23rd, 2018: The Washington Post reports that shortly after James Comey was fired, Trump summoned Andrew McCabe to the Oval Office to determine his “loyalty”, asking him who he voted for in the 2016 election, and growing angry when McCabe told him he didn’t vote.
On Twitter, Trump begins attacking the credibility and personal lives of FBI Agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, to frame the texts between the two as proof of “bias” from Strzok’s brief time working on the Mueller investigation.
- January 24th, 2018: Before leaving for Davos, Trump boasts that he “would love to” talk to Robert Mueller. He spends the next several months not doing that thing he would love to do and instead attack the integrity of Mueller, his investigators, and the inquiry on Twitter.
A member of Trump’s own Opioid Commission calls the endeavor a “sham”.
- January 25th, 2018: Trump takes a cue from Sean Hannity, and begins lying about the record on Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, claiming there are “5 months missing” in their text message history that prove a conspiracy against him in the Mueller investigation.
- January 26th, 2018: At Davos, Switzerland, Trump forgets where he is and starts giving a speech like the kind he does at his rallies, and when he starts in on the “nasty, mean, and fake news media” the mostly European crowd of journalists start to audibly boo and hiss him. He pauses, because apparently he’s forgotten the rest of the world isn’t putting up with his s***, before continuing with a rambling speech.
After Congressional leaders end the Government Shutdown, Trump posts on Twitter to taunt “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer”, granting himself victory in the crisis he created himself.
Trump responds to reports that aides and his legal team have had to talk him out of firing Robert Mueller by calling them “Fake News” repeatedly.
Four months after Hurricane Maria, 30% of Puerto Rico is still without power.
Facebook reveals it was paid by a Russian troll farm to run over 3,000 stories about the 2016 election.
- January 27th, 2018: On Twitter, Trump continues to rant about funding for his border wall, and tries to start spinning that Democrats don’t want to fund the military (not at all true).
- January 28th, 2018: In a bonkers interview with Piers Morgan, Trump claimed that he was “wouldn’t say he was a feminist, but rather for all people”, which means he doesn’t understand what feminism is, but we knew that. Anyway, the most stupid of several moments would be that Trump again denied climate change, claiming that “The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they’re setting records. They’re at a record level.”
On Twitter, Trump starts a feud with rapper Jay-Z, throwing the false statistic about “black unemployment BEING THE LOWEST EVER RECORDED” out as some sort of proof he’s doing a great job.
- January 29th, 2018: The Trump administration announces it will not immediately enact sanctions on Russia passed by Congress to punish them for meddling in the 2016 elections.
Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe steps down. This comes as an NBC Report comes out that claims the day after Trump fired James Comey, he called up Andrew McCabe to scream at him because Comey was allowed to return to Washington, D.C., on an FBI plane, and at one point during the call, Trump asked McCabe, “ask your wife how it feels to be a loser”. McCabe just said, “OK, sir,” and hung up on him.
The New Yorker reports that Jared Kushner has still been allowed access to the President’s Daily Briefing even though he still does not have security clearance within the White House.
Tickets for the forthcoming Trump State of the Union address are published, and they are misspelled, saying “State of the Uniom”.
- January 30th, 2018: Trump delivers a nonsensical State of the Union address for over an hour where he’s mocked for clapping for himself in places, a day that sees a longstanding tradition broken as First Lady Melania Trump refuses to travel to the speech in the same vehicle as the president.
Trump’s FEMA announces it’s shutting off deliveries of water and supplies to Puerto Rico, against the wishes of many of the island’s mayors who are still trying to recover from Hurricane Maria.
The Trump administration pulls the nomination for its own pick for the next Ambassador to South Korea, because the man chosen, Victor Cha, does not support Trump’s “bloody nose” policy to attack North Korea.
- January 31st, 2018: Trump’s lawyers begin arguing that Robert Mueller’s investigation does not meet the threshold for an in-person interview. The interview Trump supposedly looks forward to.
Brenda Fitzgerald, the head of the CDC, resigns after it is discovered she’s still got investments in… wait for it… the tobacco industry. NO CONFLICT OF INTEREST THERE.
