“Maybe Hate Is What We Need”: Part 1 of the Complete (and growing) Timeline of Trump Hatred.
A History of Donald Trump’s racism. Part 1, His and his Family’s early years.
To say President Trump is a racist, is just too damn easy these days.
But his racism envelops so much, puts so much poison into the American zeitgeist, makes the simple commonality of citizenship so difficult, I thought it would be helpful to remind people just how bad he’s gotten and how back it goes.
There have been lists and articles dealing with Trump’s racism, but each one laser focuses on just one area of his bigotry and hatred. I wanted place where everyone could come and see for themselves just how toxic he really is.
Now, this is not just a simple list of all of Trump’s racist antics. That’d be too easy. How he became what he became matters, and is cited below. We also go into the ways Trump’s various poisonous attitudes have spread. We cover his attitudes toward Blacks, toward Immigration, his hostility to Muslims, his desire to erase President Obama’s legacy, as well as the ways his sycophants and supporters have spread racism, and its twin sister violence across America and the world.
This is a live list, and unfortunately, the President will be giving me multiple opportunities to update it. But if there’s an event, a statement (or a Tweet) that I’ve missed, please feel free to comment below, and I’ll do what I can to add it in.
Links to sources are in the titles, and sometimes in the text itself.
All Time Codes are Pacific (that’s where I live. Sorry).
NEW MATERIAL:
Trump’s July-August 2016 fight with the Khans. (Added December 28th. 2019).
And now before we start at Trump’s racist present, we have to dive into his past…
1892: Friedrich Trump attains American Citizenship:
In a letter to the Prince-Regent of Bavaria in 1905, Friedrich mentions this is the year he attains American Citizenship.
May 1904: Friedrich Trump applies for a Passport:
Friedrich Trump applies for a U.S. passport to travel with his wife and his daughter. He lists his profession as “hotelkeeper”.
24 December 1904: The German Government moves to expel Friedrich Trump…permanently:
The German Department of Interior finds that Friedrich Trump has violated Resolution of the Royal Ministry of the Interior Number 9916, a law that punishes emigration to North America to avoid military service with the loss of German citizenship.
February 1905: Friedrich Trump is kicked out of Bavaria:
A royal decree orders Friedrich Trump to leave Bavaria and never return.
April 1905: Friedrich Trump begs the Prince-Regent of Bavaria to be allowed to stay:
Trump writes:
Most Serene, Most Powerful Prince Regent! Most Gracious Regent and Lord!
I was born in Kallstadt on March 14, 1869. My parents were honest, plain, pious vineyard workers. They strictly held me to everything good — to diligence and piety, to regular attendance in school and church, to absolute obedience toward the high authority.
After my confirmation, in 1882, I apprenticed to become a barber. I emigrated in 1885, in my sixteenth year. In America I carried on my business with diligence, discretion, and prudence. God’s blessing was with me, and I became rich. I obtained American citizenship in 1892. In 1902 I met my current wife. Sadly, she could not tolerate the climate in New York, and I went with my dear family back to Kallstadt.
The town was glad to have received a capable and productive citizen. My old mother was happy to see her son, her dear daughter-in-law, and her granddaughter around her; she knows now that I will take care of her in her old age.
But we were confronted all at once, as if by a lightning strike from fair skies, with the news that the High Royal State Ministry had decided that we must leave our residence in the Kingdom of Bavaria. We were paralyzed with fright; our happy family life was tarnished. My wife has been overcome by anxiety, and my lovely child has become sick.
Why should we be deported? This is very, very hard for a family. What will our fellow citizens think if honest subjects are faced with such a decree — not to mention the great material losses it would incur. I would like to become a Bavarian citizen again.
In this urgent situation I have no other recourse than to turn to our adored, noble, wise, and just sovereign lord, our exalted ruler His Royal Highness, highest of all, who has already dried so many tears, who has ruled so beneficially and justly and wisely and softly and is warmly and deeply loved, with the most humble request that the highest of all will himself in mercy deign to allow the applicant to stay in the most gracious Kingdom of Bavaria.
Your most humble and obedient,
Friedrich Trump
30 June 1905: Friedrich and Elizabeth Trump return to the United States:
After months of petitioning of the German Government, Trump and his family finally return to New York.
30 May 1927: Fred C. Trump is arrested at a KKK rally:
The Ku Klux Klan marches in Queens to protest that “Native-born Protestant Americans” were being “assaulted by the Roman Catholic police of New York City”.
Fred Trump (Friedrich’s son, Donald’s Father) was one of seven men who were arrested that day “on a charge of refusing to disperse from a parade when ordered to do so.”
December 1929: Mary Anne MacLeod visits the United States for the first time:
With several sisters having already in the country, Mary Anne MacLeod first the United States for a short stay in December 1929.
17 February 1930: Mary Anne MacLeod gets a U.S. Visa:
MacLeod is issued immigration visa number 26698 at Glasgow on February 17, 1930.
2–11 May 1930: Mary Anne MacLeod travels to the U.S., permanently:
Mary Anne MacLeod departs Glasgow on board the RMS Transylvania arriving in New York City on May 11, 1930 — one day after her 18th birthday, declaring she intended to become a U.S. citizen and would be staying permanently in America.
1935: The U.S. Census records Mary Anne MacLeod living with Fred C. Trump:
According to the 1940 census, Mary Anne is resident at the Trump family home at 175/24 Devonshire Road in a middle-class area of Long Island known as Jamaica in the borough of Queens.
15 October 1973: Trump Organization Accused Of Antiblack Bias:
The Nixon Department of Justice, charging discrimination against blacks in apartment rentals, brings suit in Federal Court against the Trump Management Corporation.
The corporation, which owns and rents more than 14,000 apartments in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, is accused of violating the Fair Housing Act of 1968 in its operation of 39 buildings. Most are in Coney Island, Brooklyn, and in Jamaica Estates and Forest Hills, Queens.
Seeking an injunction to halt alleged discriminatory practises, the Government contends that Trump Management refused to rent or negotiate rentals “because of race and color.” It also charged that the company required different rental terms and conditions because of race and that it had misrepresented to blacks that apartments were not available.
At the corporation’s main office, 600 Avenue Z in Brooklyn, Donald Trump, president, denied the charges.
“They are absolutely ridiculous,” he said. “We never have discriminated, and we never would. There have been a number of local actions against us, and we’ve won them all. We were charged with discrimination, and we proved in court that we did not discriminate.”
Mr. Trump and his father, Fred C. Trump, the principal stockholder and corporate board chairman, are named as defendants.
Trump said the federal government was trying to force him to rent to welfare recipients.
June 1975: Trump Management agrees not to discriminate against renters of color:
In the aftermath, the Trumps signed an agreement in 1975 agreeing not to discriminate to renters of color without admitting to discriminating before.
6 March 1978: Trump is charged…again…with Rental Bias:
The Federal Government charges Trump Management with continuing to discriminate against blacks.
In a motion for supplemental relief filed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, the civil rights division of the Justice Department said that officers and agents of Trump Management have not complied with a June 1975 court order by continuing to deny apartments to black persons because of race.
The court papers, submitted by an assistant district attorney, Homer C. LaRue, also charged that the company discriminated against blacks in the terms and conditions of rental, made statements indicating discrimination based on race, and told blacks that apartments were not available for inspection and rental when, in fact, they were.
Roy M. Cohn, a lawyer for Trump Managament, said, “The Trumps performed so perfectly under two‐year consent decree, which expired last June, that the Government made no move to extend it. Today’s motion is nothing more than a rehash of complaints by a couple of planted malcontents, not’. one of which has the slightest merit.”
The court papers stated that the Government had informed the real‐state company of complaints made against it. “While Trump has, in some instances, accommodated the needs of individual complainants,” the papers stated, “it has not taken adequate action to prevent future violations.”
As a result, Mr. LaRue said, the Government is asking steps “to ensure realistic opportunity to nonwhite citizens to rent dwellings in predominately white, buildings.” It also is asking compensation for individual victims of discrimination and that Trump be required to continue to report to the court and to the Department of Justice on its compliance.
1980: Kip Brown accuses Trump Organization of Discrimination:
Kip Brown, a former employee at Trump’s Castle, accuses Trump’s businesses of discrimination.
“When Donald and Ivana came to the casino, the bosses would order all the black people off the floor,” Brown said. “It was the eighties, I was a teenager, but I remember it: They put us all in the back.”
16 October 1983: Trump properties remain 95% White:
From the New York Times:
Paul Davidoff, director of the Metropolitan Action Institute, a nonprofit fair-housing group, cited Brightwater Towers, Bayridge Towers and two Trump Village facilities as among those with small percentages of nonwhite tenants. Brightwater and the Trump developments both have white majorities of at least 95 percent, according to estimates by the Division of Housing and Community Renewal. In his report, Mr. Davidoff charged that blacks accounted for only 21 percent of the ‘’minority’’ category at Starrett because of the development’s Hispanic, Asian, Indian, and other nonwhite residents. ‘’The disparity understates the impact of the racial quota on black families in Brooklyn, where blacks alone comprise 30 percent of the population,’’ Mr. Davidoff said. ‘’Likewise, the supply of housing available to blacks is artificially restricted and hightens the impact of a ceiling racial quota on black housing choice.’’
5 June 1988: Trump bashes Japan in a commencement address:
Donald Trump was the speaker at Lehigh University’s 1988 commencement. In a speech that appears to have been pretty rambling — shock — he spent some time saying that countries like Japan were bullies who were “stripping the United States of economic dignity.”
