This is the third in a series of lists. Commit to vote here.
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Various writers have compiled this list during the course of the Trump administration. Their work has been guided by invaluable journalistic resources, including WTFJHT, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other sources, to whom we are grateful.
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ATROCITY KEY
– Sexual Misconduct & Harassment
– White Supremacy
– Public Statements / Tweets
– Collusion with Russia & Obstruction of Justice
– Trump Staff /Administration
– Trump Family Business Dealings
– Policy
– Environment
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May 2017
- – May 1, 2017 – In an interview on Sirius Radio, Donald Trump praised Andrew Jackson as having “a big heart.” Andrew Jackson infamously enacted the Trail of Tears, which forced 17,000 Cherokees to walk across the country and resulted in thousands of deaths. Trump also claimed, “had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn’t have had the Civil War.” He continued, “But why was there a Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?”
- – May 1, 2017 – The White House moved to end funding for Michelle Obama’s “Let Girls Learn” initiative, which educated young women and girls in developing countries.
- – May 1, 2017 – The Department of Agriculture terminated Obama-era standards supporting healthy school lunches. Among initiatives eliminated were rules to lower sodium content in lunches and limit consumption of high-calorie chocolate milk. According to the most recent CDC statistics, 1 in 5 American children is obese. Commenting on the Trump administration’s changes, the Department of Agriculture’s Sonny Perdue said, “I would not be as big as I am today without chocolate milk.”
- – May 1, 2017 – Donald Trump ended an interview when pressed for evidence to support his claim that Obama had illegally ordered surveillance of Trump Tower during the 2016 election. Responding to follow-ups from the reporter asking for proof, Trump said, “I have my own opinions. You can have your own opinions. OK, it’s enough. Thank you.” Trump’s claim of illegal wiretaps has been widely discredited, rebutted by both the FBI and the National Security Division.
- – May 2, 2017 – Donald Trump referred to the system of checks and balances between the legislative and executive branches as an “archaic” system. He followed this statement by claiming, “Maybe at some point we’ll have to take those rules on, because, for the good of the nation, things are going to have to be different.”
- – May 2, 2017 – Donald Trump appointed Teresa Manning, a former anti-abortion activist, to lead Title X for the Department of Human and Health Services—a program that allocates funding for family planning to America’s low-income citizens. Teresa Manning was a lobbyist for the National Right to Life Committee, the nation’s oldest and largest pro-life organization.
- – May 2, 2017 – Donald Trump tweeted that the country “needs a good ‘shutdown’,” and argued that Senate rules should be changed in order to lower the number of votes needed to break a filibuster.
- – May 2, 2017 – During a CNN interview at a Women for Women International event in New York, Hillary Clinton blamed her election loss on a Russian meddling, a flawed candidacy, and FBI Director James Comey’s surprise announcement that the Bureau would investigate her emails just days before the election. Donald Trump took to Twitter to respond to her interview, posting Comey was, “The best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds!” and the “phony Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election.”
- – May 1, 2017 – The Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. received $30,000 from groups promoting Turkish-American relations as part of a convention at the Trump property. Among the attendees were the Turkish Ambassador and a high-level U.S. official. This could violate the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which forbids government officials from accepting “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” Donald Trump has retained an ownership interest in his businesses, and thus could receive payments from foreign states.
- – May 4, 2017 – House Republicans narrowly passed a healthcare bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. In response, Donald Trump held a press conference in the White House Rose Garden to celebrate what had been his only major legislative victory to date. He said, “[I’ve] only been a politician for a short period of time. How am I doing? Am I doing okay? I’m president. Heh! Hey, I’m president!” The American Health Care Act eventually failed to earn enough votes in the Senate and did not pass into law.
- – May 6, 2017 – Nicole Kushner Meyer, the sister of White House adviser and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, solicited investments from Chinese business owners by promising American visas in return. An ad for her event in China read, “Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States.”
- – May 8, 2017 – The EPA announced it would not renew terms of employment for half of the scientists on its advisory board. These academics consulted the federal government on the scientific foundations and implications of new legislation. Among the committees affected would be the Board of Scientific Counselors, which evaluated whether scientific studies conducted by the federal government have met a sufficient standard of rigor.