Two Russian spy chiefs come to Washington, D.C. to meet with CIA Director Mike Pompeo, which is in no way suspicious.
- February 1st, 2018: Trump claims his State of the Union speech had the highest number of viewers in history. Of course, that’s a lie, and it’s only the ninth most viewed of all time.
On Twitter, any impression that based on Trump’s speech that he would unite the country immediately goes out the window after he accuses Democrats of only knowing how to “Resist, Blame, Complain and Obstruct”.
It is revealed that in a meeting with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Trump asked him if he was “on my team”.
Tom Shannon, the third-highest ranking member of the State Department resigns, citing Donald Trump as the reason he’s leaving. This leaves seven of the top nine jobs at the State Department vacant.
The Trump administration announces a “counter violent extremism” program that, and we know this is shocking… only mentions Islamic extremism.
- February 2nd, 2018: Trump,at an RNC dinner, boasts about passing the mental health test he took with White House physician Ronny Jackson, claiming “not a lot of people could do that.”
That’s nothing to brag about, considering how hard the test is.
The dreaded “Nunes Memo” is released, and it in no way shows the Mueller investigation is tainted, a complete dud politically. Trump tries pretending it’s scandalous, still, saying “it’s a disgrace what’s happening to our country” (we agree, just not for the same reasons).
After Trump spent the entire holiday season touting any stock market numbers, on this day, the Dow Jones dropped 666 points.
K.T. McFarland, for the second time, pulls her nomination to be the Ambassador to Singapore.
- February 3rd, 2018: The Treasury Department releases a report that the United States will borrow $955 billion in 2018, almost double the amount from the previous year. This is the biggest spike in debt since the Reagan administration.
- February 4th, 2018: TIME Magazine reports that in a 2013 letter, Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page actually bragged about his ties to the Kremlin, which these days, he’s denying to try and avoid going to jail for treason.
- February 5th, 2018: During a speech at a factor in Idaho, Trump insinuates that it’s “Un-American” or “treason” because Democrats didn’t clap for him enough during the State of the Union address. During that speech, live, the stock market plummeted and lost the single most amount in a single day, with the Dow Jones losing 4.6% of its value overall, a total of 1175 points.
Lawfare magazine runs an article that polling shows despite claims by Donald Trump and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, James Comey never lost the loyalty or confidence of FBI agents serving under him.
- February 6th, 2018: During a roundtable discussion on immigration reform, Trump beams when the possibility of another government shutdown is raised, saying he would “love to see” one if his stupid border wall wasn’t funded, and insisting that there were “killers coming into our country who love to kill”.
White House officials begin discussing for the first time, the plans for a gala military parade in Washington, D.C., that Trump demanded after seeing one while visiting France. The estimated cost to taxpayers is $30 million.
For the first time, reports emerge about Trump aide Rob Porter, who is at the time dating Hope Hicks, having abused two of his wives.
The Commerce Department reports a trade deficit of $566 billion for 2018, the biggest since 2008.
- February 7th, 2018: While Trump boards Air Force One, serious doubt is cast upon his repeated claims that his hair is still natural after a stiff breeze reveals a huge bald spot underneath it, as if it wasn’t obvious enough.
Further investigation into Trump White House staffer Rob Porter shows that he was working at the White House for months without security clearance, which he could not get because he failed FBI background checks because of his domestic abuse history.
After 384 innocuous texts from FBI Agents Peter Strzock and Lisa Page are released by Sen. Ron Johnson, Trump again begins attacks on Twitter directed at the two, claiming, “NEW FBI TEXTS ARE BOMBSHELLS!” (They are not.)
Also on Twitter, Trump whines about the unstable stock market, befuddled as to why it would drop even though there’s “good (great) news about the economy”.
The Trump administration announces it will cut the number of refugees accepted into the United States in 2018 from 85,000 to 45,000.
- February 8th, 2018: It is confirmed that the Trump administration was aware of Rob Porter’s history as a domestic abuser for months, yet kept him on as a White House staffer anyway.
Citing the case of a single immigrant Sudan, Trump calls for an end to the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program on Twitter.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis claims that Dreamers serving in the United States military would not be deported. (This statement ends up being proven a lie within a few months’ time.)