From an article about the speech in the local paper the Morning Call:
“Country-wide, we have serious problems,” he said. “So many countries are whipping America . . . making billions and stripping the United States of economic dignity. I respect the Japanese, but we have to fight back.”
He related an experience with a Japanese business tycoon who brought several henchmen and an aggressive attitude into Trump’s New York office. The man, Trump said, slammed his fist on his desk and demanded: ‘We want real estate!’
“His level of intensity was incredible. When you’re (working in) the New York real estate markets, you’re dealing with some rough people. He made them look like babies. What happens to the country when this guy goes to the state department? His country . . . totally outsmarted our stupid politicians.”
19 April 1989 (18:00): What would become known as the “Central Park Five” attacks occur:
Trisha Meili is attacked while jogging in Manhattan’s Central Park. She is stabbed five times, raped, sodomized, and almost beaten to death.
19 April 1989 (19:15): First arrests made in the “Central Park Five” attacks:
Police apprehend Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson along with other teenagers at approximately 10:15 on Central Park West and 102nd Street.
Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Korey Wise are brought in for questioning, after having been identified by other youths as participants in the attacks.
19 April 1989 (22:30): Trisha Meili is found:
Trisha Meili is found naked, gagged, tied up, and covered in mud and blood. She is in a shallow ravine in a wooded area of the park about 300 feet north of 102nd Street.
She is suffering severe hypothermia, severe brain damage, hemorrhagic shock, and loss of 75–80 percent of her blood from five deep stab wounds and a gash on one of her thighs, and internal bleeding. Her skull is so badly fractured that her left eye had dislodged from its socket, which in turn was fractured in 21 places, and she suffered as well from facial fractures.
Meili is given last rites. The police initially list the attack as a probable homicide.
1 May 1989: Trump runs an ad against the Central Park Five:
Trump runs an ad (above) in local papers demanding, “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!”
1 May 1989: Trisha Meili recovers from her coma:
Trisha Meili comes out of her coma 12 days after her attack. She would spend seven weeks at Metropolitan Hospital in East Harlem. She is unable to talk, read, or walk.
17 May 1989: Trump in 1989 Central Park Five interview: “Maybe hate is what we need”:
Donald Trump this week stood by his controversial role in pushing for the death penalty following New York City’s infamous 1989 “Central Park Five” case, telling CNN’s Miguel Marquez, “They admitted they were guilty.”
In an interview with Larry King in 1989 unearthed from CNN’s archives, Trump laid out his position, telling King, “maybe hate is what we need if we’re gonna get something done.” Delivering a similar message to one he takes on the campaign trail today, Trump also advocated for more protections for police.
The case involved five teenage boys of color, who were wrongly accused and convicted of beating and raping a woman in Central Park. Trump purchased full-page ads that ran in several New York City newspapers that read,”Bring Back The Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!”
In the interview with King, Trump defended the ads.
“I don’t see anything inciteful, I am strongly in favor of the death penalty,” Trump told King. “I am also in favor bringing back police forces that can do something instead of turning their back because every quality lawyer that represents people that are trouble, the first thing they do is start shouting police brutality, etc.”
“I have never done anything that’s caused a more positive stir. I’ve had 15,000–15,000 — letters in the last week and a half,” continued Trump. “I don’t know of more than two or three that were negative out of 15,000. The ad’s basically very strong and vocal, they are saying bring back law and order. And I’m not just referring to New York, I’m referring to everything.”
13 September 1989: Trump makes racial comments on the NBC Show The R.A.C.E.:
On NBC in an interview with Bryant Gumbel, Trump says:
“I think sometimes a black may think they don’t have an advantage or this and that. I’ve said on one occasion, even about myself, if I were starting off today, I would love to be a well-educated black, because I really believe they do have an actual advantage.”
August 1990: Rulings made in first Trial in the Central Park Jogger case:
Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, and Raymond Santana are acquitted of attempted murder, but convicted of rape, assault, robbery, and riot in the attacks on Trisha Meili and others in Central Park that night.
All three receive the maximum sentence allowed for juveniles, 5–10 years in a youth correctional facility.
December 1990: Convictions in the Second Central Park Jogger trial:
Kevin Richardson, 14 years old at the time of the crime, is convicted of attempted murder, rape, assault, and robbery in the attacks on the joggers and others in the park, and sentenced to 5–10 years.
Korey Wise, 16 years old at the time of the crime, is convicted of sexual abuse, assault, and riot in the attack on the jogger and others in the park, and sentenced to 5–15 years.
After the verdict, Korey Wise shouts at the prosecutor:
“You’re going to pay for this. Jesus is going to get you. You made this up.”
1991: Trump seems to have big (i.e. racist) problem with black accountants:
A book by John O’Donnell, former president of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, quoted Trump’s criticism of a black accountant:
“Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. … I think that the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault, because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not anything they can control.”
Trump would later deny the remarks, but in a 1997 Playboy interview he admitted that “the stuff O’Donnell wrote about me is probably true.”
31 October 1991: Mary Anne Trump is mugged:
Mary Anne MacLeod is mugged while shopping on Union Turnpike near her home. She is thrown down onto the sidewalk after her purse is taken. She sustains broken ribs, facial bruises, several fractures, a brain hemorrhage, and permanent damage to her sight and hearing.
A delivery truck driver Lawrence Herbert apprehends her 16-year-old assailant, Paul LoCasto, for which he was later rewarded by Donald Trump with a check that kept him from losing his home to a foreclosure.
19 October 1992: Trump loses a discrimination suit:
The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino has lost a bid to overturn a $200,000 penalty imposed because managers catered to the presumed prejudices of a high roller by removing a black dealer from his table.
A New Jersey appeals court upheld a ruling by the Casino Control Commission.
6 October 2000: Trump is fined for racist ads against the St. Regis Mohawk Indian tribe:
Donald Trump joins a lobbying campaign to keep the New York state legislature from allowing the St. Regis Mohawk tribe to build a casino in the Catskills. (A casino in the Catskills would draw business away from Trump’s casinos in Atlantic City.) As part of the campaign, Trump secretly bankrolls a series of ads that appeared in upstate New York newspapers fear-mongering about the St. Regis Mohawks and crime:
Are these the new neighbors we want? The St. Regis Mohawk Indian record of criminal activity is well documented. This proposed Monticello Indian Casino will bring increased crime and violence to Sullivan County.
Call Governor Pataki today at (518) 474–8390. Tell him you don’t want Indian gambling in Sullivan County.
Trump ended up paying $250,000 for failing to tell the state lobbying commission that he’d been behind the ad campaign, and another $50,000 on a new series of ads acknowledging he’d paid for the first ones.
2002: Matias Reyes confesses to the assault and rape of Trisha Meili:
Convicted serial rapist and murderer Matias Reyes, already serving a life sentence for other crimes, declares that he was 17 years old on the night of April 19, 1989 when he assaulted and raped Trisha Meili. He said that he had acted alone. At the time of the attack, he was working at an East Harlem bodega on Third Avenue and 102nd Street, and living in a van on the street.
He provides a detailed account of the attack, details of which were corroborated by other evidence. The DNA evidence confirms his participation in the rape, identifying him as the sole contributor of the semen found in and on the victim “to a factor of one in 6,000,000,000 people”.
DNA analysis of the strands of hair found in Kevin Richardson’s underpants established that the hair did not belong to the victim. The victim had been tied up with her T-shirt in a distinctive fashion that Reyes used again on later victims.
2002: New York City commissions the Armstrong Report:
New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly commissions three lawyers to review the Central Park Jogger case. The panel was made up of:
- Michael F. Armstrong, the former chief counsel to the Knapp Commission that had investigated New York City police corruption in the 1970s.
- Jules Martin, a New York University Vice President.
- Stephen Hammerman, deputy police commissioner for legal affairs.
23 October 2002: Trump continues to draw criticism for the Ad:
On May 1, 1989, Donald J. Trump took out full-page advertisements in four New York newspapers calling for the return of the death penalty. Mr. Trump said he wanted the ‘’criminals of every age’’ who were accused of beating and raping a jogger in Central Park 12 days earlier ‘’to be afraid.’’
Thirteen years later, as new evidence raises the possibility that the five teenagers convicted in the attack had nothing to do with it, their supporters are focusing some of their fiercest anger at Mr. Trump.
‘’Trump is a chump!’’ protesters shouted during a recent demonstration, accusing Mr. Trump of, at least, further inflaming passions and perhaps tainting the defendants’ future jurors. Some called him a racist. Supporters of the Central Park defendants have demanded an apology.
One does not appear to be forthcoming.
‘’No,’’ Mr. Trump said yesterday. ‘’They confessed. Now they say they didn’t do it. Who am I supposed to believe?’’
The lingering anger over the ad underscores the powerful emotions unleashed by the case 13 years ago, and by its sudden re-emergence at the forefront of public debate. Just as the case came to symbolize the feeling of vulnerability among New Yorkers, especially white New Yorkers, the ad seems to represent, for its detractors, the perceived rush to judgment against five black youths. The text of the ad is misremembered at times, with protesters quoting words like ‘’animals’’ and ‘’wilding’’ that did not actually appear in it.
In 1989, Mr. Trump paused in building his real estate empire to run the 600-word ad in The New York Times, The Daily News, The New York Post and New York Newsday, at a total cost of $85,000, under the boldfaced heading, ‘’Bring Back the Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!’’
In the ad, Mr. Trump said Mayor Edward I. Koch had stated ‘’that hate and rancor should be removed from our hearts,’’ to which Mr. Trump replied: ‘’I do not think so. I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes.’’ At the time, the attack victim was still in a coma.
