Donald Trump has returned to the news cycle amid a deluge of stories about a dinner meeting he hosted with a white supremacist and Ye, the rapper previously known as Kanye West.
Its a reminder of the chaotic years of his presidency, as well as a foreboding though hopefully instructive warning about how he would wield power if elected again.
If past is prologue, lets take a moment to remember just how unsettling things got during the Trump administration, with this not-even-remotely-exhaustive list of weird and bad stuff he attempted while in office:
- Tried to buy Greenland.
- Wanted to nuke hurricanes .
- Doctored a hurricane forecast map with a Sharpie.
- Attempted a coup to stay in power.
- Absconded with thousands of classified documents, lied about it and refused to give them back when the feds asked nicely.
- Sent unidentified federal officers to Portland, Oregon, to abduct protesters and spark a conflagration that could be used as a pretense for implementing martial law.
- Ordered peaceful protesters tear-gassed so he could pose for a photo-op with a Bible outside a church.
- Tried to blackmail Ukraine into manufacturing dirt for his 2020 campaign.
- Asked Russia for help in his 2016 campaign and got it.
- Had a weird affinity for Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Remember the Helsinki summit? )
- Invited Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to an in-person meeting in the Oval Office, where he accidentally revealed top-secret intelligence .
- Wanted to withdraw the U.S. from NATO.
- Separated migrant parents from their children, locked the kids in cages and then failed to reunite them .
- Insisted that raking would prevent forest fires because youve got to take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forest, very important.
- Covered for Saudi Arabia after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the gruesome murder and dismemberment of a U.S. journalist with a bone saw. (Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law, owes Saudi Arabia $2 billion, and the crown prince has reportedly bragged about having Kushner in his pocket.)
- Intervened to get Kushner top-secret clearance after he was denied over concerns about foreign influence.
- Put Kushner in charge of Middle East peace.
- Embraced rampant nepotism.
- Touted injecting disinfectant as a COVID-19 cure.
- Touted ultraviolet light as a COVID-19 cure.
- Touted hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 cure.
- Touted ivermectin as a COVID-19 cure.
- Told people not to wear face masks to cut down the spread of COVID-19, even though they work.
- Actively discouraged COVID-19 testing.
- Refused to send federal aid to New York City amid the first COVID-19 wave because the virus was hitting Democratic-voting states hardest.
- Jokingly said on multiple occasions that he deserved to be president for more than two terms.
- Thought climate change was a Chinese hoax.
- Built an incomplete border wall that doesnt work , wasnt needed and wasnt paid for by Mexico.
- Started a trade war with China that mainly hurt U.S. consumers .
- Threw food when angry.
- Saw no problem with his vice president potentially being hanged by a violent mob hed summoned and sent to the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the peaceful transition of power.
- Stared directly at the sun.