Before and after taking office, Trump has attacked a variety of comedians and late night hosts, including Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Bill Maher.
Wow! Congratulations to Greg Gutfeld, a one time Trump Hater who has come all the way home. His Ratings easily beat no talent Stephen Colbert, nice guy Jimmy Fallon, and wacko “last placer” Jimmy Kimmel. Greg built his show from scratch, and did a great job in doing so. @FoxNews
Many late night hosts were happy to address the comments on their shows.
He also has attacked Saturday Night Live multiple times, though claiming that he doesn’t watch it. He referred to their anti-Republican bias as “the real Collusion” and was voiced his frustration that they would spend so much time attacking his administration “without retribution.” He suggested that the Federal Election Commission and Federal Communications Commission investigate.
Like many, I don’t watch Saturday Night Live (even though I past hosted it) – no longer funny, no talent or charm. It is just a political ad for the Dems. Word is that Kanye West, who put on a MAGA hat after the show (despite being told “no”), was great. He’s leading the charge!
Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion!
It’s truly incredible that shows like Saturday Night Live, not funny/no talent, can spend all of their time knocking the same person (me), over & over, without so much of a mention of “the other side.” Like an advertisement without consequences. Same with Late Night Shows……
….Should Federal Election Commission and/or FCC look into this? There must be Collusion with the Democrats and, of course, Russia! Such one sided media coverage, most of it Fake News. Hard to believe I won and am winning. Approval Rating 52%, 93% with Republicans. Sorry! #MAGA
Alec Baldwin, whose dying mediocre career was saved by his terrible impersonation of me on SNL, now says playing me was agony. Alec, it was agony for those who were forced to watch. Bring back Darrell Hammond, funnier and a far greater talent!
Michelle Wolfe was also mentioned several times for her comments during the 2018 White House Correspondent’s Dinner, which were derided as being too vulgar and inappropriate. Trump has refused to attend any Correspondent’s Dinner since becoming President, and was famously roasted by Obama and Seth Meyers at the 2015 Correspondent’s Dinner.
While Washington, Michigan, was a big success, Washington, D.C., just didn’t work. Everyone is talking about the fact that the White House Correspondents Dinner was a very big, boring bust…the so-called comedian really “bombed.” @greggutfeld should host next year! @PeteHegseth
The White House Correspondents’ Dinner was a failure last year, but this year was an embarrassment to everyone associated with it. The filthy “comedian” totally bombed (couldn’t even deliver her lines-much like the Seth Meyers weak performance). Put Dinner to rest, or start over!
So-called comedian Michelle Wolf bombed so badly last year at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner that this year, for the first time in decades, they will have an author instead of a comedian. Good first step in comeback of a dying evening and tradition! Maybe I will go?
On May 10, 2020, Trump tweeted 125 times between 6:02:49 AM and 9:54:57 PM. That is a tweet on average of every 7.6 minutes.
Most were retweets related to the Justice Department’s recent dropping of charges against Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Trump also alleged that Obama had targeted Flynn and his administration, though no details were specified.
Trump also boasted of his ratings in handling COVID-19, and attacked Obama’s handling of H1N1. On May 10, the US had suffered over 80,000 COVID-19 deaths. 93 Americans died as a result of H1N1.
We are getting great marks for the handling of the CoronaVirus pandemic, especially the very early BAN of people from China, the infectious source, entering the USA. Compare that to the Obama/Sleepy Joe disaster known as H1N1 Swine Flu. Poor marks, bad polls – didn’t have a clue!
Trump first tweeted the claim in 2017 about Lori Klausutis, who worked in Scarborough’s Fort Walton Beach congressional office. She was found dead in the office in 2001. Scarborough served in the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 2001 as a Republican for the 1st district of Florida.
Lori Klausutis
The coroner discovered an undiagnosed heart condition and reported that Klausutis passed out and hit her head as she fell. He said she was not struck by another person. Scarborough was in Washington, DC at the time of her death.
At the time of Trump’s comments, Scarborough was host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe alongside wife and co-host Mika Brzezinski, who was also personally targeted by Trump for “bleeding badly from a face-lift.”