The ad does not name any defendant, instead referring collectively to ‘’roving bands of wild criminals.’’
The five young men confessed, four of them on videotape, and served prison sentences. But last January, a convicted murderer, Matias Reyes, announced that he alone had raped the jogger and that the teens who had confessed had not been present. DNA tests linked Mr. Reyes to semen on the jogger’s sock. Lawyers for the original defendants have called for their exoneration, and a report from the Manhattan district attorney’s office on the new evidence is due in court on Dec. 5.
‘’At the time there seemed to be very little question, but all of a sudden this seems to come up,’’ Mr. Trump said. ‘’I do have tremendous respect for the district attorney, and I’m sure the right answer will come out.’’
The confessions mystify him, he said. ‘’Why did they confess to the crime?’’
Michael W. Warren, a lawyer for the men, said there was a growing resentment for Mr. Trump’s advertisement.
‘’It was outrageous,’’ Mr. Warren said, ‘’the manner that Mr. Trump used to engage in his own personal form of rhetoric. A lot of people felt it colored the eyes of prospective jurors who ultimately sat on the case. Now it’s even more appalling, with new evidence that points exclusively to another person. I think Donald Trump at the very least owes a real apology to this community and to the young men and their families.’’
Carol Taylor, a writer and demonstrator at the recent rallies, was not surprised at Mr. Trump’s recent comments. ‘’Of course he won’t apologize, because he’s a rich white colorist male who is wallowing in the unearned privilege of his white skin color,’’ she said. On Monday, she held a sign that said: ‘’Donald Trump, don’t be a chump. For dissing black boys so bad, where’s your full-page apology ad?’’
A protest is planned near the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Midtown on Sunday. ‘’I’ll be there. I think I’ll make my sign bigger,’’ Ms. Taylor said.
Mr. Trump shrugged off the planned protest. ‘’I don’t mind if they picket. I like pickets.’’
5 December 2002: New York District Attorney recommends vacating the “Central Park Five’s” convictions:
Matias Reyes’s confession, plus DNA evidence confirming his participation in the rape, led the office of District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau to recommend vacating the convictions of the defendants originally found guilty and sentenced to prison.
19 December 2002: The Central Park Five’s convictions are vacated:
The five defendants’ convictions are vacated by New York Supreme Court Justice Charles J. Tejada. As Morgenthau recommended, Tejada’s order vacates the convictions for all the crimes of which the defendants had been convicted. The defendants had completed their prison sentences at the time of the order, so the effect was only to clear their names.
All five were removed from New York State’s sex offender registry.
2003: The Armstrong Report on the Central Park Jogger Case is issued:
The Armstrong panel issues a 43 page report which disputes Matias Reyes’s claim that he alone had raped the jogger. It insists there was “nothing but his uncorroborated word” that he acted alone. “The word of a serial rapist killer is not something to be heavily relied upon.” The report concludes that the five men whose convictions had been vacated had “most likely” participated in the beating and rape of the jogger and that the “most likely scenario” was that “both the defendants and Reyes assaulted her, perhaps successively.”
The report said Reyes had most likely “either joined in the attack as it was ending or waited until the defendants had moved on to their next victims before descending upon her himself, raping her and inflicting upon her the brutal injuries that almost caused her death.”
As to the five defendants, the report said:
We believe the inconsistencies contained in the various statements were not such as to destroy their reliability. On the other hand, there was a general consistency that ran through the defendants’ descriptions of the attack on the female jogger: she was knocked down on the road, dragged into the woods, hit and molested by several defendants, sexually abused by some while others held her arms and legs, and left semiconscious in a state of undress.
“It seems impossible to say that they weren’t there at all, because they knew too much,” Armstrong would later say in an interview.
This is probably the weak reed Trump uses to maintain that the Central Park Five are still guilty.
2003: The Central Park Five sue the City of New York:
In 2003, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana Jr., and Antron McCray sue the city for $250 million for malicious prosecution, racial discrimination, and emotional distress.
The city would refuse to settle the suits, saying that “the confessions that withstood intense scrutiny, in full and fair pretrial hearings and at two lengthy public trials” established probable cause. Mind you, the New York Supreme Court has already vacated their convictions.
New York City lawyers under then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg felt they would win the case.
2004: Trump fires a black Apprentice contestant for being “overeducated”:
In season two of The Apprentice, contestant Kevin Allen, who holds degrees from Wharton Business School, Emory, and the University of Chicago, was given a challenge involving selling candy bars outside a subway station. Shortly after that, he was fired — for being overeducated. One interviewer criticized Allen for being “like, the most educated person I’ve ever seen”; Trump said, “At some point you have to say, ‘That’s enough.’”
Here’s what Mark Harris, at Entertainment Weekly, wrote after the episode:
Just as we were asked to believe that the portrayal of season 1’s Omarosa and season 2’s Stacie J. as nutcases had nothing to do with playing into hair-trigger-sistah stereotypes, we’re now asked to take at face value the idea that Allen and last season’s African-American finalist, Kwame Jackson, were simply a little too smooth, intelligent, and driven to succeed. In other words, what The Apprentice is suggesting is that corporations run by white people don’t hire African Americans because the women are crazy and the men waste too darn much time getting educations.
2005: Trump pitches The Apprentice: Whites vs. Blacks:
Trump publicly pitches what was essentially The Apprentice: White People vs. Black People. He said he “wasn’t particularly happy” with the most recent season of his show, so he was considering “an idea that is fairly controversial — creating a team of successful African Americans versus a team of successful whites.
4 November 2008: Barack Obama is elected President of the United States:
Barack Obama wins the presidency with 365 electoral votes to 173 received by Senator John McCain of Arizona.
Obama wins 52.9% of the popular vote to McCain’s 45.7%.
2009: Trump offers to buy the “Ground Zero Mosque” site:
As a municipal proposal to build a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan (known as Park51) becomes a national controversy, Donald Trump, opposes it calling Park51 “very insensitive” to the victims of 9/11 and “absolutely wrong.”
Trump’s arguments against the Park51 project during an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman follow pretty familiar anti-Muslim rhetoric:
Letterman fretted: “Does this suggest that we are in fact officially at war with Muslims?”
To which, Trump observed: “Well, somebody knocked down the World Trade Center.”
Letterman also sputtered: “I don’t believe, not having read the Koran, I don’t believe that part of that belief, that pursuit is here in your face, take a look at this, what do you think? What are you going to do?”
Trump, on to promote a new season of The Apprentice on NBC, retorted: “Well, somebody’s blowing us up. Somebody’s blowing up buildings, and somebody’s doing lots of bad stuff.”
Trump later wrote to one of the investors in the Park51 project, offering to buy him out — “not because I think the location is a spectacular one [because it is not] but because it will end a very serious, inflammatory, and highly divisive situation that is destined, in my opinion, to only get worse.”
The offer is rejected.
2011: Donald Trump starts attacking President Obama:
Donald Trump starts implying that President Obama wasn’t born in the U.S., and also claims that Obama wasn’t a good enough student to have gotten into Columbia for college or Harvard Law School. He demands that in addition to releasing the birth certificate Obama release his university transcripts.
As Huffington Post wrote of Donald Trump at the time:
“I heard he was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?” Trump said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I’m thinking about it, I’m certainly looking into it. Let him show his records.”[…] “I have friends who have smart sons with great marks, great boards, great everything and they can’t get into Harvard.”
10 February 2011: Donald Trump makes a speech at the 2011 CPAC Conference:
At the conference, where he teases his Presidential Run, he goes after Barack Obama’s intelligence:
“The people that went to school with (Barack Obama), they never saw him, they don’t know who he is.”
23 March 2011: Donald Trump makes another Birther Claim on “The View”:
Donald Trump:
“Why doesn’t he show his birth certificate? There’s something on that birth certificate that he doesn’t like.”
28 March 2011: Donald Trump makes another Birther Claim on Fox News:
Donald Trump:
“He’s spent millions of dollars trying to get away from this issue. Millions of dollars in legal fees trying to get away from this issue. And I’ll tell you what, I brought it up, just routinely, and all of a sudden a lot facts are emerging and I’m starting to wonder myself whether or not he was born in this country.”
30 March 2011: Donald Trump makes yet another Birther Claim on The Laura Ingraham Show:
Donald Trump:
“He doesn’t have a birth certificate, or if he does, there’s something on that certificate that is very bad for him. Now, somebody told me — and I have no idea if this is bad for him or not, but perhaps it would be — that where it says ‘religion,’ it might have ‘Muslim.’ And if you’re a Muslim, you don’t change your religion, by the way.”
30 March 2011: Another Trump Birther Claim:
From the Washington Post:
“I have a birth certificate. People have birth certificates. He doesn’t have a birth certificate. He may have one but there is something on that birth certificate — maybe religion, maybe it says he’s a Muslim, I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want that. Or, he may not have one.”
7 April 2011: Donald Trump makes still another Birther Claim on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe:
Donald Trump:
“His grandmother in Kenya said, ‘Oh, no, he was born in Kenya and I was there and I witnessed the birth.’ She’s on tape. I think that tape’s going to be produced fairly soon. Somebody is coming out with a book in two weeks, it will be very interesting.”
7 April 2011: Donald Trump goes Birther again on NBC’s “Today” show:
Donald Trump:
“I have people that have been studying [Obama’s birth certificate] and they cannot believe what they’re finding … I would like to have him show his birth certificate, and can I be honest with you, I hope he can. Because if he can’t, if he can’t, if he wasn’t born in this country, which is a real possibility … then he has pulled one of the great cons in the history of politics.”
