On March 6, 2019, Trump referred to the CEO of Apple as “Tim Apple.”
Trump defended the mistake by saying it was done intentionally to save time.
At a recent round table meeting of business executives, & long after formally introducing Tim Cook of Apple, I quickly referred to Tim + Apple as Tim/Apple as an easy way to save time & words. The Fake News was disparagingly all over this, & it became yet another bad Trump story!
Trump also called national security advisor John Bolton “Mike Bolton,” Vice President Mike Pence “Mike Pounce,” and former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan “Ron.”
John Bolton, former George W. Bush ambassador to the United Nations, served as a national security advisor for Trump from April 2018 to September 2019.
Trump repeatedly referred to him as Mike Bolton to aides and in public.
Michael Bolton is a famous singer.
Trump also called Apple CEO Tim Cook “Tim Apple,” Vice President Mike Pence “Mike Pounce,” and former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan “Ron.”
In a September 12, 2019 address to House Republicans in Baltimore, Maryland, Trump accidentally referred to Vice President Mike Pence as “Mike Pounce.”
Trump also called national security advisor John Bolton “Mike Bolton,” former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan “Ron,” and Apple CEO Tim Cook “Tim Apple.”
Trump repeatedly ran into funding difficulties through the official budget. The federal government shut down for 35 days starting in December 2018 when Trump refused to sign any funding bill that didn’t include money for the wall.
In March 2019, The Department of Defense is shifting $1 billion from a military personnel account to build a 57-mile fence
In August 2019, a quarter billion dollars were taken from FEMA, the federal organization responsible for disaster response and funding.
In September 2019, The Pentagon announced that 127 military projects would be delayed or suspended in order to provide $3.6 billion in funding for the wall.
In April, 2020, an additional half billion was pulled from overseas military construction projects.
In June 2020, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that $2.5 billion in Defense Department funds were diverted illegally for the wall, as it was without congressional approval.
A private organization that sought to gain additional funding, We Build the Wall, raised approximately $25 million for the effort. In August 2020, longtime Trump ally and chair of the organization Steve Bannon was arrested for fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
As of January 2020, from official and redirected funds, $11 billion had been spent on the wall at a cost of approximately $20 million per mile.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer, alleged that Trump made a variety of racist remarks. While driving through a struggling Chicago neighborhood, Trump commented that “only the blacks could live this way.” Trump went on to say that they wouldn’t vote for him to be President because of their stupidity.
The Washington Post compiled multiple instances up to 2019, including one in which he expressed admiration for China’s lack of term limits:
Trump retweeted a claim that he should have two years added to his term because of the Mueller investigation.
After the best week ever for @realDonaldTrump – no obstruction, no collusion, NYT admits @BarackObama did spy on his campaign, & the economy is soaring. I now support reparations-Trump should have 2 yrs added to his 1st term as pay back for time stolen by this corrupt failed coup
In a deleted tweet, Trump reiterated the sentiment that two years had been “stollen”:
He reiterated the suggestion a month later.
…..news is that at the end of 6 years, after America has been made GREAT again and I leave the beautiful White House (do you think the people would demand that I stay longer? KEEP AMERICA GREAT), both of these horrible papers will quickly go out of business & be forever gone!
On August 17, 2020, Trump said that he wanted a third term because of the Obama administration’s supposed spying on his campaign. The conspiracy theory, often referenced as Obamagate or Spygate, has been debunked.
Trump reiterated the claim on August 24, the first day of the Republican National Convention. He suggested 12 more years “because we caught them doing very bad things in 2016.”
The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution states, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
In a June 2019 interview with ABC News’ Stephanopoulos, Trump said that he would accept information from foreign governments without reporting it to authorities.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Somebody comes up and says, ‘hey, I have information on your opponent,’ do you call the FBI?”
TRUMP: Okay, let’s put yourself in a position: you’re a congressman, somebody comes up and says, “Hey I have information on your opponent.” Do you call the FBI?
STEPHANOPOULOS: (inaudible) if it’s coming from Russia you do.
