I ALONE CAN FIX IT

The pattern of Trump's behavior prior to his attaining the Oval Office leaves no doubt: he was out for himself and himself alone. Completely transactional, he viewed other people as having value only if they acted to advance his interests. Thus, during his term in the Oval Office, he constantly pressured Attorney General Jeff Sessions to end the FBI investigation of Trump campaign involvement with Russia and ultimately fired Sessions for not going along.

The same was true of his regard for the traditions and institutions of government, or for the Constitution and laws he had taken an oath to defend. He had no such regard, except insofar as his twisted understanding told him they gave him the power to do whatever he wanted. He said so straight out: “I have an Article 2 where I have the right to do whatever I want as president,” Trump said.1

Thus, he treated the onset of the novel coronavirus during his final year as a threat to his reelection. Even though, as we now know, he understood its danger to the country, he sought to minimize it by calling it a minor threat that he had totally under control. He sought to keep case numbers down by limiting testing, because he thought that would keep the economy — the main thing he had going for him — surging. At the same time he opposed social distancing, lockdowns, and the wearing of face masks. His opposition virtually guaranteed the rapid spread of the coronavirus throughout the country.

When he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, he refused to concede, obstructed the transition, and ultimately did everything in his power to overturn the results. When more than 60 baseless court challenges failed because of lack of evidence, he called his followers to revolt and a number of them obeyed, storming the Capitol on 6 January 2021. This violent insurrection coincided with a less obvious one, as 147 members of Congress voted not to certify President Biden's victory. Thanks to the vigilance and integrity of numerous political and military leaders, Trump's power grab failed — and thanks to the majority of American voters, he was turned out of office. He has for the moment lost his grip on the levers of power.

But Trump's attempt to hold on to those levers of power has not ended; in states controlled by his party, legislatures are in the process of enacting measures that will allow them to reverse any election outcome they find unsuitable. It remains an open question whether these measures will succeed. For that reason, it is useful to review the record of Trump's campaign and his four-year attempt at presiding over the United States. I won't try to list every instance of misconduct, or go into much detail. But here are some of his blunders.

Politics

• He and his people routinely sought "dirt" from foreign sources, notably from a Russian group including Natalia Veselnitskaya in a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.
• In what he persistently called "a perfect phone call," he asked Ukraine's newly elected president Volodymyr Zelenskyy for "dirt" on Joe Biden's son Hunter.
• During the 2016 campaign, he publicly asked the Russians to find and make available Hillary Clinton's missing emails.
• In both campaigns, he refused to promise he would accept the results of the election unless he had won.

National Security

• There was no dictator in the world he didn't admire. But he verbally savaged allies like Trudeau of Canada, and disparaged the other members of NATO — an organization he regarded as obsolete.
• He had a cavalier attitude about security measures, using insecure communications gear and granting his staff clearances even when they failed background checks.
• He met Russia's Putin several times without American staff present, accepted Putin's word about election interference, and once disclosed classified information to two Russians in the Oval Office.
• Seeking "dirt" on his 2020 opponent Joe Biden, he tried to extort President Zelenskyy of Ukraine by withholding Congressionally-approved military aid.
• Against advice, he precipitously withdrew US troops from northern Syria, leaving our Kurdish allies in the lurch.

The Military

• Beginning in his 2016 campaign, he disparaged Senator John McCain, a Vietnam War hero. After McCain died of brain cancer in August 2018, Trump raised the White House flag too soon. He lowered it again after pushback to half-staff.
• In Europe, he skipped a ceremony to honor American World War I dead because rain meant he would have to take a limo rather than a helicopter.
• In October 2017 at an Air National Guard base in Pennsylvania, Trump and Hannity joked about which of them the musical Retreat was for.
• While facilely praising our military, this draft-dodger privately thought of those who had served in foreign wars as "losers" and "suckers."
• He boasted that he knew more about war than his generals, and at one point said the general staff had been "reduced to rubble."
• To build part of his wall, Trump diverted almost $12 billion in Pentagon funds, putting 127 military projects like better housing for troops on hold.

Law and Justice

• He considered well-justified investigations into his conduct "witch hunts" and constantly railed against them.
• He demanded that the Justice Department protect him from those investigations, badgering officials who failed to comply and firing them if they held out.
• At the end of his term, he pardoned 143 people, many of whom had helped him. ("And some, I assume, are good people.").
• At a 1/29/22 rally in Corvine, TX, Trump said that if he won the presidency in 2024 he would pardon the J6 rioters.

Immigration

• He began his campaign by demonizing immigrants from Mexico, and pledged to build a wall to keep them out (ludicrously claiming Mexico would pay for it.)
• Once in office, he ordered a ban on Muslim immigration (but not from countries where he had business interests, like Saudi Arabia.)
• Trump falsely declared immigration at the southern border an emergency, letting him divert funds to his wall (that he had pledged Mexico would pay for.)
• His ICE separated immigrants at the southern border from their children, housed the children inhumanely, and kept no records by which they could be reunited with their parents.
• Later he forced all immigrants seeking asylum to wait in Mexico where, having little money, they lived in hovels and were subject to abuse.
• To punish them for the flood of immigrants fleeing intolerable conditions, he cut payments to three countries in Central America. The payments were meant to help those conditions.

