To Open The Sky

Trump explodes in the Oval Office

This will be a short document. Most of us are fed up with Trump, and sick of hearing about his empty-headed pronouncements. At this point, there is very little that's new about him.

The summary is: Trump never conceded, even though Joe Biden got 7 million more popular votes than he did, and 306 Electoral College votes to Trump's 232. You'll recall that when he beat Hillary Clinton by the same EC margin, Trump called it a landslide.

Now, he calls it a stolen election.

Throughout the post-election period, Trump has refused to concede. He has consistently sought to challenge the results of the election — and in this he has had help. A battery of legal eagles leaped to his defense. They filed some sixty legal challenges to the results in various battleground states. All of these were thrown out of court, at some level, for lack of evidence that there was enough misconduct to change a given result. Through pressure on the GSA, he delayed the start of the transition process by two weeks. Department of Defense officials were even slower to give the Biden team the access they needed.

In the wake of this failure of legal tactics, Trump and his minions shifted to rhetoric and politics. Trump himself, in rallies and tweets, called for Republicans to boycott the runoff elections, which he said had been corrupted by Democratic interference. (At the same time, he exhorted them to return Purdue and Loeffler to the Senate.) He has accused Georgia's Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of selling him out and called for their firing. Trump-cult lawyers Lin Wood and Sydney Powell added to the uproar, until their charges became too outrageous even for Trump.1 Trump spent an hour on the phone with Raffensperger, asking him to "find 11,780 more votes" and thus overturn the state's EC result. He invited protesters to come to Washington, DC on 6 January 2021, with the unstated but evident hope that they will disrupt the proceedings of the transition.2 In the House, more than 100 Republicans have pledged to challenge the certification of the Electoral College results on that date. If challenges take place in both houses of Congress, they must be debated. However, there is little chance that rejection of the EC vote will occur.

It is likely that Trump's rhetoric about the runoff elections in Georgia caused some to skip voting for Republicans, resulting in wins for both Democratic candidates. This will decide the balance of power in the Senate. Republicans have 50 seats and Democrats will control in most cases thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris being able to break ties in favor of the Democrats.3

I tried to compile a list of the senators who objected to certification of the election process by a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, 6 January 2021: I was never able to confirm every name, so I dropped that effort. Most everyone now knows that Mike Pence refused to contest the certification even as rioters invaded the halls of Congress, vandalizing the interior and threatening members. Trump sat in the residence watching the rioting on television for three hours while various staffers and his daughter begged him to intervene. Finally, he issued a lukewarm statement telling the rioters they were very special, but they had to go home. Later that night, when the building was secure, the joint session resumed and the election was certified.

Trump was impeached a second time for his role in the insurrection. Senate Republicans again refused to convict him. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi organized a commission, known as the January 6 Commission, to assemble and present the evidence for the rioting and determine who among the government's leaders were involved. The House passed a bill creating this commission on 19 May 2021 with all Democrats and 35 Republicans in support. But the Senate blocked in on 28 May with 54 Senators voting "Aya" and 35 voting "Nay" — insufficient to end a filibuster. In response, the House Select Committee on the January 6 ttack was formed on 1 July 2021. Two Republicans, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinsinger, agreed to take part. The Committee held a series of televised hearings, with testimony from many Republicans, presenting a solid case for the existence of a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election of Joe Biden. Trump and others involved continued to insist the Democrats had stolen the election. Trump still holds to that lie today.