- – May 8, 2017 – White House advisers began drafting an executive order which would unilaterally withdraw the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement. In an attempt to rescue NAFTA, White House officials broke with custom and called the office of the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau directly, requesting that he convince Donald Trump to reconsider. One Canadian official suggested the Americans’ unusual diplomatic move could have been “theater.” He followed up saying, “Maybe they’re just learning how to be a government.”
- – May 8, 2017 – In a legal brief defending Donald Trump’s travel ban, the Justice Department cited Palmer v. Thompson, a segregation-era court case which restricted judges from considering “government purpose” when assessing a law’s constitutionality. The “government purpose” in the original Palmer v. Thompson case referenced Jackson, Mississippi’s racially motivated decision to close five segregated pools rather than open them to African American citizens. The Supreme Court at the time ruled in favor of Jackson closing the pools, saying the city’s racial motive in doing so should not affect the court’s assessment of the action’s constitutionality. The Trump administration cited the case to justify its argument that religious bias ought not to affect the constitutionality of the travel ban.
- – May 9, 2017 – Dan Heyman, a West Virginian journalist, was arrested after questioning Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price about how the proposed health care bill would affect victims of domestic violence. In the aftermath of the healthcare bill’s introduction, Secretary Price had barred press access whenever questions about health care might be raised. On the day in question, Heyman approached Price while the secretary walked toward the capital in the morning. After the reporter held out his phone to record Price, Heyman was arrested for “breaching Secret Service agents.” Heyman spent seven hours in jail before he was released with a charge of willful disruption of governmental processes. Almost three months later, a state prosecutor found Heyman had broken no laws and would not be prosecuted for his actions.
- – May 9, 2017 – Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in the midst of the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Before his dismissal, Comey had been leading the federal investigation into Trump’s potential collusion with Russia during the 2016 election. Comey was speaking to a crowd of Bureau agents when he heard the news and initially thought the announcement was a prank.
- – May 10, 2017 – In the Oval Office, Donald Trump told the Russian Foreign Minister and Russian Ambassador to the United States, “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job… I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
- – May 11, 2017 – In a televised interview, Donald Trump admitted that he had the Russia investigation in mind when he fired FBI Director Comey. He said, “And, in fact, when I decided to just do it, said to myself, I said: This Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.”
- – May 11, 2017 – Donald Trump signed an executive order to form a task force that would review purported voter fraud. Despite not having evidence to prove his claim that millions of people voted illegally, he returned to the issues of voter registrations and “election integrity” repeatedly. Trump’s ongoing argument about illegal voting has been widely discredited.
- – May 12, 2017 – After Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Sean Spicer, and President Trump each gave conflicting explanations for Trump’s decision to dismiss FBI Director James Comey, Donald Trump tweeted, “As a very active President with many things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy.” Trump then added, “Maybe the best thing to do is cancel all future “press briefings” and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy????”
- – May 12, 2017 – Donald Trump tweeted, “James Comey better hope that there are no “tapes” of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” After the tweet, Comey was quoted saying, “Lordy, I hope there are tapes.”
- – May 12, 2017 – Attorney General Jeff Sessions changed criminal charging policy, instructing federal prosecutors to pursue the “most serious, readily provable offense.”! This shift returned to prominence the mandatory minimum sentences that had been against policy during the Obama administration. The last time the Justice Department held prosecutors to this standard, the number of federal prisoners skyrocketed almost 30 percent in ten years—from 172,000 to 220,000.
- – May 12, 2017 – Morgan Lewis Tax Partners reviewed ten years of Donald Trump’s tax returns and reported that, with “a few exceptions,” he had no financial ties with Russia. After investigation of Morgan Lewis, the Guardian found the tax firm had been named Russia Law Firm of the Year by an industry publication which ranks law firms by region.
- – May 12, 2017 – The Environmental Protection Agency announced it would withdraw mining restrictions on Alaska’s headwaters, opening the door to a major mining facility in the area. This reversal came after an EPA study concluded the mine could decimate salmon populations in the area, and thereby harm native Alaskans whose culture depended heavily on salmon.
- May 12, 2017 – Donald Trump shared highly classified information with the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassador at a White House meeting. The disclosure jeopardized the identity of a source that has infiltrated the Islamic State—an extremely sensitive piece of information. One U.S. official was quoted by the Washington Post as saying Trump had, “revealed more information to the Russian Ambassador than we’ve shared with our own allies.”