Health Care

• He supported efforts by Republicans in Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act, while having nothing to replace it.
• At the same time he dismissed the coronavirus as a minor problem or a hoax, he blamed it on China and later the World Health Organization, suspending payments to the WHO in April 2020.
• He mismanaged the pandemic, stubbornly repeating that it would go away "like a miracle" or that it was "totally under control."
• At odds with CDC and HHS professionals, he ultimately sidelined them and brought in a doctor who would tell him what he wanted to hear. Many people needlessly died of COVID-19.
• California requires insurers to cover elective abortions on the grounds that they are medically necessary. Through HHS, Trump punished them by withholding $200 million in Medicaid funds for 2021Q1.

Freedom of Speech, Assembly, the Press

• During his 2016 campaign, he announced a hope of changing the libel laws to make it easier to sue people whose opinions he disliked. Shortly he was calling every critical report "fake news."
• He called the press "the enemy of the people," borrowing the label once used by Stalin.
• At his rallies, he regularly promised to jail his 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton — despite the fact that she had committed no crime — and cheered attendees' chants of "Lock her up!"
• Just as regularly, he urged his followers to beat up protesters, at times promising to pay their legal fees if they did so (another false promise.)

Foreign Policy

• He withdrew from or abrogated valuable memberships and agreements: the Paris Accords on climate; the JCPOA that curtailed Iran's effort to build nuclear weapons; UNESCO and the UN Human Rights Council; the Trans-Pacific Partnership; the Open Skies Treaty; the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
• Trump moved our embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, angering the Palestinians and leading the UN to condemn the move. To punish the UN, Trump withheld $285 million in payments.

Environmental Matters

• Canceled a plan for gas and oil companies to report methane emissions.
• Loosened safety requirements for offshore oil wells, that had been imposed following the 2010 Macondo well blowout that killed 11 and poured millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
• Withdrew the legal basis for a rule that limits mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.
• Revoked a rule preventing coal companies from dumping mining refuse into local streams.
• Both of Trump's EPA administrators refused to ban chlorpyrifos, reversing a pending Obama administration ruling on the dangerous pesticide.
• In 2019, the Trump administration announced it would raise exposure limits for cancer-causing atrazine, a herbicide banned in Europe.
• Loosened emission standards for coal-fired power plants, allowing greater amounts of heavy metals into the nation's water supplies.
• Killed funding for the carbon monitoring system that tracked the carbon dioxide and methane released in the U.S.
• Allowed more ozone to be released from upwind states to downwind states.
• Repealed a rule that required state and regional authorities to track tailpipe emissions from vehicles on federal highways.
• Lifted a summertime ban on gasoline blended with 15% ethanol, known to form smog when temperatures are high.
• Rolled back most of a rule meant to improve safe handling of hazardous chemicals, imposed after the detonation of a fertilizer plant in West, Texas.

The Economy

• His major legislative achievement was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which gave 83% of its benefits to large corporations and the wealthy.
• Imposed on allies and adversaries alike, his tariffs raised the prices of consumer goods and led to cutbacks and layoffs at numerous American companies.
• In 2019, his tariffs on agricultural products raised the rate of farm bankruptcies by 24 percent.

Diplomacy

• With Trump's approval, his first secretary of state Rex Tillerson proposed a budget one-third lower even before completing his review.
• Tillerson gutted the state department, failing to nominate leaders for 80% of bureaus and forcing out senior leaders. Staff rushed to resign.
• When Russia, retaliating against sanctions imposed, expelled hundreds of US diplomats in July 2017, Trump thanked Russia for helping him cut his payroll costs.
• Challenged about his disregard for diplomatic experience, Trump declared, "I'm the only one that matters!"

Culture Wars

• After the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville erupted in violence, Trump refused to condemn the Neo-Nazis who marched to chants of "Jews will not replace us." Trump said there were good people on both sides.
• When Trump was endorsed by white supremacist David Duke, he at first refused to reject the former KKK leader's endorsement.
• Trump hailed display of the Confederate battle flag as "free speech" but repeatedly denounced NFL players who took a knee during the national anthem to protest police violence.

The above list of 58 items compares to the totality of Trump's misconduct like the stream from a drinking fountain does to the full output of a fire hose. This cascade of catastrophe made it nearly impossible to focus on any single action and seek to correct it.1 I suspect that was a tactic Trump developed early on as a defense mechanism. His propensity to be problematic is one more reason he must never hold elected office again. Another is the type of people he gathers around him: toadies who offer little but loyalty. People like Mark Meadows, his third and most compliant chief of staff.2

Consider this passage from the book. HHS secretary Alex Azar, a former pharmaceutical company executive, understood the threat of the pandemic and struggled to get the White House to take it seriously. Meadows fought him at every turn, dedicated to Trump's quest for quick solutions.

Meadows wanted Azar to upend the long-established — and vital — process of drug approval and instantly bless any remedy that, per coverage by some media outlet, seemed to work. Let that sink in.

I now think Trump will run for president again, and if he does there is little doubt that the party will nominate him. This is what you would get if Trump returns to the Oval Office in 2024: a hugely corrupt man, incompetent as a leader but a cunning grifter. He will no longer be constrained by fear of consequences. More people voted for him in 2020 than in 2016. Never think he cannot be reelected.3

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This page was last modified on 19 March 2023.