Remember when Trump…

was accused of rape by his first wife?

In the 1993 book Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald Trump, the author wrote about divorce depositions between Donald and his first wife Ivana in which she alleged that he raped her.

Donald Trump and first wife Ivana at the Scopus Awards in 1990.

The Daily Beast summarized:

After a painful scalp reduction surgery to remove a bald spot, Donald Trump confronted his then-wife, who had previously used the same plastic surgeon.

” ‘Your f[******] doctor has ruined me!’ Trump cried.

“What followed was a ‘violent assault,’ according to Lost Tycoon. Donald held back Ivana’s arms and began to pull out fistfuls of hair from her scalp, as if to mirror the pain he felt from his own operation. He tore off her clothes and unzipped his pants.

” ‘Then he jams his penis inside her for the first time in more than sixteen months. Ivana is terrified… It is a violent assault,’ Hurt writes. ‘According to versions she repeats to some of her closest confidantes, ‘he raped me.’

“Following the incident, Ivana ran upstairs, hid behind a locked door, and remained there ‘crying for the rest of night.’ When she returned to the master bedroom in the morning, he was there.

“As she looks in horror at the ripped-out hair scattered all over the bed, he glares at her and asks with menacing casualness: ‘Does it hurt?’ Hurt writes.

While Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, asserted that one can’t rape their spouse, Ivana has also walked back the allegations in subsequent years. She explained, “Mr. Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage. As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a ‘rape,’ but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.”

NPR – Here’s The List Of Women Who Accused Donald Trump Of Sexual Misconduct
The Daily Beast – Ex-Wife: Donald Trump Made Me Feel ‘Violated’ During Sex
ABC News – Donald Trump’s Ex-Wife Ivana Disavows Old ‘Rape’ Allegation

defended Putin’s murder of journalists, saying “you think our country’s so innocent?”

Trump made the remarks in an interview with Bill O’Reilly. When O’Reilly said that “Putin’s a killer,” Trump likened the United States to Russia and its human rights violations, replying that “there are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?”

USA Today – Trump says America isn’t so innocent
NBC News – Trump, Challenged About Putin, Says ‘Our Country’s So Innocent?’
CNN – Trump defends Putin: ‘You think our country’s so innocent?’

said that America’s GDP “was below zero”?

During his presidential announcement speech, Trump said, “The last quarter, it was just announced, our gross domestic product — a sign of strength, right? But not for us. It was below zero. Who ever heard of this? It’s never below zero.”

While Trump was likely referring to percent change in GDP, that too has been below zero many times in the past.

Business Insider – Donald Trump says GDP is ‘never’ below 0%… except it’s below 0% all the time
Politifact – Donald Trump gets claim about U.S. GDP doubly wrong

paid actors to cheer at his campaign announcement?

Trump used an acting firm to source attendees for his presidential campaign announcement, and to clap and cheer. He paid $50 per person.

The campaign delayed payment to the acting firm until legal action was threatened.

Corey Lewandowski, then-Trump’s campaign manager, denied the claim during Trump’s presidency, claiming, “there is nobody who believes that when Donald Trump goes somewhere he does not generate the biggest, largest, and most rambunctious crowds on the planet.” After losing the election, Lewandowski admitted that actors had been hired: “Michael Cohen decided that he was going to go hire one of his buddies and pay his buddy without getting any campaign approval. You know, $50 for every person to come in, to stand in Trump Tower.”

The Hill – Trump paid actors to cheer his 2016 launch: report
The Washington Post – Even the firm that hired actors to cheer Trump’s campaign launch had to wait to be paid
Business Insider – Trump aide says they paid actors to appear at his 2016 presidential campaign announcement

launched into a minute-and-a-half long run-on sentence?

On July 19, 2016, candidate Donald Trump gave a speech at Sun City’s Magnolia Hall in South Carolina. In trying to criticize Obama’s Iranian nuclear deal, Trump launched into a run-on sentence that became famous across news and social media.

Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you’re a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.

The New Yorker – Donald Trump’s Nuclear Uncle
Snopes – Donald Trump’s ‘Nuclear’ Speech

was roasted by Barack Obama and Seth Meyers at the 2011 Correspondents’ Dinner?

At the dinner, Barack Obama and comedian Seth Meyers took aim at Trump, who sat in the audience.

Obama commented on the birther conspiracy that held he was foreign-born, which Trump had long perpetuated:

“Now I know that he has taken some flak lately, but no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter at rest than the Donald. And that’s because he could finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like ‘Did we fake the moon landing? What really happened at Roswell?’ and ‘where are Biggie and Tupac?’

 

All kidding aside, obviously we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. For example, seriously, just recently in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice, at the steakhouse, the men’s cooking team did not impress the judges from Omaha steaks. And there was a lot of blame to go around, but you, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And so ultimately you didn’t blame Little John or Meatloaf. You fired Gary Busey. And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well handled, sir. Well handled.”

Meyers laid into Trump with more cutting jokes. The dinner raised questions about whether it led to Trump’s Presidential ambitions, but Trump had voiced interest in running long before. When directly asked about the dinner, he remarked that while Meyers was “too nasty, out of order,” he went on to say that “there are many reasons I’m running, but that’s not one of them.”

Trump had been the centerpiece of a Comedy Central Roast just two months prior, which he concluded with a remark about his Presidential ambitions.

The Washington Post – I sat next to Donald Trump at the infamous 2011 White House correspondents dinner
Chicago Tribune – Did the 2011 White House correspondents’ dinner spur Trump to run for president?

was sued by the federal government for housing discrimination?

The Justice Department sued the Trump Management Corporation in 1973, based on evidence gathered by the New York City Human Rights Division. The agency alleged that black people who were told that no apartments were available, while white people were offered units.

After two years, the case was settled. Trump did not have to admit guilt as part of the settlement. He attempted to counter-sue the Justice Department for making false allegations, but it was dismissed by the court.

NPR – Decades-Old Housing Discrimination Case Plagues Donald Trump
The New York Times – Major Landlord Accused Of Antiblack Bias in City
Time – Donald Trump’s 1973 Discrimination Case Really Was Part of Something Larger

claimed he sent investigators to Hawaii to prove Obama wasn’t born in the United States?

Trump long perpetuated the birther conspiracy against Barack Obama, which held that the former President was not born in the United States. In 2011, Trump claimed that he had dispatched investigators during an interview with NBC’s Today Show.

Trump explained, “I have people that actually have been studying it and they cannot believe what they’re finding.” There has yet to be any word on what his investigators found.

President Obama poked fun at Trump’s claims when he attended the 2011 Correspondent’s Dinner after releasing his long-form birth certificate.

In 2020, Trump’s then-former personal attorney Michael Cohen said Trump lied about dispatching investigators.

The Atlantic – What Donald Trump’s Birther Investigators Will Find in Hawaii
The Week – Michael Cohen says Trump lied about sending investigators to Hawaii to look into Obama’s birth certificate

More assuredly to come soon

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