- February 9th, 2018: Trump comments on Rob Porter’s departure from the White House, saying that he was “sad to see him go” and that “we wish him well”, while failing to show any sympathy for the two wives that Porter abused.
-
David Sorensen, another White House aide and speechwriter for Stephen Miller resigns after it is revealed he also has a history of spousal abuse.
CNN reports that there are between 30 and 40 Trump White House staffers who, like Rob Porter, cannot get security clearance, yet are still working at the White House. The Trump White House has been giving “interim” status to these same individuals on a periodic basement for over a year and reapplying for “interim” status as a loophole to them earning full status.
The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin notes that the Trump Department of Justice has neither appointed a nominee to be the head of the office of violence against women, or a White House Adviser for Violence Against Women. The Washington Post also reports that Donald Trump does not read his Daily Intelligence reports at briefings, instead preferring oral presentations.
Rachel Brand, the third-highest ranking official at the Trump Department of Justice resigns.
- February 10th, 2018: Trump still is really broken up about the resignation of a wife-beater from his White House, getting on Twitter to post, “Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation. Some are true and some are false. Some are old and some are new. There is no recovery for someone falsely accused - life and career are gone. Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?” Due Process is something Trump often whines about people having, but for whatever reason, he draws the line about it being removed from domestic abusers.
Trump continues to block the release of a Democratic rebuttal to Devin Nunes’ memo, on Twitter commenting that it “is very political and long” and would “have to be heavily redacted”.
- February 11th, 2018: Trump, in an interview, gives a spectacularly clueless take on Mid-East peace talks, claiming that neither Israel nor Palestine actually want peace so “We’ll see what happens.”
Trump endorses anti-immigration hardliner Lou Barletta on Twitter, and runs through his almost daily ritual of calling the media “fake news”.
EPA Director Scott Pruitt’s ethics woes get worse when it’s found he’s spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on travel, often insisting on flying first class with his security detail or even taking military flights.
The Washington Post reports that under Trump, ICE arrests have increased by 40% in the first year of his presidency.
On Twitter, Trump claims that 4.2 million Americans had already received a pay raise or bonus because to the GOP Tax Plan. Factcheckers report that is false.
- February 12th, 2018: Trump’s 2019 Budget Proposal is released, and it adds $1.9 trillion the the federal budget deficit, even while cutting funding to 22 government agencies, including the National Endowment for the Arts, The Institute for Museum and Library Services, and Chemical Safety Board. The budget includes an insane plan to replace food stamps for SNAP recipients with a “USDA Food Package”, a bin of perishable items. Even some die-hard conservatives in the libertarian wing of the GOP hate this idea, because the government remains in a role where a citizen is depend on them, and it means even less freedom of choice. Oh, and the budget would eliminate all funding to PBS and NPR, as well.
Trump also releases a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan that even White House aides acknowledge doesn’t have a prayer of passing through Congress.
Thomas Brunell, Trump’s pick to run the 2020 census, withdraws his name from consideration to the post.
- February 13th, 2018: The Directors of National Intelligence Agencies testify before Congress and confirm Russia meddled in the 2016 election, and are planning to meddle in the 2018 election. Under testimony, they answer Sen. Jack Reed’s question, and confirm they have received no orders on preventing this from Donald Trump.
A second judge rules that the Trump administration cannot block DACA.
Michael Cohen admits to the New York Times that he made the $130,000 hush payment to Stormy Daniels with his own money.
Vox publishes the findings of an investigation that through all of 2016 and 2017 into hiring at Trump properties in New York and Florida and finds that out of 144 employees hired, only ONE was a U.S. Citizen. (He does not practice what he preaches, stop the presses.)
- February 14th, 2018: A mass shooting occurs at the Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and seventeen children are killed, seventeen others wounded. Trump offers his “prayers and condolences” on Twitter, and does little else.
Eight days after the Rob Porter story breaks, and four days after Trump posted about the “falsely accused” on Twitter, Trump finally speaks out and claims he opposes domestic abuse, but really, his words ring hollow based on all his other words and actions.