Or from the Washington Post:
19 April 2011: Trump makes another Birther Claim:
Trump’s claim:
“Maybe I’m going to do the tax returns when Obama does his birth certificate. I may tie my tax returns. I’d love to give my tax returns. I may tie my tax returns into Obama’s birth certificate.”
27 April 2011: Trump makes another Birther Claim on CNN:
Trump’s claim:
“I’ve been told very recently, Anderson, that the birth certificate is missing. I’ve been told that it’s not there or it doesn’t exist. And if that’s the case, it’s a big problem.”
To his credit, Anderson Cooper shredded Trump on the question:
Cooper: You’ve said repeatedly that you have investigators in Hawaii looking into the president’s birth certificate that you’re looking into it very very strongly, that’s a quote. In another interview, you said that your investigators quote can’t believe what they’re finding. We’ve had a team in Hawaii, talking to everyone in the state health department to the school where Obama’s mother went, other families who were in the hospital at the same time as when he was born, none of them say they’ve been contacted by anyone working for you.
Trump: Well maybe they’re not saying and maybe they’re not contacting the same people Anderson. There’s a lot of people in Hawaii. And frankly it’s hard to believe he just doesn’t issue his birth certificate. It would be so easy to do if in fact he has one. And a birth certificate is not a certificate of live birth, which is a much much lower standard as you know.
Cooper: Can you name even one person your investigators have talked to? Just one?
Trump: It’s not appropriate.
Cooper: Just one?
Trump: It’s not appropriate Anderson, you would say the same thing if I asked you that question.
Cooper: Do you in fact have investigators on the ground?
Trump: Anderson, I told you, and you made two statements at the beginning, 100 percent correct. It’s 100 percent correct, of course I do. […]
Cooper: We’ve interviewed the former director of the Hawaii Department of Health, a Republican, one of two state officials who’s seen the original birth certificate in the Department of Health vault. She says she hasn’t been contacted by your people, isn’t that someone they should talk to if they’re there?
Trump: Well I’ve been told very recently, Anderson, that the birth certificate is missing. I’ve been told that’s it not there or it doesn’t exist. And if that’s the case it’s a big problem.
Cooper: Who told you that?
Trump: I just heard that two days ago from somebody.
Cooper: From your investigators?
Trump: I don’t want to say who but I’m told that it’s either not there or it’s missing. I feel badly about that because I’d love for him to produce the birth certificate so that you can fight one on one. If you look at what he’s doing on fuel prices, you can do a great fight one-on-one, you don’t need this issue.
25 April 2011: Trump asks “How’d Obama get into Ivies?”:
Donald Trump is upping the ante against President Barack Obama’s legitimacy, raising questions on Monday night about how the president was admitted to two Ivy League schools.
Trump openly questioned how Obama, who he said had been a “terrible student,” got accepted into Columbia University for undergraduate studies and then Harvard Law School.
“I heard he was a terrible student, terrible,” Trump told the Associated Press in an interview, a claim he’s made in the past but one he doubled down on by suggesting he’s probing that area of the president’s life.
“How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard? I’m thinking about it, I’m certainly looking into it. Let him show his records,” he said, without providing backup for his claim.
Trump added, “I have friends who have smart sons with great marks, great boards, great everything and they can’t get into Harvard.”
“We don’t know a thing about this guy,” Trump said. “There are a lot of questions that are unanswered about our president.”
2012: Trump again considers a Presidential run:
According to Roger Stone, Donald Trump again considers running for president.
Stone becomes a consultant.
24 May 2012: Donald Trump makes another Birther Claim with The Daily Beast:
Donald Trump:
“He didn’t know he was running for president, so he told the truth. The literary agent wrote down what he said … He said he was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia … Now they’re saying it was a mistake. Just like his Kenyan grandmother said he was born in Kenya, and she pointed down the road to the hospital, and after people started screaming at her, she said, ‘Oh, I mean Hawaii.’ Give me a break.”
29 May 2012: Donald Trump makes another Birther Claim with Wolf Blitzer:
Donald Trump:
“A lot of people do not think it was an authentic certificate. … Many people do not think it was authentic. His mother was not in the hospital. There are many other things that came out. And frankly if you would report it accurately I think you’d probably get better ratings than you’re getting.”
6 August 2012: Donald Trump makes another Birther Claim in a Tweet:
Donald Trump:
“An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama’s birth certificate is a fraud.”
24 October 2012: Donald Trump Tells Forbes Why He’s Offering $5 Million For Obama’s Records:
On Wednesday at noon, Donald Trump posted a YouTube video making President Obama an offer he can’t refuse, to use a cliche not far removed from the real estate mogul’s own words.
The billionaire birther has given the President a week to produce his college records and passport applications in return for a $5 million donation to the charity of Obama’s choice. Trump has long claimed the American public knows little of the President’s background and says this move will put the issue to rest.
Forbes called The Donald a few minutes after his announcement, which caused a predictable collective eye-roll among media types on Twitter. Trump denied his Obama ultimatum is in any way self-serving, nor intended to generate publicity for himself or the upcoming season of his NBC show Celebrity Apprentice.
“This should be seen as a positive for Obama,” Trump told us. “There’s a huge cloud hanging over this presidency. This could be solved in a positive and easy manner.”
Trump was less forthcoming when asked why he didn’t take the traditional route of the super-rich and donate his $5 million to one of the many right-leaning super PACs propping up Mitt Romney’s election bid.
He hasn’t given any money to Romney-backing super PAC Restore Our Future. To date, 38 other billionaires have. He has, however, co-hosted and attended fundraisers for the GOP hopeful.
2013: Bill de Blasio pledges to settle with the Central Park Five:
While running for mayor of New York City in 2013, Bill de Blasio pledges to settle with the Central Park Five if he were to win the Mayoral election.
August 2013: Donald Trump makes another Birther Claim on ABC News:1
Donald Trump:
“Was it a birth certificate? You tell me. Some people say that was not his birth certificate. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. I’m saying I don’t know. Nobody knows.”
12 December 2013: Donald Trump makes another Birther Claim in a Tweet about the death of Hawaii State Health Director Loretta Fuddy:
Donald Trump:
“How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s ‘birth certificate’ died in plane crash today. All others lived.”
May 2014: Donald Trump makes another Birther Claim in Ireland:
In an interview with TV3’s Colette Fitzpatrick in Ireland, Donald Trump first contests whether Obama had released his birth certificate, then questioned whether its legitimacy.:
“Well, I don’t know — did he do it? … Well, a lot of people don’t agree with you and a lot of people feel it wasn’t a proper certificate.”
27 May 2014: Donald Trump makes another Birther Claim at the National Press Club (and also praises Putin):
Donald Trump:
“There are three things that could happen. And one of them did happen. He was perhaps born in Kenya. Very simple, OK? He was perhaps born in this country. But said he was born in Kenya because if you say you were born in Kenya, you got aid and you got into colleges. People were doing that. So perhaps he was born in this country, and that has a very big chance. Or, you know, who knows?”
He also mentions:
“I own the Miss Universe [pageant]. I was in Russia. I was in Moscow recently. And I spoke indirectly and directly with President Putin who could not have been nicer. And we had a tremendous success.”
Just wanted to add that last bit in there.
20 June 2014: Donald Trump writes an Op-Ed calling the Central Park Five settlement is a ‘disgrace’:
Trump writes (or has someone write for him):
My opinion on the settlement of the Central Park Jogger case is that it’s a disgrace. A detective close to the case, and who has followed it since 1989, calls it “the heist of the century.”
Settling doesn’t mean innocence, but it indicates incompetence on several levels. This case has not been dormant, and many people have asked why it took so long to settle? It is politics at its lowest and worst form.
What about the other people who were brutalized that night, in addition to the jogger?
One thing we know is that the amount of time, energy and money that has been spent on this case is unacceptable. The justice system has a lot to answer for, as does the City of New York regarding this very mishandled disaster. Information was being leaked to newspapers by someone on the case from the beginning, and the blunders were frequent and obvious.
As a long-time resident of New York City, I think it is ridiculous for this case to be settled — and I hope that has not yet taken place.
Forty million dollars is a lot of money for the taxpayers of New York to pay when we are already the highest taxed city and state in the country. The recipients must be laughing out loud at the stupidity of the city.
Speak to the detectives on the case and try listening to the facts. These young men do not exactly have the pasts of angels.
What about all the people who were so desperately hurt and affected? I hope it’s not too late to continue to fight and that this unfortunate event will not have a repeat episode any time soon — or ever.
As citizens and taxpayers, we deserve better than this.
5 September 2014: The City of New York settles with the Central Park Five:
A settlement in the case for $41 million, supported by Mayor De Blasio, is approved by a federal judge on September 5, 2014.[73] Santana, Salaam, McCray, and Richardson each receive $7.1 million from the city for their years in prison, while Wise will receive $12.2 million. The city does not admit to any wrongdoing in the settlement.
As of December 2014, the five men are still pursuing an additional $52 million in damages from New York State in the New York Court of Claims, before Judge Alan Marin.
30 December 2014: Rep. Steve Scalise: I might have attended white supremacist event:
Majority Whip Steve Scalise says he abhors hate groups, but acknowledged on Monday that he may have spoken at a white supremacist conference led by the notorious former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke in 2002.
“I didn’t know who all of these groups were and I detest any kind of hate group,” Scalise, the third highest-ranking Republican leader in the House, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “For anyone to suggest that I was involved with a group like that is insulting and ludicrous.”