- – May 16, 2017 – A company called Summerbreeze LLC took out a $3.5 million mortgage on Paul Manafort’s home in Bridgehampton, New York. The company never filed the paperwork with Suffolk County to indicate who was accountable for the multimillion-dollar mortgage, nor did the company pay the $36,000 in taxes incurred by the agreement.
- – May 17, 2017 – Speaking to graduating cadets of the U.S. Coast Guard, Donald Trump said about himself , “No politician—and I say this with great surety—has been treated worse or more unfairly.”
- – May 17, 2017 – Shortly before Donald Trump took office, Michael Flynn discouraged White House officials from pursuing a U.S. military operation against the Islamic State which would have paired the United States with Kurdish forces. In May of 2017, McClatchy reported that Michael Flynn had been paid over $500,000 by the Turkish government, which had long been opposed to the United States allying with the Kurds.
- – May 17, 2017 – Before Donald Trump hired Michael Flynn as national security adviser, Flynn had told President Trump that he was under investigation for remunerated lobbying on behalf of the Turkish government. Trump appointed him anyway.
- – May 18, 2017 – Calling the Russia investigation a “witch hunt,” Donald Trump denied former FBI Director James Comey’s claim that Trump had asked Comey to end the investigation. Trump asserted, “There is no collusion between certainly myself and my campaign.”
- – May 18, 2017 – Reuters reported the Trump campaign had at least 18 undisclosed contacts with Russian state officials or individuals with Kremlin ties during the final months of the 2016 election. Six of these 18 unreported contacts were direct calls to Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States.
- – May 18, 2017 – White House Communications Director Mike Dubke resigned after just three months at his post, citing personal reasons. At the time of Dubke’s exit, Donald Trump was reportedly considering a bigger staff shakeup in the midst of a growing number of staff exits.
- – May 19, 2017 – Four months after his inauguration, almost 700 positions still remained empty at the Center for Disease Control. The vacancies appeared at every level—from administrative roles to scientific advisers to director-level positions.
- – May 21, 2017 – In an effort to balance the budget after billions of dollars in new defense spending, Donald Trump proposed slashing $1.7 trillion over the next ten years from programs supporting low-income Americans. Among the social programs to lose substantial portions of their funding in the proposal were food stamps (losing $193 billion) and Medicaid ($800 billion). According to statistics from 2018, 42 million Americans depended on food stamps and 68 million Americans had their healthcare covered through Medicaid.
- – May 22, 2017 – Due to the Trump administration’s ambiguity on the future of the Affordable Care Act, health insurance providers raised premiums substantially — some by as much as 50% — to account for the possibility that federal support may change at any time.
- – May 24, 2017 – Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said that poverty was “a state of mind.” The former neurosurgeon, now in charge of programs responsible for low-income housing, had previously said that low-income housing should not be a “comfortable setting that would make somebody want to say: ‘I’ll just stay here.’”
- – May 25, 2017 – During the NATO Summit in Brussels, Belgium, Donald Trump visibly pushed Montenegro’s Prime Minister out of the way so he could to stand in front for a picture with other world leaders.
- – May 28, 2017 – Despite releasing a budget that proposed cutting Medicaid by $800 billion only days earlier, Donald Trump tweeted, “I suggest that we add more dollars to Healthcare and make it the best anywhere!”
- – May 29, 2017 – CIA Director Mike Pompeo said top-secret daily briefings must be short and filled with “killer graphics” to hold the attention of President Trump.
- – May 31, 2017 – Donald Trump tweeted, “Despite the negative press covfefe.” He offered no follow-up and never explained the incomplete thought or potential misspelling.
- – May 31, 2017 – The Trump administration created a new questionnaire for all visa applicants that asked applicants for their social media handles. The administration announced their intention was to examine the last five years of an applicant’s internet activity.
- – May 31, 2017 – The White House granted ethics waivers to 17 senior officials, including Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon. The waivers allowed Bannon to interact with Breitbart News, and Conway to interact with lobbyists and private clients.
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JUNE 2017
- – June 1, 2017 – Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, saying the global climate accord would “undermine our economy.” Signatories of the global pact promised to lower greenhouse gas emissions, in an international effort to keep global temperature below two degrees Celsius over the planet’s pre-industrial levels. Besides Nicaragua, which eventually signed, the United States and Syria were the only countries to reject the agreement.