NBC News continued digging into individuals working in the Trump White House on “interim security clearance” because they had not passed background checks to received permanent clearance and found 130-140 White House staff members still did not have security clearance including Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, and Don McGahn.
Department of Veterans’ Affairs Secretary finds himself in the middle of an ethics scandal of his own after he got caught altering records to change the pretext for a vacation to Europe he took with his wife so taxpayers would foot the bill.
A report emerges that Trump had White House Counsel Don McGahn called Dana Boente at the Department of Justice in April of 2017 to try and get him to coerce FBI Director James Comey to publicly state that Donald Trump was not under investigation.
- February 15th, 2018: Trump gives a six minute address on the mass shooting from the previous day in Parkland, Florida, and says nothing about gun control, instead saying that the shooter was “mentally disturbed” and discussed taking action to combat mental health issues at the local level. You’d never believe, though, that the shooter, Nicholas Cruz, was a Trump supporter with racist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic views.
Wired.com ran an article detailing that immediately after the Parkland shooting, Russian bot accounts on Twitter began promoting pro-gun rights propaganda en masse on Twitter. Considering the detailed relationship that was happening for the past few years between the NRA and Russian oligarchs… that makes sense.
The GOP Congress passes a bill to strip most of the protections provided by the Americans with Disabilities Act, which Trump signs.
Planned Parenthood and 8 other organizations file a lawsuit against the Trump Department of Health and Human Services after their 5 year grants to provide pregnancy prevention services were terminated without explanation.
A TalkingPointsMemo report is still trying to account for what happened to the $107 million that vanished into thin air with no accounting for the Trump inauguration, but learned that $1.6 million of it alone was paid to an adviser to Melania Trump, and $26 million alone to a firm she worked for.
- February 16th, 2018: Ronan Farrow at the New Yorker reports that former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal also had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006 for months, and Michael Cohen also paid her hush money to buy her silence. Also reported is that the publisher of the National Enquirer and long time Trump ally David Pecker would “catch and kill” stories about Trump mistresses and women with other accusations of sexual impropriety by Trump.
Based on her unwillingness to appear on camera with her husband during this week, Melania Trump definitely heard about Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicts 13 Russian Nationals for their role in interference in the 2016 Elections. The report detailed how their efforts focused on promoting Donald Trump while denigrating his main challengers in the GOP Primary, and promoting negative stories about Hillary Clinton while promoting positive ones about Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Primary and beyond. Trump responds to this news on Twitter by posting, "Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for President. The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong - no collusion!”
The Washington Post reports that out of the 22 Trump Cabinet officials, 9 (roughly 40%) are being investigated for ethics violations or some other scandal.
Politico reports that it has been over a year since Donald Trump held a full press conference to speak to the media.
- February 17th, 2018: Trump goes to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend, and says to honor the Parkland survivors, he won’t golf on a Saturday. WOW, nominate the man for sainthood. Instead, he just watches cable news and insults perceived foes on Twitter, at first laying blame for the Parkland Shooting on the FBI, and then in particular setting his sights on the Mueller probe, complete with spelling errors.
- February 18th, 2018: On Twitter, Trump states the Russian goal of “creating disruption, discord, and chaos” by meddling in the 2016 election, following that statement with “They have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They are laughing their asses off in Moscow! Get smart America!”
Then, Trump cites a GOP Pollster who claims that Republicans are actually leading Democrats by 4 points in polls on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the 2018 midterms. That pollster is John McLaughlin, who is historically bad at predicting elections.
Trump also returned to an old conspiracy theory, posting the myth that President Obama delivered “$1.7 billion in CASH to Iran”.
He also was practically daring Oprah Winfrey to run for president against him on the Democratic ticket, something which Oprah has zero desire to do.
- February 19th, 2018: Trump, on President’s Day, returns to asking the question, “Obama was President up to, and beyond, the 2016 Election. So why didn’t he do something about Russian meddling?” (Obama did, including sanctions after the fact. The ones that the Trump transition team, including Michael Flynn, promised the Russians they would get rid of those sanctions after the inauguration. )
- February 20th, 2018: Trump temporarily decides to do something about gun control, calling upon the Justice Department to move to craft a ban on “bump stocks”. Unfortunately, that would have done nothing to have stopped the Parkland shooting the previous week, where an AR-15 was used, but would have helped months earlier in Las Vegas. The idea apparently came from someone Trump knows and bumped into at Mar-A-Lago, because of course.