So now that Matt Lauer is gone when will the Fake News practitioners at NBC be terminating the contract of Phil Griffin? And will they terminate low ratings Joe Scarborough based on the “unsolved mystery” that took place in Florida years ago? Investigate!
Trump renewed attacks in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Concast” should open up a long overdue Florida Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough. I know him and Crazy Mika well, used them beautifully in the last Election, dumped them nicely, and will state on the record that he is “nuts”. Besides, bad ratings! #OPENJOECOLDCASE
When will they open a Cold Case on the Psycho Joe Scarborough matter in Florida. Did he get away with murder? Some people think so. Why did he leave Congress so quietly and quickly? Isn’t it obvious? What’s happening now? A total nut job!
At the time of the May 4 tweet, nearly 70,000 Americans had died of COVID-19. At the time of his May 12 tweet, it had reached over 80,000.
Scarborough responded on his show, in which he called the comments “extraordinarily cruel” and likened the claims to the Seth Rich conspiracy theories.
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
Michael Flynn is a retired United States Army Lieutenant General who served as National Security Advisor for Trump from January to February 2017.
Retired United States Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn / Wikipedia
As part of the wider Mueller probe into Russian election interference, a phone call from 2016 was unearthed between Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. After speaking with Trump’s Presidential Transition Team, Flynn had reached out to Kislyak after Obama’s passing of Russian sanctions as punishment for 2016 election interference. Flynn urged Russia to refrain from retaliatory measures, as Trump was already President-elect and could eventually undo the sanctions. The following day, the Russian government announced they would not retaliate. Trump tweeted praise for the decision:
Great move on delay (by V. Putin) – I always knew he was very smart!
In his recounting of the phone call to the FBI, Flynn denied anything substantive was discussed, including sanctions. Nonetheless, Trump asked Flynn for his resignation in February 2017. He had served as National Security Advisor for a record 24 days.
Trump still defended Flynn, claiming that his lies to the FBI were not about anything illegal, and so he should not be prosecuted for them.
I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!
Flynn was charged with perjury for his false explanation to the FBI, and in December 2017, pleaded guilty.
Flynn had also failed to register as a foreign agent for lobbying work he had done on behalf of the Turkish government. Through his Flynn Intel Group Inc, an organization that provides intelligence services to businesses and governments, Flynn worked to defend Turkish hardliner President Recep Erdoğan from anti-government elements. He also failed to disclose income from Russian companies in his financial disclosure forms.
Trump had been warned about Flynn’s conflicts of interest at least 6 separate times, including by Obama during the post-election transition. Obama had himself fired Flynn in 2014.
Despite having pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, sentencing was deferred multiple times until May 7, 2020, when the Justice Department announced that it would be dropping all charges. The explanation provided in the motion to dismiss was that “Mr. Flynn’s statements were never ‘material’ to any FBI investigation.”
Trump defended the move, claiming that Flynn, and by extension himself, had been unfairly targeted by the Obama administration:
He is an innocent man. He is a great gentleman. He was targeted by the Obama administration and he was targeted in order to try and take down a president and what they’ve done is a disgrace and I hope a big price is going to be paid. A big price should be paid. There’s never been anything like this in the history of our country. What they did, the Obama administration did, is unprecedented, never happened, a thing like this has never happened before in the history of our country. And I hope a lot of people are going to pay a big price, because they’re dishonest crooked people, and they’re scum. I say it a lot, they’re scum. …Treason, it’s treason.
Throughout Flynn’s legal troubles, Trump has repeatedly defended him over Twitter:
Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!
So General Flynn lies to the FBI and his life is destroyed, while Crooked Hillary Clinton, on that now famous FBI holiday “interrogation” with no swearing in and no recording, lies many times…and nothing happens to her? Rigged system, or just a double standard?
For four months, Trump railed against Obama’s handling of Ebola during the 2014 crisis. Trump demanded that all travel from Western Africa be immediately halted, promising that the crisis will “ONLY GET WORSE.” Saying that the government’s handling of the crisis was “almost like he’s saying F-you to U.S. public,” he warned about how “All the governors are already backing off of the Ebola quarantines.”