The interview came hours after Scalise’s office acknowledged that a report claiming that the Louisiana congressman spoke at a gathering of the Duke-run European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO) as a state legislator in 2002 could be accurate. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist organizations, has listed EURO as a “white nationalist” hate group.
According to NBC News, an aide to Scalise said it was “highly likely” the Congressman spoke before the group, but Scalise told the Times-Picayune he had no memory of the event in question. He blamed a combination overzealous campaigning and an overworked staff for his alleged appearance.
“I don’t support any of the things I have read about this group, but I spoke to a lot of groups during that period. I went all throughout South Louisiana,” Scalise said. “I spoke to the League of Women Voters, a pretty liberal group … I still went and spoke to them. I spoke to any group that called, and there were a lot of groups calling.”
16 December 2014: Trump claims Obama does nothing all day:
Trump Tweets:
16 June 2015: Trump Announces His Candidacy; Secret Trump Tower-Moscow Discussions Continue:
Trump announces he is running for president.
Trump later tells his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, that Trump Tower-Moscow discussions “were going on from the day I announced to the day I won [the election].” (The day after Giuliani quotes Trump to the Times, he issues a statement saying that his comments “were hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the President.” The following day, Giuliani admits that the Trump Tower-Moscow project continued into 2016, but denies quoting Trump as saying that the discussions were ongoing to Election Day. “I did not say that,” he insists.)
Felix Sater says he eventually gave up on the project in December 2016.
31 July 2015: Sam Nunberg is revealed to have a history of provocative and racial Facebook posts:
Donald Trump isn’t the only person associated with his presidential campaign who has a tendency to make controversial comments about minorities.
Sam Nunberg, one of Trump’s political advisers, has a personal Facebook page that features notes he’s posted since 2007.
These updates, which are riddled with grammatical and spelling errors, contain many racially charged statements including one instance on August 25, 2007, where Nunberg wrote about calling Rev. Al Sharpton’s daughter “N — -!”
1 August 2015: Trump campaign fires Nunberg over Facebook posts:
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said Sunday it fired a staffer after racially charged Facebook posts he allegedly wrote were uncovered Friday.
Effective immediately, Sam Nunberg, a Trump political adviser, is “no longer associated with the Donald J. Trump for president campaign,” Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski confirmed to CNN.
The news of Nunberg’s firing was initially reported by Mark Halperin of Bloomberg Politics.
Nunberg allegedly wrote racially charged and disparaging political posts dating back to 2007, including one calling civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton’s daughter a “N — !” and another calling President Barack Obama a “Socialist Marxist Islamo Fascist Nazi Appeaser,” Business Insider reported Friday. Nunberg is denying he wrote the posts.
Lewandowski told CNN on Friday that the posts are “offensive” and said Nunberg would be fired if he indeed wrote those posts.
“They were offensive and they do not reflect Mr. Trump’s position and we take them very seriously,” he said. “If it determined that Mr. Nunberg made these statements then he will no longer be part of the campaign.”
Lewandowski said he oversees “personnel decisions” as campaign manager and promised a “swift decision” once he can verify whether or not Nunberg authored the posts.
Nunberg denied he wrote the posts and said “anything that was posted under my name does not mean I posted it.”
“I am not adept at social media,” he told CNN on Friday. “I have a long record of working with diverse people. And anything you are reporting on does not reflect anything on Mr. Trump or Mr. Trump’s campaign. I would also point out that all of these things were done before Mr. Trump’s campaign, if I even did them — which I deny. In any event, this is the problem with politics … Politics as usual is wrong.”
19 August 2015: Homeless Man beaten by Trump Supporters:
In Boston, after he and his brother beat a sleeping homeless man of Mexican descent with a metal pole, Steven Leader, 30, told police “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported.”
The victim, however, was not in the United States illegally. The brothers, who are white, ultimately pleaded guilty to several assault-related charges and were each sentenced to at least two years in prison.
21 August 2015: Jeff Sessions makes a surprise appearance at a Trump Rally:
Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions makes a surprise appearance at a Donald Trump rally, donning a “Make America Great” Cap.
September 2015: Trump agrees with a supporter than Muslims are a problem:
At a campaign rally, Trump nods along as a supporter says “we have a problem in this country; it’s called Muslims.”
Trump answers him saying “right,” and “we need this question!” as the supporter then proceeded to ask Trump “when can we get rid of them [Muslims]?” In response, Trump said: “We’re going to be looking at a lot of different things.”
October 21, 2015: Netanyahu: Hitler Didn’t Want to Exterminate the Jews:1
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparks a public uproar when he claims that the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was the one who planted the idea of the extermination of European Jewry in Adolf Hitler’s mind. The Nazi ruler, Netanyahu said, had no intention of killing the Jews, but only to expel them.
In a speech before the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, Netanyahu described a meeting between Husseini and Hitler in November, 1941: “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jew. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here (to Palestine).’ According to Netanyahu, Hitler then asked: “What should I do with them?” and the mufti replied: “Burn them.”
Netanyahu’s remarks were quick to spark a social media storm, though Netanyahu made a similar claim during a Knesset speech in 2012, where he described the Husseini as “one of the leading architects” of the final solution.
The claim that Husseini was the one to initiate the extermination of European Jewry had been suggested by a number of historians at the fringes of Holocaust research, but was rejected by most accepted scholars.
The argument concerning Husseini’s role was recently mentioned in a book by Barry Rubin and Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, “Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East.” The authors, like Netanyahu, draw a straight line between the mufti’s support of Hitler and the policy of the Palestinian Liberation Organization under Yasser Arafat.
But even these two researchers do not claim that the dialogue described by Netanyahu ever took place. They say Hitler reached the conclusion to exterminate the Jews because of his desire to nurture Husseini, who opposed the transfer of Jews to pre-state Israel.
November 2015: Trump wants to watch the mosques and track Muslims:
On “Morning Joe,” Trump says that America needs to “watch and study the mosques.”
Four days later, he indicated that he would “certainly implement” a database to track Muslims in the United States.
Two days after that, he falsely claims that “thousands and thousands” of Muslims cheered in New Jersey when the World Trade Center collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.
5 December 2015: Trump Supporter threatens Indian Man on Campus:
After Penn State University student Nicholas Tavella, 19, was charged with “ethnic intimidation” and other crimes for threatening to “put a bullet” in a young Indian man on campus, his attorney argued in court that Tavella was just motivated by “a love of country,” not “hate.”
“Donald Trump is running for President of the United States saying that, ‘We’ve got to check people out more closely,’” Tavella’s attorney argued in his defense. Tavella, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to ethnic intimidation and was sentenced to up to two years in prison.
7 December 2015: Donald Trump creates his proposed “Muslim Ban”:
Donald Trump calls to ban all Muslims from entering the United States.
10 December 2015: Trump tweets out more Islamophobia:
Trump tweets that the United Kingdom is “trying hard to disguise their massive Muslim problem.”
6 January 2016: Donald Trump makes another Birther Claim on CNN:
Donald Trump:
“Who knows about Obama? … Who knows, who knows? Who cares right now?… I have my own theory on Obama. Someday I will write a book, I will do another book, and it will do very successfully.”
1 February 2016: Trump urges crowd to ‘knock the crap out of’ anyone with tomatoes:
Donald Trump offered his supporters some advice just hours ahead of Monday night’s caucuses: If you see someone about to throw a tomato, “knock the crap” out of him.
“This is the day we take our country back,” Trump told the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, crowd before noting the security presence at the rally. “So I get a little notice, in case you see the security guys. We have wonderful security guys. They said, ‘Mr. Trump, there may be somebody with tomatoes in the audience.’”
“So if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of ’em, would you? Seriously,” Trump said to cheers from the audience. “Just knock the hell — I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise. I promise. It won’t be so much because the courts agree with us, too.”
A man allegedly tossed two tomatoes at Trump during an Iowa City rally last week. He was arrested by University of Iowa police and charged with disorderly conduct.
19 February 2016: Trump tells story about killing terrorists with bullets dipped in pigs’ blood, though there’s no proof of it:
To explain his support for waterboarding and other heavy-handed interrogation tactics, Donald Trump told a rally audience a story Friday night that involved U.S. Gen. John J. Pershing, a terrorist attack in the Philippines more than a century ago, 50 terrorists and bullets dipped in pigs’ blood.
It’s a tale that has circulated on the Internet for years — and is most likely not true.
The story came up as Trump reiterated his support for waterboarding, the advanced interrogation technique that the Obama administration considers torture and has ceased using. Earlier this week, Trump said he supports this controversial method, along with those that are “much worse,” because “torture works.” Proponents of waterboarding have long been careful to not label it as torture, which is strictly forbidden by U.S. and international law.
“The big question is: Is it torture or not?” Trump said at a rally at a convention center here, the night before the South Carolina primary. “It’s so borderline. It’s like your minimal, minimal, minimal torture.”
Trump criticized his Republican rivals for not embracing waterboarding as enthusiastically as he has, which he says sends the wrong message to terrorists who use barbaric techniques like chopping off the heads of their foes.
“You know, I read a story — it’s a terrible story, but I’ll tell you,” Trump said. “Should I tell you? Or should I not?”
As the crowd cheered him on, Trump told them about Pershing — “rough guy, rough guy” — who was fighting terrorism in the early 1900s. Trump didn’t say where this happened, but variations of this story online usually state that it happened in the Philippines during the Philippine-American War — part of the island nation’s protracted battle for independence — early in Pershing’s career.