- – June 1, 2017 – The Trump administration considered lifting Russian sanctions immediately after the inauguration, according to commentary from former State Department official Dan Fried.
- – June 1, 2017 – At the onset of hurricane season, leadership positions remained vacant for the NOAA and FEMA. These agencies are responsible for monitoring weather patterns incoming for natural disasters and addressing natural disaster recovery, respectively.
- – June 2, 2017 – White House lawyers met with the leaders of several federal agencies to order them not to comply with Democrats’ requests for oversight of agency activities. A White House spokesperson said the Trump administration’s policy regarding oversight is to “accommodate requests of the chairmen, regardless of political party.” At the time, there were no Democratic chairmen because Republicans controlled Congress.
- – June 5, 2017 – The U.S. Ambassador to China resigned from his position, citing Donald Trump’s decision to leave the Paris Agreement.
- – June 6, 2017 – EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt claimed 50,000 jobs had been added to the coal mining industry. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the number was closer to 1,400.
- – June 6, 2017 – In more than 50 cases nationwide, children were heard bullying classmates with calls for deportation, references to Donald Trump’s name, and blatantly racist language. One eight-year-old girl in California said to a black classmate, “Now that Trump won, you’re going to have to go back to Africa, where you belong.”
- – June 6, 2017 – White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer announced that Donald Trump’s tweets are official statements from the president.
- – June 11, 2017 – Breaking with a longstanding custom, Donald Trump tried to cultivate a personal relationship with a federal prosecutor, Preet Bharara, after the 2016 election. Months after his firing, Bharara reported a sense of déjà vu listening to James Comey’s testimony regarding Trump’s bizarre interactions. Trump’s final call to Bharara, on March 9, 2017, was ostensibly to “shoot the breeze,” which Bharara found unethical and immediately reported to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He was fired the following day.
- – June 13, 2017 – Since the election, 70 percent of the properties purchased from the Trump Organization have reportedly sold to anonymous LLCs rather than identified people. Before the election, only 2% of Trump properties went to anonymous companies.
- – June 13, 2017 – On Twitter, Donald Trump’s account blocked a veterans group that had been critical of him. The group, VoteVets, represents 500,000 U.S. military veterans.
- – June 14, 2017 – Officials announced that Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller would investigate Donald Trump for obstruction of justice. This was part of Mueller’s ongoing investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election.
- – June 15, 2017 – Donald Trump selected the person who planned Eric Trump’s wedding to run federal housing for the city of New York. In her new position, Lynne Patton, who had also helped organize some of Trump’s celebrity golf events, would control a multibillion-dollar budget to manage housing for thousands of New Yorkers.
- – June 16, 2017 – In another rollback of a signature policy from the Obama administration, Donald Trump partially reversed Barack Obama’s effort to open diplomatic ties with the Cuba. Obama’s policy allowed American businesses and travelers to interact with Cuba for the first time in decades. Trump’s changes would “enforce the ban on tourism, enforce the embargo,” in response to what he called “the last administration’s completely one-sided deal with Cuba.”
- – June 16, 2017 – The White House sought to soften a bipartisan bill crafted to put new sanctions on Russia and limit Donald Trump’s power to alter sanctions in the future.
- – June 16, 2017 – Responding to special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Donald Trump tweeted, “I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt”. “The man” referenced here is Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller to lead the Russia investigation and also issued a memo recommending former FBI Director James Comey’s firing.
- – June 19, 2017 – Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry announced he did not believe carbon dioxide causes climate change. This view contradicts numerous studies conducted by agencies like NASA, the EPA, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
- – June 19, 2017 – During a security clearance renewal process, Michael Flynn failed to disclose a business trip to the Middle East during which he represented Russian and U.S. business interests as they planned to build a series of nuclear reactors. Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland said of Flynn’s omission, “General Flynn’s actions are part of a broader pattern of concealing his foreign contact, payments, travel and work on behalf of foreign interests.”
- – June 20, 2017 – The Trump administration planned to cut more than 1,200 jobs from the EPA, shrinking the workforce by 15 percent while slashing the EPA budget by 31 percent.