There were 11 total American cases of Ebola, resulting in 2 deaths. Neither of those who died contracted Ebola from within the United States. The CDC announced the first diagnosis September 30, 2014, and the last infected person was released from the hospital November 11.
Ebola outbreak in the United States / Wikipedia
During his Presidency, Trump repeatedly downplayed the severity of COVID-19. His administration implemented limited travel bans that only extended to non-US citizens and residents, failed to implement travel checks and tracing for the disease, and continually pushed for states to reopen their economies. Trump claimed he had total authority over governors to make policy in their states.
Fox News also drew attention for the discrepancy between their reporting on the handling of Ebola under Obama and COVID-19 under Trump.
An incomplete list of Trump’s tweets about Obama’s handling of Ebola follows:
Ebola patient will be brought to the U.S. in a few days – now I know for sure that our leaders are incompetent. KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE!
In a 2004 interview, Trump said he identified more with Democrats because he believed that the economy does better under their leadership.
I’ve been around for a long time and it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump blamed Obama, Democratic presidential candidates, and the federal reserve for economic problems during his tenure.
….ever. Had to rebuild our military, which was totally depleted. Fed Rate UP, taxes and regulations WAY DOWN. If Dems won in 2016, the USA would be in big economic (Depression?) & military trouble right now. THE BEST IS YET TO COME. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!
I think the financial markets are very upset when they look at the Democrat candidates on that stage making fools out of themselves.
The Fed was not good, as far as I’m concerned, and that was a big blip that should not have taken place, should not have happened…that was just killer when they raised the rate, it was just a big mistake, and they admit to it.
At an Alabama rally on September 23, 2017, Trump explained how he wanted to see NFL players fired for protesting the US flag and national anthem.
Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when someone disrespects our flag to say, ‘get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out. He’s fired. He’s fired!
Trump’s remarks came after dozens of players across the regular and preseasons took a knee during the national anthem. They had joined Colin Kaepernick in protest the season prior, who was not on an NFL roster at the time of Trump’s remarks.
Kaepernick explained that the reason for his protest was because he was “not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” He was advised to take a knee by NFL player and former US Army Green Beret Nate Boyer, who considered it a form of protest most respectful to other service members.
AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez
Trump praised a later NFL ban on kneeling players, suggesting such protests were un-American:
You have to stand proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn’t be playing, you shouldn’t be there, maybe you shouldn’t be in the country.
The remark came after Trump said he would “totally destroy” North Korea if the US had to defend itself, and referred to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un as “rocket man,” in a speech to the United Nations.
Kim Jong-un issued a retort on North Korean state media in which he called Trump a “mentally deranged dotard.”
The statement continued, saying Trump was “unfit to hold the prerogative of supreme command of a country,” and was “a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire.”
When relations between the US and North Korea again started to worsen in 2019, the latter threatened the resumption of such insults.
Dotage is defined by Merriam-Websters as “a state or period of senile decay marked by decline of mental poise and alertness.”
On April 15, 2019, the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris caught fire during a restoration effort. Its spire, originally built in the 13th century and recreated in the 19th century, toppled through the roof. The cathedral, a national icon, is visited by 12 million people annually.
Brian Kinney/Shutterstock, Christophe Petit Tesson, Pool via AP
In response, the French national civil security force explained that such an action could destroy the entire cathedral.
Hundreds of firemen of the Paris Fire Brigade are doing everything they can to bring the terrible #NotreDame fire under control. All means are being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral.
In later remarks, Trump lamented the damage with sincerity:
It’s one of the great treasures of the world…That is a part of our growing up, it’s a part of our culture, it’s a part of our lives. That’s a truly great cathedral. I’ve been there and I’ve seen it, and there’s no cathedral, I think I can probably say there’s no cathedral in the world like it. It’s a terrible scene.
French President Macron called for the restoration of the cathedral to be completed within five years, though efforts were halted amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and concerns linger about the remaining structure’s integrity.