“They were having terrorism problems, just like we do,” Trump said. “And he caught 50 terrorists who did tremendous damage and killed many people. And he took the 50 terrorists, and he took 50 men and he dipped 50 bullets in pigs’ blood — you heard that, right? He took 50 bullets, and he dipped them in pigs’ blood. And he had his men load his rifles, and he lined up the 50 people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person, he said: You go back to your people, and you tell them what happened. And for 25 years, there wasn’t a problem. Okay? Twenty-five years, there wasn’t a problem.”
At one point in telling this story, Trump said: “By the way, this is something you can read in the history books — not a lot of history books because they don’t like teaching this.”
Although Trump never used the word “Muslim” in this story, he was clearly referring to Muslim terrorists and at one point commented: “There’s a whole thing with swine and animals and pigs, and — you know the story, you know they don’t like that.” Pigs are deemed impure by the Koran.
Trump finished the story with this message: “So we better start getting tough, and we better start getting vigilant, and we better start using our heads, or we’re not going to have a country, folks. We’re not going to have a country.”
A guy in the audience then shouted: “This is the greatest country in the world.”
While the story was well received by the cheering audience, it appears to be more of a military fable than a history lesson. The website snopes.com — which investigates urban legends, myths, rumors and pretty much anything forwarded in a chain email — could find little proof that the story is true.
There are several versions of the tale circulating, including one in which the prisoners were buried with dead pigs. The pigs’ blood on the bullets, according to at least one version, would keep a Muslim from entering heaven.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations denounced Trump’s remarks Saturday in a sharply worded statement that accused the billionaire of inciting anti-Muslim attacks. The group has frequently tussled with Trump over anti-Muslim rhetoric, including Trump’s call to temporary prevent all Muslims from entering the country.
“Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric has crossed the line from spreading hatred to inciting violence,” said Nihad Awad, national executive director of CAIR. “By directly stating that the only way to stop terrorism is to murder Muslims in graphic and religiously-offensive ways, he places the millions of innocent, law-abiding citizens in the American Muslim community at risk from rogue vigilantes.”
Republican presidential rival Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) called the story “bizarre” and questioned its historical authenticity.
“I’m sure people are offended — I hope people are offended by that. That’s not what the United States is about,” Rubio said on NBC’s “Today” show on Saturday morning. “Look, we’re in a very weird year here. And obviously things are going on, people are saying whatever they want in politics today and there seems to be no accountability.”
“The presidency is a serious job … and so I hope we can get this campaign back focused on the serious aspect of it and not the circus aspect of it,” Rubio added.
Trump’s campaign had yet to respond to a request for comment Saturday afternoon.
28 February 2016: Jeff Sessions endorses Donald Trump:
Jeff Sessions formally endorses Trump for president. He becomes a high-profile surrogate during the Republican primaries, and the campaign subsequently names him chair of Trump’s national-security advisory committee on March 3.
29 February 2016: Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim erupts in violence; 3 are stabbed and 13 arrested:
Three people were stabbed and 13 others were arrested when a Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim erupted in violence Saturday, Feb. 27, police said.
A small group of people representing the Klan had announced that it would hold a rally at Pearson Park at 1:30 p.m., police said. By 11 a.m., several dozen protesters had shown up to confront the Klan.
About an hour later, several men in black garb with Confederate flag patches arrived in an SUV near the edge of the park.
Fighting broke out moments after Klan members exited the vehicle. Some of the protesters could be seen kicking a man whose shirt read “Grand Dragon.” At some point, a protester collapsed on the ground bleeding, crying that he had been stabbed.
A Klansman in handcuffs could be heard telling a police officer that he “stabbed him in self-defense.” Several other people were also handcuffed.
Witnesses said the Klansmen used the point of a flagpole as a weapon while fighting with protesters.
Two other protesters were stabbed during the melee — one with a knife and the other with an unidentified weapon, said Sgt. Daron Wyatt of the Anaheim Police Department.
Brian Levin, director of Cal State San Bernardino’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, said he was standing near the KKK members when several protesters attacked them with two-by-fours and other weapons.
Several of the Klan members jumped in the SUV and sped off, leaving three others to “fend for themselves,” Levin said.
Levin had been trying to interview the KKK ringleader, whom he identified as William Quigg, an Anaheim resident.
9 March 2016: Trump broadcasts more Islamophobia:
Trump claims that “Islam hates us.”
11 March 2016: Trump supporters, protesters clash after Chicago rally postponed:
Donald Trump’s campaign on Friday postponed a rally in Chicago amid fights between supporters and demonstrators, protests in the streets and concerns that the environment at the event was no longer safe.
The announcement, which came amid large protests both inside and outside the event at the University of Illinois at Chicago, follows heightened concerns about violence in general at the GOP front-runner’s rallies. Illinois holds its Republican primary on Tuesday.
Hundreds of demonstrators packed into an arena, breaking out into protest even before Trump had shown up. At least five sections in the arena were filled with protesters.
“Mr. Trump just arrived in Chicago, and after meeting with law enforcement, has determined that for the safety of all of the tens of thousands of people that have gathered in and around the arena, tonight’s rally will be postponed to another date,” the Trump campaign said in a statement. “Thank you very much for your attendance and please go in peace.”
Several fistfights between Trump supporters and protesters could be seen after the announcement, as a large contingent of Chicago police officers moved in to restore order.
Supporters of Trump still inside chanted “We want Trump” after the event was canceled. Protesters, meanwhile, shouted “We shut s*** down” and “We stumped Trump.” Others chanted “Bernie” as supporters whipped out Bernie Sanders campaign signs.
29 March 2016: Erdogan’s first attack on journalists and protesters in Washington DC:
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s security detail attacked reporters and protesters at an event at which the Turkish president was speaking.
Turkish media and the president’s critics are by now used to such incidents, but they probably didn’t expect them to happen in Washington, D.C., where Erdogan was speaking at the Brookings Institution.
28 April 2016: Trump supporter threatens people over the election:
When FBI agents arrested 61-year-old John Martin Roos in White City, Oregon, for threatening federal officials, including then-President Barack Obama, they found several pipe bombs and guns in his home. In the three months before his arrest, Roos posted at least 34 messages to Twitter about Trump, repeatedly threatening African Americans, Muslims, Mexican immigrants and the “liberal media,” and in court documents, prosecutors noted that the avowed Trump supporter posted this threatening message to Facebook a month earlier:
“The establishment is trying to steal the election from Trump. … Obama is already on a kill list … Your [name] can be there too.”
Roos, who is white, has since pleaded guilty to possessing an unregistered explosive device and posting internet threats against federal officials. He was sentenced to more than five years in prison.
4 May 2016: George Papadopoulos Tells British Prime Minister David Cameron to apologize:
In an interview with The Times of London, George Papadopoulos calls on British Prime Minister David Cameron to apologize to Trump for calling him “divisive, stupid and wrong” in barring Muslims to the US through his travel ban. “Say sorry to Trump or risk special relationship, Cameron told,” the headline reads.
2 June 2016: Trump Says Judge’s Mexican Heritage Presents ‘Absolute Conflict’:
Donald Trump on Thursday escalated his attacks on the federal judge presiding over civil fraud lawsuits against Trump University, amid criticism from legal observers who say the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s comments are an unusual affront on an independent judiciary.
In an interview, Mr. Trump said U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel had “an absolute conflict” in presiding over the litigation given that he was “of Mexican heritage” and a member of a Latino lawyers’ association. Mr. Trump said the background of the judge, who was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrants, was relevant because of his campaign stance against illegal immigration and his pledge to seal the southern U.S. border. “I’m building a wall. It’s an inherent conflict of interest,” Mr. Trump said.
The New York businessman also alleged the judge was a former colleague and friend of one of the Trump University plaintiffs’ lawyers. The judge and the lawyer once worked together as federal prosecutors, but the lawyer, Jason Forge, in an interview said he had never seen the judge socially.
“Neither Judge Curiel’s ethnicity nor the fact that we crossed paths as prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office well over a decade ago is to blame” for Mr. Trump’s actions, said Mr. Forge, who is with the law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP.
An assistant in Judge Curiel’s chambers said he wasn’t commenting on the matter. An aide to the judge has previously said the judicial code of conduct prevents him from responding to Mr. Trump. Judge Curiel is an Obama nominee who has served on the district court in San Diego since the Senate confirmed him in 2012.
Judge Curiel’s older brother, Raul Curiel, a 67-year-old in Hammond, Ind., said his brother wasn’t fazed by Mr. Trump’s comments. “He’s taking it pretty much in stride,” the elder Mr. Curiel said.
For judges, being criticized for rulings comes with the territory, but court watchers say it is a degree far different when the critic could win the nation’s highest office, is involved in a pending case and references the judge’s ethnicity.
University of Pennsylvania law professor Stephen Burbank said it was “absolute nonsense” that the judge shouldn’t be able to preside over the case because of his ethnicity.
“If this continues, I would hope that some prominent federal judges would set Mr. Trump straight on what’s appropriate and what’s not in our democracy,” Mr. Burbank said.
26 June 2016: At least 10 hurt at chaotic, bloody neo-Nazi rally at Capitol:
A rally by a small group of neo-Nazi demonstrators at the state Capitol on Sunday erupted into a violent clash with protesters that left at least 10 people injured — five of them stabbed — and closed down streets as more than 100 police in riot gear and on horseback intervened to halt the mayhem.
Demonstrators battled with sticks, protest signs and other weapons as the Traditionalist Worker Party group — which said it wanted to assist supporters of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump — began setting up for a scheduled noon rally on the west steps of the Capitol.