- – June 20, 2017 – Donald Trump’s budget cuts to address homelessness and low-income housing did not cut funding for one New York City housing development—the subsidized Starrett City housing complex. It happened that Trump held a stake in Starrett City, and made about $5 million dollars off the property in three months during 2016. (June 20, 2017) Trump Business Dealings Policy
- – June 21, 2017 – Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos tapped the CEO of a private student loan company to lead the Federal Student Aid program. This program handles $1.3 trillion in federal student loans for American citizens.
- – June 22, 2017 – Two senior intelligence officials told Robert Mueller that Donald Trump had approached them separately and requested they use their position to publicly announce the Trump campaign had not colluded with Russian operatives.
- – June 22, 2017 – At a rally with supporters, Donald Trump asserted that a law should exist which requires all immigrants to support themselves financially for five years before receiving welfare aid. This exact law has existed since 1996. Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act restricting new immigrants to the U.S. from accessing federal benefits for a period of five years.
- – June 25, 2017 – Donald Trump tweeted, “Hillary Clinton colluded with the Democratic Party in order to beat Crazy Bernie Sanders. Is she allowed to so collude? Unfair to Bernie!” At the time, Trump was under investigation for colluding with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
- – June 26, 2017 – Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke flew on a charter plane from Las Vegas to his hometown in Montana, which cost taxpayers $12,375. Zinke and his staff used private and military aircraft multiple times.
- – June 27, 2017 – Scott Pruitt and the EPA rolled back Obama-era protections that ensured drinking water was clean and safe for consumption.
- – June 27, 2017 – The Trump Organization framed a March 1, 2009 cover of Time magazine and hung it on the walls of at least five Trump resorts. The cover features Trump with his arms crossed beside the headlines “Donald Trump: The Apprentice is a television smash!” and “TRUMP IS HITTING ON ALL FRONTS…EVEN ON TV!” Time magazine has confirmed the cover is fake.
- – June 29, 2017 – Donald Trump attacked TV news host Mika Brzezinski on Twitter, saying he had once seen her when she was “badly bleeding from a face-lift.”
- – June 30, 2017 – MSNBC news anchors Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski alleged the White House tried to blackmail them with an article about their relationship in the National Enquirer. The newly engaged co-anchors claimed they had texts and phone records from Trump advisers threatening to publish the Enquirer article if the pair did not contact Trump directly. The president apparently sought an apology for the couple’s unfavorable news coverage. Trump is a long-time friend and ally of David Pecker, the publisher of the National Enquirer, and had leveraged the relationship before. The Enquirer then published a hit piece on Scarborough and Brzezinski’s relationship.
- – June 30, 2017 – For the position of senior adviser in the Office of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, Donald Trump appointed an activist who led a campaign to restrict transgender access to bathrooms. Under the Obama Administration, the Office of Gender Equality supported LGBT empowerment both domestically and abroad. Bethany Kozma, the activist and new senior adviser, has said in the past, “With Trump, we now have a president who is focused on remedying the lawlessness of the previous administration.”
- – June 30, 2017 – Referring to the House’s passage of a second repeal-and-replace bill, Donald Trump tweeted, “If Republican Senators are unable to pass what they are working on now, they should immediately REPEAL, and then REPLACE at a later date!” If Obamacare were repealed without an alternative to replace it, 32 million Americans would lose health care coverage.
- – June 2017 – Two anonymous White House officials told the New York Times that Donald Trump said Haitians “all have AIDS” and Nigerian immigrants wouldn’t ever “go back to their huts.” Newly released immigration statistics, which reported 15,000 Haitian immigrants had entered the U.S. since he took office, reportedly ignited President Trump’s tirade. While the White House subsequently denied Trump had used the words “AIDS” and “huts,” it did not deny the “overall description of the meeting.”
- – June 2017 – The Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. received $270,000 in payments from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for rooms, catering, and parking as part of a lobbying effort. This violates the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which forbids government officials from accepting “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” Donald Trump has retained an ownership interest in his businesses and thus could receive payments from foreign states.
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JULY 2017
- – July 1, 2017 – Donald Trump tweeted, “Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people, but their low rated show is dominated by their NBC bosses. Too bad!”
- – July 1, 2017 – After Trump requested state officials forfeit private voter information in his quest to substantiate claims of illegal voting during the 2016 election, 44 states and the District of Columbia refused to divulge citizens’ records. He tweeted, “Numerous states are refusing to give information to the very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL. What are they trying to hide?” Trump has never offered credible evidence to support illegal votes swaying the 2016 popular vote, and the claims have been repeatedly debunked.
