In 2011, Trump was the center of a 90 minute Comedy Central special that included roasters Seth MacFarlane, Whitney Cummings, Marlee Matlin, Jeffrey Ross, Gilbert Gottfried, Anthony Jeselnik, Larry King, Lisa Lampanelli, Snoop Dogg, and Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino.
Trump concluded the special by saying, “You will have the great pleasure of voting for the man that will easily go down as the greatest president in the history of the United States: Me.”
After professional wrestler Maria Kanellis said another contestant “came in our dressing room and you took a crap and left a stench in the room.” Trump remarked, “Isn’t it sort of gross bringing that up? It’s, like, disgusting. This is my boardroom. It’s not a locker room. Maria, you’re fired.”
Trump infamously was recorded talking about groping women in a leaked video from a 2005 Access Hollywood interview, which he downplayed as “locker room talk.”
Donald Trump in 2010: “This is my boardroom. It's not a locker room. Maria, you’re fired.” ¯_(ツ)_/¯ pic.twitter.com/UlsP9Xjg7F
Trump was inducted into the 2013 WWE Hall of Fame after multiple appearances, including a feud with WWE CEO Vince McMahon. One such storyline included a fake struggle over the ownership of RAW, which caused stock prices to plummet almost 7%. He also had hosted WrestleMania twice.
During one appearance, McMahon was held down as Trump shaved his head.
After becoming President, clips of Trump’s WWE appearances became popularized, such as an altered one he retweeted that depicted him wrestling CNN to the ground.
During a Republican primary debate, Trump said that the military would follow his orders, even if the orders were criminal.
His remarks were,
“They won’t refuse. They’re not going to refuse me, believe me. Let me just tell you, if you look at the Middle East, they’re chopping off heads, chopping off the heads of Christians, and anyone else who happens to be in the way, they’re drowning people in steel cages, and he, he now, we’re talking about waterboarding…They then came to me, what do you think of waterboarding? I said it’s fine, and if we want to go stronger, I’ll go stronger, too. Because, frankly, that’s the way I feel.
Can you imagine, can you imagine, these people, these animals over in the Middle East, that chop off heads, sitting around talking, and seeing that we’re having a hard problem with waterboarding. We should go for waterboarding, and we should go tougher than waterboarding. That’s what I think, and, and, I’m a leader. I’m a leader. I’ve always been a leader. I’ve never had any problem leading people. If I say do it, they’re gonna do it. That’s what leadership is all about.
QAnon is a series of conspiracy theories centered around an anonymous figure, “Q,” who claimed to be a senior government official that has provided cryptic messages about the Trump administration and its enemies. One of its central claims is that Trump had secretly been working to remove a cabal of Democratic pedophiles from government, which shares likeness to the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy. Many of its assertions have been proven to be false, and the FBI has determined that it could pose a domestic terrorism threat. Nevertheless, Trump and his campaign have repeatedly lent credibility to QAnon by featuring its followers on Twitter and at rallies.
Into 2020, Trump refused to condemn or disavow the conspiracy theory, saying he didn’t know much about it except that believers supported him.
Q-Anon has been linked to Russian organizations working to amplify disinformation.
After taking office, Trump formed the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity by executive order to investigate the alleged mass fraud. Vice President Mike Pence led the commission.
Trump Signs Executive Order establishing a voter fraud commission on May 11, 2017. Wikipedia
Multiple lawsuits were filed by organizations including the ACLU and Electronic Privacy Information Center, as well as one of the commission’s own members. The suits alleged lack of transparency and blatant partisanship.
The commission ran from May 11, 2017 to January 3, 2018, when it was disbanded after having found no evidence of the claimed voter fraud.
The commission member who filed suit, Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, later explained, “even though the idea was to investigate voter fraud, it is pretty clear that the purpose of the commission was to actually affirm and validate the president’s claims whether or not we had any evidence of any such voter misconduct.”
Nevertheless, Trump continued to repeat his claims of mass voter fraud. The same year that the commission was disbanded, Trump justified voter ID laws by claiming that Americans need photo ID even to buy groceries. He also later accused mail-in-voting as being a vehicle for fraud, alleging that implementing such measures amid the COVID-19 crisis would mean no Republican would ever be elected again.
Trump made the claim immediately after his inauguration. All evidence pointed to the contrary. Sean Spicer defended the claim the day after, as well as other unfounded claims about voter fraud.
“We believe that only American citizens should vote in American elections. Which is why the time has come for voter ID, like everything else. Voter ID. You know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, you need ID. You go out and you want to buy anything, you need ID and you need your picture. In this country, the only time you don’t need it, in many cases, is when you want to vote for a President, when you want to vote for a Senator, or a governor or Congressmen, it’s crazy. It’s crazy.”
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