Even before the event began, clashes broke out at numerous locations around the Capitol grounds among the 400 people gathered for and against the rally, which had been heavily promoted — and denounced — in recent days on various websites. Injuries were reported on both sides of the altercation.
“We had some pretty dynamic and chaotic situations,” said Sacramento Fire Department spokesman Chris Harvey, who arrived as a public information officer and quickly found himself working as a paramedic.
3 June 2016: Trump Supporter attacks African-American neighbors with a knife:
After 54-year-old Henry Slapnik attacked his African-American neighbors with a knife in Cleveland, he told police “Donald Trump will fix them because they are scared of Donald Trump,” according to police reports. Slapnik, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to “ethnic intimidation” and other charges. It’s unclear what sentence he received.
6 June 2016: Two new studies find racial anxiety is the biggest driver of support for Trump:
Observers trying to understand Donald Trump’s rise have traditionally pointed to two separate but equal drivers of the GOP presidential candidate’s popularity: economic and racial anxieties.
As David Roberts wrote in Vox at the end of last year: “Are Trump supporters driven by economic anxiety or racial resentment? Yes.”
More recent data is bringing the drivers of Trumpism into sharper focus, and what we’re seeing is striking: Racial attitudes may play a larger role in opinions toward Trump than once thought. Economic concerns, on the other hand, don’t seem to have as much of an impact on support for Trump.
Two recent studies bear this out. In the first, Hamilton College political scientist Philip Klinkner analyzed data from the 2016 American National Election Study (ANES) survey (a representative sample of 1,200 Americans) to compare feelings and attitudes toward Donald Trump and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. He explored how economic opinions, racial attitudes and demographic variables predicted an individual’s feelings toward Trump and Clinton. He found that one factor was much stronger than the other:
“My analysis indicates that economic status and attitudes do little to explain support for Donald Trump,” he wrote for Vox last week. More to the point, “those who express more resentment toward African Americans, those who think the word ‘violent’ describes Muslims well, and those who believe President Obama is a Muslim have much more positive views of Trump compared with Clinton,” Klinkner found.
28 July 2016: Khizr Khan gives his speech at the Democratic National Convention:
Khizr Khan, whose son Capt. Humayun Khan was killed during the Iraq War in 2004, gave an impassioned speech denouncing Trump on the final night of the Democratic National Convention — just an hour or so before Hillary Clinton took the stage.
Brandishing a pocket Constitution, Khan hammered Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering the U.S. and asked what Trump has sacrificed for his country.
“Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America,” Khan said, addressing Trump. “You will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”
Khan’s wife, Ghazala, stood by his side while he spoke but did not address the crowd.
The speech gained widespread buzz as one of the most compelling performances of the convention.
29 July 2016: Ghazala Khan responds to Trump’s comments on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell:
In an appearance on MSNBC’s “Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell,” Ghazala Khan explained why she did not speak during her husband’s speech.
She discussed her initial reluctance to appear on stage with her husband, describing her ongoing grief.
“I cannot even come in the room where his pictures are,” Ghazala Khan said. “That’s why when I saw the picture at my back [on stage in Philadelphia] I couldn’t take it, and I controlled myself at that time.”
30 July 2016: Trump attacks Ghazala Khan again:
Trump offered his first response to Khan’s speech in an interview with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos, segments of which were published Saturday afternoon.
The GOP candidate questioned why Ghazala Khan did not speak.
“If you look at his wife, she was standing there,” he said. “She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say.”
The remarks played to stereotypes about Muslim households by suggesting that Ghazala Khan might not have spoken because she was being subservient to her husband.
Trump also took on Khan’s criticism about sacrifices, saying he had made “a lot of sacrifices.” Pressed by Stephanopoulos, the real estate tycoon said that he had “created thousands and thousands of jobs” and “built great structures.”
31 July 2016: (9:30am) Trump defends himself against the Khans:
The full interview aired on national television at 9 a.m. EDT. At 9:30, Trump defended himself against the backlash that began brewing after the first clips were published the day before.
“I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan at the Democratic Convention. Am I not allowed to respond? Hillary voted for the Iraq war, not me!” he tweeted.
31 July 2016: Ghazala Khan writes an op-ed in the Washington Post:
In a Washington Post op-ed, Ghazala Khan wrote that it was “not true” that she wasn’t allowed to speak at Philadelphia. She chose not to, she explained, because she feared she would break down.
“My husband asked me if I wanted to speak, but I told him I could not,” she wrote.
“When Donald Trump is talking about Islam, he is ignorant. If he studied the real Islam and Koran, all the ideas he gets from terrorists would change, because terrorism is a different religion,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, Clinton offered her own criticism of Trump’s remarks during a church service in Cleveland.
“Mr. Khan paid the ultimate sacrifice in his family, didn’t he?” she said. “And what has he heard from Donald Trump? Nothing but insults and degrading comments about Muslims — a total misunderstanding of what made our country great, religious freedom, religious liberty. It’s enshrined in our Constitution, as Mr. Khan knows, because he’s actually read it.”
31 July 2016: (Mid-afternoon): The GOP Condemns Trumps remarks about the Khans:
The first statements from GOP leaders offering criticism of Trump’s remarks came by mid-afternoon, as the Trump-Khan fight made headlines around the country.
“I agree with the Khans and families across the country that a travel ban on all members of a religion is simply contrary to American values,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement that didn’t mention Trump’s name.
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) also didn’t mention Trump in a statement lauding Capt. Khan’s sacrifice and condemning a religious test for entering the country.
31 July 2016: (5:00 pm): Democrats press the attack on Trump over the Khans:
Democrats, sensing a political gift, sought to tie congressional Republicans to Trump on the issue.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called Ryan and McConnell “spineless” for refusing to revoke their endorsements of Trump.
“It took less than two days for Senator McConnell to call for then-Rep. Todd Akin to end his Senate campaign citing Akin’s ‘deeply offensive error at a time when his candidacy carries great consequence for the future of our country,’” Reid said, referring to a Missouri Senate candidate whose comments in 2012 on rape and abortion were widely condemned.
“Donald Trump’s candidacy carries even greater consequence, yet Senator McConnell remains silent,” he said.
Vice presidential candidate Mike Pence released a statement arguing that Trump’s policies — including “suspending immigration from countries compromised by terrorism” — will “reduce the likelihood that other American families will face the enduring heartbreak of the Khan family.”
31 July 2016: (10:40 pm): Some of Trump’s more racist supporters back Trump:
Several former Trump advisers and confidants, including strategist Roger Stone and New Hampshire state lawmaker Al Baldasaro, began offering support for Trump.
They did so in part by promoting an article from Shoebat.com, a fringe blog run by a purported former extremist, which claimed that Khizr Khan is “a Muslim Brotherhood agent who wants to advance Sharia law and bring Muslims into the United States.”
“Mr. Khan more than an aggrieved father of a Muslim son- he’s Muslim Brotherhood agent helping Hillary,” Stone tweeted that night, linking to the piece. Baldasaro linked to the same article Monday morning.
No evidence for that charge has been offered, and critics have repudiated the site and Stone and Baldasaro for engaging in conspiracy theories.
Meanwhile, the 52-page pocket version of the Constitution hit the №2 spot on Amazon.com’s best seller’s list — topped only by the new Harry Potter script, released Sunday.
1 August 2016: (7:10 am): Trump continues his attacks on the Khans:
Trump kept up his attacks on Khan, accusing the Marine’s father of “viciously attacking” him from the stage in Philadelphia.
“Mr. Khan, who does not know me, viciously attacked me from the stage of the DNC and is now all over T.V. doing the same — Nice!” he tweeted.
1 August 2016: (7:30 am): Trump says the real story is about Radical Islamic terrorism:
Trump tweeted that the media was getting the story wrong by focusing on Khan.
“This story is not about Mr. Khan, who is all over the place doing interviews, but rather RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM and the U.S. Get smart!” he tweeted.
1 August 2016: (8:30 am): McCain brushes back Trump over the Khans:
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, issued a 697-word statement saying that Trump does not speak for the Republican Party — leading some to speculate that he could be laying the groundwork for withdrawing his endorsement.
At around the same time, the Khans continued a media tour that had them appear on several morning news shows.
1 August 2016: (Midday): Jeb Bush’s top advisor quits the Republican Party over the Khan statement:
CNN reports that Jeb Bush’s top adviser, Sally Bradshaw, announced she is leaving the Republican party, in part in response to Trump’s “despicable” comments about the Khan family.
5 August 2016: Mainers defend Somali neighbors against Trump:
Somali refugees have opened bustling shops in this state, sent their children to college, joined local government, stitched themselves into the fabric of life.
But Donald Trump suggested they also have brought crime and fostered terrorists. That incendiary charge was denounced Friday not only by a chorus of Somali leaders but by Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican.
“Mr. Trump’s statements disparaging immigrants who have come to this country legally are particularly unhelpful,” Collins said in yet another rebuke from a prominent Republican of the party’s presidential nominee. “Maine has benefited from people from Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and, increasingly, Africa — including our friends from Somalia.”
15 February 2016: Trump retweets right-wing provocateur known for pushing false conspiracy theories:
Late Monday, after thousands of protesters flocked to Trump Tower for the president’s first trip back to the Manhattan penthouse in seven months, the president took to Twitter.
First, he wrote that it felt “good to be home.” Next, he retweeted a post from an eyebrow-raising Twitter account: that of right-wing provocateur Jack Posobiec, a supporter of President Trump known for advancing a number of conspiracy theories, such as those tied to “Pizzagate” and the murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich.