TRUMP: I’ll tell you what: I’ve seen a lot of things over my life. I don’t think in my whole life I’ve ever called the FBI. In my whole life. You don’t call the FBI. You throw somebody out of your office, you do whatever you–
STEPHANOPOULOS: Al Gore got a stolen briefing book. He called the FBI.
TRUMP: Well, that’s different. A stolen briefing book. This isn’t a (inaudible). This is somebody who said “We have information on your opponent.” Oh, let me call the FBI. Give me a break, life doesn’t work that way.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The FBI Director says that’s what should happen.
TRUMP: The FBI Director is wrong. Because, frankly, it doesn’t happen like that in life…
With the implementation of the Affordable Healthcare Act, the Obama administration determined that its anti-discrimination measures included matters of gender identity, which it defined as “male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female.”
In 2019, the Trump administration eliminated the provision, allowing for gender discrimination by federal law. The same week, the Trump administration also eliminated anti-discriminatory measures based on gender for federal housing.
The new healthcare rules were finalized in 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In July 2019, Stephanie Grisham was selected to replace Sarah Sanders as White House press secretary and communications director. She held the position for 9 months until April 2020, and was the first to hold the position without ever holding a press conference.
Stephanie Grisham. Wikipedia
Grisham has been fired from previous jobs for faking expense reports and plagiarism. She also has had two DUIs, the more recent one occurring in 2016, for which she failed to appear in court before ultimately pleading guilty.
Grisham was replaced by Kayleigh McEnany, who was a vocal proponent of the Obama birther conspiracy.
Michael Cohen was Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer for over a decade. Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts of campaign finance violations and tax evasion regarding a payment of $130,000 in hush money to Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, with whom Trump had an affair.
Michael Cohen / Wikipedia
Expenditures in defense of a candidate’s political outcome can be considered campaign contributions, subject to laws that bar corporate donations and establish donation limits. After acting as an intermediary for the payment to Stormy Daniels, Cohen filed fake invoices to Trump’s company.
As part of Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, Cohen’s home and office were raided in April 2018 by the FBI. In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to 8 counts of tax evasion, bank fraud, and campaign finance violations. He later pleaded guilty to an additional count of lying to a Senate and House Intelligence Committees regarding the proposed Trump Hotel Moscow.
In February 2019, Cohen asserted that all he had done was at Trump’s direction. While his testimony was colored by his previous lie to Congress, Cohen claimed that he then only sought to tell the truth as he was no longer working to defend the President.
Last fall I pled guilty in federal court to felonies for the benefit of, at the direction of, and in coordination with Individual Number 1. And for the record, Individual Number 1 is President Donald J. Trump.
Cohen’s attorney, Lanny J. Davis, noted that Cohen had committed his felonies at the request of Trump to influence the election: “He stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election. If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?”
Trump said he never directed Cohen to do anything illegal.
I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called “advice of counsel,” and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why they get paid. Despite that many campaign finance lawyers have strongly……
Rudy Giuliani, who was added to Trump’s legal team, admitted in a Fox News interview that Trump repaid the money to Cohen. However, he defended it by saying it wasn’t campaign money, and so there was no campaign finance law violation on Trump’s behalf. He also indicated that Trump was aware of the payment from the beginning, though Trump had repeatedly denied any knowledge of Stormy Daniels or the $130,000 in hush money.
It’s not campaign money. No campaign finance violations…[it was] funneled through a law firm, and the President repaid it.
…everybody was nervous about this from the very beginning. I wasn’t. I knew how much money Donald Trump put into that campaign. I said $130,000? You’re gonna do a couple checks for $130,000. When I heard Cohen’s retainer of $35,000, when he was doing no work for the President, I said that’s how he’s repaying, that’s how, how he’s repaying it. With a little profit and a little margin for paying taxes for Michael.
[Trump] didn’t know about the specifics of it.
For pleading guilty to the following counts, Cohen was sentenced to 3 years in federal prison, along with fines, asset forfeiture, and disbarment:
5 counts of tax evasion
1 count of making false statements to a financial institution
1 count of willfully causing an unlawful corporate contribution
1 count of making an excessive campaign contribution at the request of a candidate or campaign
1 count of making false statements to a congressional committee