So a summary of the major aspects of Trump's legacy looks like this:

• He ordered a selective ban on Muslims entering the US — selective because Muslim countries having business with the Trump Organization were off the list.
• He did nothing about immigration from Mexico during the first two years of his term, when Republicans controlled the Congress, except cancel funding to the Northern Triangle countries, intended to improve conditions there and thus reduce immigration. When Democrats won the House in 2018, he tried to get a deal for a border wall but failed. He then declared a false emergency and diverted funding allocated for other projects to the wall.
• He had ICE detain families crossing the southern border, separated parents from children, housed the children under unhealthy conditions, and failed to keep track of the family relationships. Later he deported entrants to Mexico, with Mexico's agreement, forcing them to remain there where they were subject to abuse by criminals.
• In league with Senate Majority Leader McConnell and the Federalist Society's Leonard Leo, he nominated three conservative Supreme Court Justices. McConnell engineered their confirmation, giving the Court a conservative supermajority that ended support for abortion, weakened the Voting Rights Act, and allowed corporate dark money to influence elections.
• His major legislative accomplishment was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which gave 83% of its benefits to the wealthy and large corporations.
• He enacted tariffs of soybeans and other crops, on steel and aluminum, and on solar panels from China. This hurt the rooftop solar industry, cost Ford $1 billion in profits, raised the prices of appliances, and spiked farm bankruptcies by 24% in 2019.
• He used insecure communications gear, overruled professionals to grant clearances to some 25 unqualified staffers, disclosed classified information to adversaries, and left office with a quantity of classified documents he refused to return when asked.
• He vetoed a resolution that would have ended US support for the war in Yemen and withdrew the US from several treaties and agreements, including the JCPOA which prevented Iran's development of nuclear weapons.
• He constantly protested legitimate investigations into his conduct, most notably the inquiry into whether the Trump campaign had been helped by Russia. He fired his FBI director to stop this investigation and tried to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller for the same reason. His second Attorney General, William Barr, downplayed the results of Mueller's investigation.
• He withheld funds appropriated for the defense of Ukraine in an attempt to get Ukraine's president to give him "dirt" he could use against his 2020 opponent Joe Biden. This led to his first impeachment.
• When the coronavirus pandemic hit the US in late 2019, he downplayed its severity, promoted ineffective treatments, withheld masks and other supplies from Democrat-run states, objected to mask mandates and other public-health measures, and promoted large gatherings where the virus easily spread among attendees.
• He refused to disclose his tax returns or fully divest from business interests he held before taking the Oval Office, charged high prices at his resorts for the secret service agents protecting him, and generally violated the Emoluments Clause with impunity.
• He repeatedly insisted climate change is a hoax, withdrew from the Paris Accords, rolled back many environmental regulations, and promoted fossil fuels including coal.
• As mentioned above, he plotted to overturn the 2020 election, invited supporters to Washington, encouraged them to fight, and vowed to pardon the rioters (whom he calls "patriots" and "hostages") if he regains the Oval Office.

Sources:

1. Multiple government agencies warned not to cooperate with Biden: report Celine Castronuovo, The Hill, 10 November 2020)
2. What Biden can and can't do without the Trump administration's cooperation during transition Kathryn Watson, CBS News, 12 November 2020)
3. 'It's a terrible situation': Inside a government bureaucrat's pressure-filled decision to delay the transition Kristen Holmes & Jeremy Herb, CNN Politics, 19 November 2020)
4. Pentagon and Biden Team Disagree Over Whose to Blame for DOD's Transition Pause Elizabeth Crisp, Newsweek, 18 December 2020)
5. Biden uses workarounds to prepare for the presidency Deb Reichman & Zeke Miller, Associated Press, 18 November 2020)
6. Attorney Lin Wood Confirms Trump Legal Team's Evidence Will Be Enough to Overturn Election Corrine Murdock, Tennessee Star, 21 November 2020)
7. Trump's Bonkers Oval Office Meeting With Sidney Powell Was Even Too Much for Rudy Asawin Suebsaeng & Maxwell Tani, The Daily Beast, 19 December 2020)
8. Tom Cotton and Chip Roy inject some logic into the GOP's alogical electoral college gambit (Aaron Blake, Washington Post, 4 January 2021)
9. In extraordinary hour-long call, Trump pressures Georgia secretary of state to recalculate the vote in his favor (Amy Gardner, Washington Post, 3 January 2021)
10. A leading historian of U.S. democracy issues an urgent warning (Greg Sargent, Washington Post, 4 January 2021)
11. Business leaders urge Congress to certify Biden win Josh Dawsey, Washington Post, 4 January 2021)
12. Jan. 6 protests multiply as Trump continues to call supporters to Washington Marissa J. Lang, Washington Post, 30 December 2020)
13. Fact-checking Trump's campaign rally for the Georgia Senate races Glenn Kessler & Meg Kelly, Washington Post, 4 January 2021)
14. What you need to know about Brad Raffensperger Amber Phillips, Washington Post, 4 January 2021)
15. What a prosecutor could do about Trump's phone call Ruth Marcus, Washington Post, 4 January 2021)
16. Proud Boys leader arrested in the burning of church's Black Lives Matter banner, D.C. police say Peter Hermann & Martin Weil, Washington Post, 4 January 2021)
17. Half of Republicans say Biden won because of a 'rigged' election: Reuters/Ipsos poll Chris Kahn, Reuters, 18 November 2020)
18. Here's the full transcript and audio of the call between Trump and Raffensperger Amy Gardner & Paulina Firozi, Washington Post, 3 January 2021)
19. The Trump-Raffensperger call was big news — unless you were following conservative media Paul Farhi, Washington Post, 4 January 2021)
20. We all suffer for Mitch McConnell's sycophancy Dana Milbank, Washington Post, 4 January 2021)
21. List: The 126 House members, 19 states and 2 imaginary states that backed Texas' challenge to Trump defeat The Mercury News, 12 December 2020)
22. The members of Congress who are planning to object to Joe Biden's Electoral College win Savannah Behrmann & Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY, 4 January 2021)
23. Where Senate Republicans stand on counting the electoral college vote Kevin Uhrmacher, John Muyskens, Daniela Santamariña, Kate Rabinowitz & Harry Stevens, Washington Post, 6 January 2021)
24. The 147 Republicans Who Voted To Overturn Election Results Karen Yourish, Larry Buchanan & Denise Lu, The New York Times, 7 January 2021)
25. Six hours of paralysis: Inside Trump's failure to act after a mob stormed the Capitol Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey and Philip Rucker, Washington Post, 11 January 2021)
26. A 'Stop the Steal' organizer, now banned by Twitter, said three GOP lawmakers helped plan his D.C. rally Teo Armus, Washington Post, 13 January 2021)
27. GOP lawmakers dodge metal detectors added after Capitol riots, blast them as an 'atrocity' Jaclyn Peiser, Washington Post, 13 January 2021)
28. House impeaches Trump with 10 Republicans joining, but Senate plans unclear Mike DeBonis and Seung Min Kim, Washington Post, 13 January 2021)
29. How each senator voted in Trump's second impeachment trial (Christopher Hickey, Janie Boschma & Sean O'Key, CNN, 13 February 2021)
30. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/01/politics/house-who-voted-impeachment/ (Christopher Hickey, Janie Boschma & Sean O'Key, CNN, 13 January 2021)
31. Chronicling Trump's 10 worst abuses of power (Marshall Cohen, CNN, 24 January 2021)
32. The 59 worst things Trump did during his presidency Maya Lothian McLean & Greg Evans, indy100, 17 August 2023
33. After 18 months of investigations, the Jan. 6 report is out. Here are the toplines (Deepa Shivaram, NPR, 23 December 2022)
34. Jan. 6 report: Trump 'lit that fire' of Capitol insurrection (Mary Clare Jalonick, Eric Tucker, Farnoush Amiri, Jill Colvin, Michael Balsamo & Nomann Merchant, AP News, 23 December 2022)
35. Did Trump's tariffs benefit American workers and national security? (Geoffrey Gertzn, The Brookings Institution, 10 September 2020)
36. Tariff Tracker: Tracking the Economic Impact of the Trump-Biden Tariffs (Erica York, Tax Foundation, 26 June 2024)