Robert Reich says Trump had the worst rating of any president when he left office. But people must have collective amnesia. So he tells us in short video about
1.) Trump fueled division and sparked a record uptick in hate crimes.
2.) Murder went way up under Trump, who presided over the largest ever single year increase in homicides in 2020.
3.) Gun sales broke records under Trump, who has bragged about how he did nothing to restrict guns as president.
4.) Under Trump, America suffered more than 1700 mass shootings.
5.) Trump said “There were very fine people” among the Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. (Neo-Nazis shouting “Jews will not replace us!”)
6.) Trump allied himself with the Proud Boys, a violent hate group who helped orchestrate the January 6th Capitol attack. (Trump exclaiming: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by!”)
7.) Trump is not wrong when he says, “I got rid of roe V. Wade.” It’s entirely because of Trump’s judicial appointments that one in three American women of childbearing age now lives in states with abortion bans.
8:) One of Trump’s Supreme Court justices was Brett Kavanaugh, a man who was accused of sexual assault by multiple women.
9.) Trump’s White House interfered in the investigation of Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assaults.
10.) Trump has been convicted of committing 34 felonies while in office. The criminally false business filings he got convicted for in New York? All of them were committed while he was president.
20.) Under Trump, the national debt increased by about 40%, more than in any other 4-year presidential term, largely because of his tax cuts for the rich and big corporations.
Then Reich goes on for a total of over 18 minutes to tell us seventy-five worst things.
26.) Trump broke the law by trying to withhold the nearly $400 million for US aid to Ukraine in an effort to extort a personal political favor from Ukraine’s president Zelensky. Trump wanted Zelensky to interfere in the 2020 election by announcing an investigation into the Bidens. Delaying this aid to Ukraine weakened Ukraine and strengthened Russia.
27.) Trump attacked and ruined the careers of everyone who stood in his way of his illegal Ukraine scheme, uncluding Ambassador Marie Yovanovich and Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman.
28.) To cover up the scheme, Trump ordered the White House and State Department to defy congressional subpoenas. (Trump saying “We’re fighting all the subpoenas!”)
29.) For these reasons, on December 18, 2019, Trump became the 3rd president to be impeached. He was charged with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
30.) Even while he was being investigatedfor trying to get Ukraine to interfere in the U.S. election, Trump publicly called for China to interfere in the U.S. election. (Trump saying “China should start an investigation into the Bidens.”)
31.) Trump started making false claims that the election would be rigged. (Trump saying “It will be a rigged election.)
32.) After losing, Trump falsely claimed that the election was stolen, even though his own inner circle, including his campaign manager, White House lawyers and his own Justice Department and attorney general told him it was not. (Atty. Genl. Wm. Barr saying “The claims of fraud were bulls**t.”)
33.) Trump kept telling his big lie even after more than 60 legal challenges to the election were struck down in court, many by Trump appointed judges.
34.) Trump ordered the Department of Justice to falsely claim that the election was corrupt.
35.) Trump and his allies use threats to pressure state leaders in Arizona and Georgia to falsify the election results.
36.) When none of the previous schemes worked, Trump and his allies produced fake electoral votes by fake electors in multiple swing states. Trump’s former White House chief of staff and Rudy Giuliani are among the many members of his inner circle who have been criminally indicted for this scheme.
37.) Trump tried to bully vice president pence into obstructing the certification of the election. (Trump saying “If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.”)
38.) Trump invited a mob to the Capitol on January 6th, with his “Be there, will be wild” tweet.
39.) Sworn testimony alleges that when Trump was warned that members of the crowd were carrying deadly weapons, he ordered security metal detectors be taken down.
40.) Knowing the crowd had deadly weapons, he ordered them to go to the Capitol and (Trump saying “Fight like hell!”)
41.) Trump betrayed his oath to the defend the nation by doing nothing to stop the January 6th violence. Instead, according to witness testimony, he sat and watched TV for hours.
42.) On January 13th, 2021, Trump became the only president ever to be impeached, twice. This time, he was charged with incitement o f insurrection. It was a bipartisan vote.
43.) The majority of senators, fifty-seven out of 100, voted to convict Trump, including seven Republican senators. So that’s the two impeachments and the big lie. But wait! We haven’t dealt with Russia, right? We’re going to 50.
44.) Trump publicly sided with Putin, over the US intelligence community, in denying Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
45.) In a likely obstruction of justice, Trump pressured then FBI director James Comey to stop the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s National security advisor, Michael Flynn. This was documented in the Mueller report.
46.) When Comey didn’t bend to Trump’s will, Trump fired him.