Posobiec’s tweet linked to a story from an ABC affiliate and read, “Meanwhile: 39 shootings in Chicago this weekend, 9 deaths. No national media outrage. Why is that?”
Trump’s decision to spotlight Posobiec drew criticism, particularly in light of the weekend violence in Charlottesville. Trump provoked public outrage when he took two days after the white nationalist rally and the death of Heather Heyer to specifically condemn the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis by name.
Posobiec, who describes himself as a “Republican political operative,” celebrated the president’s retweet, thanking him on Twitter. But then he was faced with a barrage of tweets calling out his connections to far-right groups and ideologies.
Throughout the night, Posobiec pushed back against characterizations of him as “alt-right,” and said he has consistently disavowed white nationalists and displays of violence. He pointed out a “Rally for Peace” he helped lead in light of the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.).
16 August 2016: Trump Supporter attacks Interracial Couple in Washington State:
In Olympia, Washington, 32-year-old Daniel Rowe attacked a white woman and a black man with a knife after seeing them kiss on a popular street. When police arrived on the scene, Rowe professed to being “a white supremacist” and said “he planned on heading down to the next Donald Trump rally and stomping out more of the Black Lives Matter group,” according to court documents filed in the case.
Rowe, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to charges of assault and malicious harassment, and he was sentenced to more than four years in prison.
1 September 2016: Trump Supporting Policeman assaults hancuffed African-American teenager:
The then-chief of the Bordentown, New Jersey, police department, Frank Nucera, allegedly assaulted an African American teenager who was handcuffed. Federal prosecutors said the attack was part of Nucera’s “intense racial animus,” noting in federal court that “within hours” of the assault, Nucera was secretly recorded saying “Donald Trump is the last hope for white people.”
The 60-year-old Nucera has been indicted by a federal grand jury on three charges, including committing a federal hate crime. Nucera, who is white, has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. He retired two years ago.
1 September 2016: Trump supporter arrested for threatening a Los Angeles Mosque:
After 40-year-old Mark Feigin of Los Angeles was arrested for posting anti-Muslim and allegedly threatening statements to a mosque’s Facebook page, his attorney argued in court that the comments were protected by the First Amendment because Feigin was “using similar language and expressing similar views” to “campaign statements from then-candidate Donald Trump.” Noting that his client “supported Donald Trump,” attorney Caleb Mason added that “Mr. Feigin’s comments were directed toward a pressing issue of public concern that was a central theme of the Trump campaign and the 2016 election generally: the Islamic roots of many international and U.S. terrorist acts.” Feigin, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of sending harassing communications electronically. He was sentenced to probation.
13 September 2016: Pence declines to call David Duke ‘deplorable,’ disavows support:
Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence blasted Hillary Clinton Monday for her comment referring to “half” of Donald Trump’s supporters as belonging to a “basket of deplorables.”
But Pence declined to categorize Trump backer — and white nationalist — David Duke as “deplorable.”
“I’m not in the name-calling business,” Pence told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, while at the same time repeating Trump’s disavowal of Duke’s support.
“We don’t want his support and we don’t want the support of the people who think like him,” he said.
Pence repeated his comments during a Tuesday news conference on Capitol Hill.
15 September 2016: Donald Trump starts backing off Birther Claims in an interview with the Washington Post:
Donald Trump: “I’ll answer that question at the right time. I just don’t want to answer it yet … I don’t talk about it anymore. The reason I don’t is because then everyone is going to be talking about it as opposed to jobs, the military, the vets, security.”
13 October 2016: Three Trump Supporters attempt to bomb Apartment Compled where Somali Immigrants lived:
After the FBI arrested three white Kansas men for plotting to bomb an apartment complex in Garden City, Kansas, where many Somali immigrants lived, one of the men’s attorneys insisted to a federal judge that the plot was “self-defensive” because the three men believed “that if Donald Trump won the election, President Obama would not recognize the validity of those results, that he would declare martial law, and that at that point militias all over the country would have to step in.” Then, after a federal grand jury convicted 47-year-old Patrick Stein and the two other men of conspiracy-related charges, Stein’s attorney argued for a lighter sentence based on “the backdrop” of Stein’s actions: Trump had become “the voice of a lost and ignored white, working-class set of voters” like Stein, and the “climate” at the time could propel someone like Stein to “go to 11,” attorney Jim Pratt said in court. Stein and his two accomplices were each sentenced to at least 25 years in prison.
3 November 2016: Black church torched in Mississippi, with ‘Vote Trump’ painted on wall:
As firefighters neared the historically black church Tuesday night in Greenville, Miss., they saw flames in the windows and smoke pouring from the roof.
When they got closer, they could see two words spray-painted on the side of the burning sanctuary: “Vote Trump.”
Investigators believe the blaze at 110-year-old Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church was set on purpose, Greenville Fire Chief Ruben Brown told The Washington Post. The suspected arson is being investigated as a hate crime by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
On Wednesday, fire officials in Mississippi insisted that the motives of whoever burned the church are still unclear.
But Greenville Mayor Errick Simmons called the fire a “hateful and cowardly act,” sparked by the incendiary rhetoric of GOP nominee Donald Trump during his presidential campaign.
3 November 2016: Trump Supporter threatens to burn down neighboring home bercause it had been purchased by Muslims:
In Tampa, Florida, David Howard threatened to burn down the house next to his “simply because” it was being purchased by a Muslim family, according to the Justice Department. He later said under oath that while he harbored a years-long dislike for Muslims, the circumstances around the home sale were “the match that lit the wick.” He cited Trump’s warnings about immigrants from majority-Muslim countries. “[With] the fact that the president wants these six countries vetted, everybody vetted before they come over, there’s a concern about Muslims,” Howard said. Howard, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation, and the 59-year-old was sentenced to eight months in prison.
8 November 2016: Trump is elected President of the United States:
Trump wins the presidency. The NRA spends more than $30 million supporting his campaign.
9 November 2016: Anti-Trump Protests:
As a result of Donald Trump elected as 45th President of the U.S., thousands protested across twenty-five American cities, and unrest broke out in downtown Oakland, California, and Portland, Oregon. In Oakland, over 40 fires started and police officers were injured.
10 November 2016: Portland’s anti-Trump protest turns violent, as rioters rampage in Pearl:
A third consecutive day of anti-Trump demonstrations turned violent Thursday night, as protesters began with a rush-hour march and chanting but eventually damaged cars at a dealership and rampaged through the Pearl District shattering business windows into Friday morning.
Police declared the demonstration a “riot” more than three hours after its 5 p.m. start, citing “extensive criminal and dangerous behavior.” The bureau said it warned the crowd about the designation, then tweeted that rioting is a class C felony. It later tweeted that 26 were arrested in the demonstration, which lasted into early Friday morning.
Officers in riot gear on numerous occasions used flash-bang grenades and fired rubber pepper ball spheres at the crowd after it refused repeated demands to disperse. Police report officers were “taking projectiles;” protesters were seen throwing objects toward officers, and some fired fireworks in their direction.
The officers didn’t move in until after a small fraction of the thousands of protesters became destructive.
Police tweeted that many demonstrators were “trying to get anarchist groups to stop destroying property” and that “anarchists” were refusing to do so. Demonstrators at many points chanted “peaceful protest.”
10 November 2016: Trump supporter attacks Hispanic Man in Florida:
A 23-year-old man from High Springs, Florida, allegedly assaulted an unsuspecting Hispanic man who was cleaning a parking lot outside of a local food store. “[H]e was suddenly struck in the back of the head,” a police report said of the victim. “[The victim] asked the suspect why he hit him, to which the suspect replied, ‘This is for Donald Trump.’ The suspect then grabbed [the victim] by the jacket and proceeded to strike him several more times,” according to the report. Surveillance video of the incident “completely corroborated [the victim’s] account of events,” police said.
The suspect was arrested on battery charges, but the case was dropped after the victim decided not to pursue the matter, police said. Efforts by ABC News to reach the victim for further explanation were not successful.
12 November 2016: Trump supporter attacks East African Cab Driver:
In Grand Rapids, Michigan, while attacking a cab driver from East Africa, 23-year-old Jacob Holtzlander shouted racial epithets and repeatedly yelled the word, “Trump,” according to law enforcement records. Holtzlander, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to a charge of ethnic intimidation, and he was sentenced to 30 days in jail.
1 Levine, M. (2019). 36 cases invoking ‘Trump’ in connection with violence, threats, alleged assaults [Reference]. ABC News. Retrieved from
20 December 2016: A far-right Austrian leader who just signed a pact with Putin says he met with Trump’s national security adviser in New York:
President-elect Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, met with the leader of a far-right Austrian political party that has close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Austrian leader said.
The Freedom Party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, wrote on his Facebook page Monday that he met with Flynn “and a few other high-ranking United States politicians” a few weeks ago at Trump Tower.
He noted in the post that his party had recently signed a cooperation deal with Putin’s United Russia party, which “outlined plans for regular meetings and collaboration where suitable on economic, business, and political projects,” The New York Times reported on Tuesday.
Flynn’s relationship with the Kremlin has been under scrutiny since he was tapped by Trump to be the national security adviser. Photos have emerged of the former lieutenant general with Putin in Moscow celebrating the 10th anniversary of the state-sponsored news agency Russia Today, which has featured him as a commentator.
The fact that Flynn appears to have granted an audience to Strache in New York raises more questions about the influence that far-right populism and white nationalism may have on the incoming Trump administration.
The Freedom Party was founded in 1956, and its first leader was the far-right Austrian politician and Nazi Anton Reinthaller.
The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