- – July 8, 2017 – After Donald Trump left his seat among other world leaders during the G20 summit in order to attend another meeting, Ivanka Trump took his place. Given that Ivanka is his daughter, a business owner, and an unelected figure in the White House, many questioned the propriety of her presence at the high-level diplomatic meeting.
- – July 9, 2017 – The New York Times reported Donald Trump Jr. “was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign.” Trump Jr. admitted to the meeting, saying he went because the Russian “might have information helpful to the campaign.” Reportedly he left the meeting disappointed, and didn’t uncover any useful information on Clinton.
- – July 12, 2017 – In defending his son after news surfaced that Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer during the presidential campaign, Donald Trump repeated said again the Russia investigation is “"the greatest Witch Hunt in political history":.”
- – July 13, 2017 – Donald Trump told Brigitte Macron, the first lady of France, that she was "in such good shape,” during his first state visit to France as president.
- – July 18, 2017 – The United States military rented space in Trump Tower, amounting to a $2.4 million yearly expense. The stated reason for the payment was to retain space in the hotel should Donald Trump decide to sleep there. As of July, Trump hadn’t spent a night in the Tower.
- – July 19, 2017 – In an interview with The New York Times, Donald Trump said he would not have chosen Jeff Sessions to be the attorney general if he had known Sessions would recuse himself from the Russia investigation. This admission underscored his expectation of loyalty from his administration, and further suggested a simmering conflict between Trump and Sessions.
- – July 21, 2017 – Sean Spicer resigned as White House press secretary after Donald Trump chose Anthony Scaramucci to serve as communications director. The Obama administration had three press secretaries in eight years, and each of them held their position for more than two years. Sean Spicer held the position for 182 days before quitting.
- – July 22, 2017 – In a call to The New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza, Donald Trump’s newly appointed White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci ranted about White House staff in a stream of expletives and insults. Some of the highlights: Scaramucci called Chief of Staff Reince Priebus a “fucking paranoid schizophrenic;” he said of Steve Bannon, “I’m not Steve Bannon. I’m not trying to suck my own cock;” he threatened to fire the whole White House communications team; and he said of his federal financial disclosure, “They’re trying to resist me, but it’s not going to work. I’ve done nothing wrong on my financial disclosure, so they’re going to have to go fuck themselves.” Scaramucci was asked to resign the following week.
- – July 24, 2017 – Donald Trump took aim at Attorney General Jeff Sessions again, calling him “beleaguered” in a tweet about the Russia investigation.
- – July 24, 2017 – Donald Trump insulted the House Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, Adam Schiff, by calling him “sleazy” and “totally biased” on Twitter.
- – July 25, 2017 – Donald Trump targeted both Jeff Sessions, the U.S. attorney general and a member of his own administration, as well as his campaign opponent Hillary Clinton, by tweeting, “Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers!”
- – July 26, 2017 – Donald Trump tweeted, “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow… Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming… victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.” Two judges later blocked Trump’s discriminatory memorandum.
- – July 26, 2017 – The Trump administration began the process of rolling back an Obama-era rule that would have allowed 4.2 million more people to qualify for overtime pay. Obama’s legislation lowered the salary threshold at which employees would be eligible for overtime pay. Under the original proposal, any worker making $23,660 per year and working over 40 hours would either have to have their hours cut or their salary raised. The state of Texas awarded a temporary injunction, so Obama’s policy never took full effect. Trump eliminated that possibility.
- – July 27, 2017 – White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus resigned.
- – July 29, 2017 – Donald Trump blamed China for remaining neutral amidst growing tensions between the U.S. and North Korea. His tweet came the day after North Korea tested a ballistic missile it claimed could reach the United States.
- – July 31, 2017 – New White House Chief of Staff John Kelly fired Anthony Scaramucci ten days into Scaramucci’s tenure as communications director.
- – July 31, 2017 – Donald Trump dictated a public statement on behalf of his son, Donald Trump Jr., regarding a meeting between Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer. President Trump’s dictation stated the meeting "primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children.” A subsequent release of Trump Jr.’s email thread on the topic indicated that the topic of the meeting was regarding Clinton and Russian support for Trump’s campaign.
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NEXT INSTALLMENT: Atrocities 291-382.