47.) Trump tried to shut down the Mueller investigation by ordering White House counsel Don McGann to fire Mueller. McGann refused because that would be criminal obstruction of justice.
48.) Trump ordered his staff not to turn over emails showing Don, Jr. had set up a meeting at Trump Tower before the 2016 election, with representatives of the Russian government.
49.) Trump convinced Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about Trump’s plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, and Cohen served prison time for lying to Congress!
50.) Trump was not charged for criminal obstruction of justice because it’s the Justice Department’s policy not to indict a sitting president. But, more than a thousand former Federal prosecutors who served under both Republicans and Democrats signed a letter declaring there was more than enough evidence to prosecute Trump.
Now, I could go on. And I will! The 75 worst things about the Trump presidency.
51.) Trump said that he would hire only (Trump saying “the best people”). But his campaign chair was convicted of multiple crimes. So was one of his closest associates. His deputy campaign chair pleaded to guilty to crimes. So did his personal lawyer, his National security advisor, the Chief financial officer of his business campaign, a campaign foreign policy advisor, and one of his campaign fundraisers; they all committed crimes and Trump pardoned most of them.
52.) Trump said he’d “drain the swamp in washington D.C.” but he appointed more billionaires, CEOs and Wall Street moguls to his administration than any administration in history.
53.) Trump intervened to get his son-in-law, Jared Kushner top secret clearance after he was denied over concerns about foreign influence.
54.) Trump hosted a Russian foreign minister in the Oval Office where Trump revealed top secret intelligence.
Oh, and Trump’s economic policy!
55.) Trump promised that the average American family would see a $4,000 pay raise because of his tax cuts to the wealthy and big corporations. Well, how did that work out? Did you get a $4,000 raise? Of course not! Nobody did!
56.) Trump vowed to protect American jobs, but offshoring increased and manufacturing fell!
57.) Trump said he would fix America’s infrastructure, but it never happened. He announced so many failed infrastructure weeks that it became a running joke.
58.) Trump said he would be the voice of American workers. (Trump says “I am your voice!”) But he filled the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union flacks who made it harder for workers to unionize.
59.) Trump’s Labor Department made it easier for bosses to get out of paying workers overtime, which cheated 8 million workers of extra pay.
60.) Trump repeatedly suggested that he might serve more than two terms, in violation of the Constitution and continues to do so. (Trump saying “We may have to go for an extra term.”)
61.) Trump called Haiti and African nations sh!thole countries.
62.) Trump tried to terminate DACA, which protects immigrants brought to the US as children. Luckily, this was struck down by the courts.
63.) Trump called Climate Change a hoax.
64.) Trump pulled out of the Paris climate agreement.
65.) Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental protections.
66.) Every budget Trump proposed included cuts to Social security and Medicare.
67.) Trump tried and failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would have resulted in 20 million Americans losing (health) insurance. And striking down the ACA’s protections to the roughly 130 million people with pre-existing conditions could have driven up their insurance premiums or led to a loss of coverage.
68.) Trump made it easier for employers to remove birth control coverage from (health) insurance plans.
69.) By the end of Trump’s term, the number of people lacking health insurance had risen by 3 million.
70.) Trump lied! Constantly! He made 30,573 false or misleading claims while he was president. On average of 21 a day! According to the Washington Post fact checkers.
71.) Trump allegedly took hundreds of classified documents on his way out of the White House, reportedly including nuclear secrets, which he then left unsecured in various parts of Mar-a-Lago, including a bathroom! He was even caught on tape showing them off to people. (Trump on tape talking to others about top secret papers.)
72.) Trump seriously discussed the idea of nuking (atomic bombing) a hurricane!
73.) When hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico Trump delayed 20 billion dollars of aid and allowed Puerto Rico to be without power for 181 days!
74.) Trump suggested withholding federal aid for California wildfire recovery. And said the solution was to clean the floors of the forest. (Trump saying “ought to take care of the floors.”)
75.) Trump pulled out of the Iran deal, placing Iran on a path to developing nuclear weapons.
Honestly, there’s so much more, from exchanging love letters with North Korea’s brutal dictator (Trump saying “we fell in love”) to publicly denigrating a gold star military widow and making her cry, to the way he attacked journalists, to late night tweet binges! Look, I can understand why a lot of people want to block all of this out of their memories but we cannot afford to forget just how terrible Trump’s time in the White House was for this nation. And we sure as hell cannot afford to put him back there!
https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/videos/401590806345712/?mibextid=9drbnH&s=yWDuG2&fs=e