A year into the Trump presidency, they are still floating around Jared Kushner on “interim security clearance”.
On Twitter, Trump calls one of the women accusing him of sexual assault, Rachel Crooks, of being a liar, and claimed he “never met her”. SHE WORKED IN TRUMP TOWER. Crooks, meanwhile, successfully ran for office to be an Ohio state legislator.
Alex Van Der Zwaan, son-in-law to Russian oligarch German Khan, plead guilty to lying to the FBI during the Mueller investigation during an interview on Nov. 3rd, 2017. Van Der Zwaan’s father-in-law, Khan, is owner of Alfa Bank, and now, the lawyer is reportedly now cooperating with investigators.
- February 21st, 2018: At a White House listening session to discuss solutions to improve school safety and prevent mass shootings after Parkland, Trump suggests arming teachers and coaches as a deterrent to potential mass shooters, straight out of the NRA’s lunatic playbook that all gun violence can be solved with even more guns, and the terrible idea of having two sides exchange fire with fleeing children in the middle. Perhaps he should have paid attention to the fact that Stoneman Douglas High School already had an armed security guard who stayed outside and did not engage Nicholas Cruz during the shooting. He also opines that the cause is violent movies and video games, and proposes a unique idea totally his own to prevent it, a ratings system for movies and video games. (Note: There are ALREADY RATINGS SYSTEMS FOR MOVIES AND VIDEO GAMES.) Perhaps the most disturbing detail of Trump’s meeting with the parents of Parkland victims was that cameras caught the notes White House staff provided him to remind him how to appear to have empathy, by saying things like, “I hear you.”
On Twitter, Trump tries blaming Russian interference on President Obama for not doing more to stop it, and angrily demanding that Obama be investigated by Jeff Sessions as a result. (This is akin to a burglar trying to get away with a robbery by telling the police it was the homeowner’s fault for not putting bars on their windows.)
CNN notes that Trump’s immigrant wife, Melania, used “chain migration” the policy Trump supposedly hates to bring her parents to the United States.
- February 22nd, 2018: On Twitter, Trump calls CNN and MSNBC “fake news” for reporting on his remarks that as a solution to school shootings, he wanted to arm teachers. Of course, Trump DID say that the day before, and would continue calling for this policy for a week after. He also calls the leaders of the NRA “great people and true patriots”, which is hilarious since the NRA helped funnel Russian money to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign during the 2016 election.
CNN also reports that Donald Trump is rumored to be considering firing General H.R. McMaster for daring to acknowledge the facts and admit that Russians hacked the 2016 elections. Reuters also reported that, adding that Chief of Staff John Kelly was also going to quit if McMaster was gone.
The Mueller investigation produces a 32 count indictment against Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, the latter of whom is rumored to be flipping to turn witness against the former.
CNBC notes that former Trump bodyguard of two decades, Keith Schiller, is receiving $15,000 a month from a Republican National Committee Slush Fund for… no discernable reason except presumably to buy his silence on his former boss.
Amnesty International puts out an annual report on human rights, and it accuses Trump of several human rights violations, placing him among some of the worst authoritarian dictators across the globe.
The Trump FCC’s move to repeal net neutrality becomes official.
- February 23rd, 2018: Trump speaks at CPAC, and goes completely off-script in a rambling, babbling haze where he attacks the press, fearmongers that Democrats will repeal the Second Amendment if they retake the House and Senate, blames John McCain for the Affordable Care Act not being repealed, and insists that whenever he hears comments he doesn’t like on immigration from opponents “the wall gets 10 feet higher”.
On Twitter, Trump finally responds to reports that the armed security guard present during the Parkland shooting did not enter the building to confront Nicholas Cruz, and called him a “coward”.
Rick Gates officially flips on (at the very least) Paul Manafort, pleading guilty to conspiracy charges that will still mean he serves 5-10 years in prison, himself, even after cooperating with the FBI investigation. The Trump White House is rumored to (obviously) be freaking out about this development.