Trump’s CNN Town Hall Should F’KING Scare The TKD World

Despite the lies and other atrocious actions by Trump, especially with the lies he continued spewing during the town hall, he still has his honorary 9th Dan certificate in the Korean martial art of Taekwondo, which was awarded to him in November 2021.

Like it or not, former United States President Donald J. Trump could end up being the GOP nominee and get voted back into the White House. The former (indicted and twice impeached) POTUS recently gave a televised town hall in New Hampshire on May 10th which was hosted not by Fox News but by CNN. Trump’s town hall, as expected, was a total media sh!tshow… In the town hall, in front of an audience full of people from the MAGA camp, Trump made many claims. These claims were blatantly false, misleading, or unsubstantiated.

One lie he said on the record, on live TV, was the call that he made to Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. On January 2nd, 2021, just a few days before the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol, Trump made a phone call to Raffensperger (who’s now the center of a criminal investigation against Trump). In the phone call, Trump asked Raffensperger to find enough votes so he could win the state of Georgia. This comes after Democratic challenger and current POTUS Joe Biden had won the state’s Electoral Votes.

Trump got more specific and told Raffensperger to look into two counties that were won by Biden.

When Trump was questioned about the phone call, he claimed that it was false and that he didn’t ask Raffensperger to do anything for him. The day after, on May 11th, Raffensperger gave his side of the story on CNN.

Trump also used the town hall to take a potshot at journalist Jean E. Carroll, whose lawyer says is grounds for another lawsuit against the former POTUS, who had just won a court case against him. It is also disturbing that the crowd laughed in support of Trump but it shouldn’t be surprising at all. In the court case, the jury sided with Carroll and found that Trump is liable for defamation and sexual abuse.

This ruling marks the first time that Trump has been legally responsible for sexual assault.

Despite the ruling against him, Trump’s supporters still give him a pass. This is one reason that the CNN town hall was unnecessary. We all know that Trump is a liar and he didn’t need a platform, the CNN town hall, to remind us of the kind of person that he is.

CNN’s gamble didn’t play out initially but time will tell in the coming months ahead. The network has taken a beating as its ratings were worse than the right-wing network Newsmax. Many have called to boycott CNN.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) went on MSNBC the next day to criticize the CNN town hall. I have to side with AOC in which that it was irresponsible of CNN to give Trump a platform, fill the crowd with mostly Trump supporters, and place a weak moderator. CNN royally f — ked up by putting Carroll and other sexual abuse survivors in the crosshair of the GOP.

On May 12th, Anderson Cooper went on CNN to talk about the town hall and to apologize for how it turned out. Cooper didn’t apologize for the network holding the town hall, though, but spent a few minutes defending the decision to host the town hall for Trump. I can understand the good intentions of Cooper but the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Cooper defended the town hall by saying that Trump lies constantly, the crowd that supported Trump represented “half of the country,” that Trump calls any woman who stands up to him “nasty,” and so on. When further defending the decision to host the town hall, Cooper said that Trump is still the GOP frontrunner and that Trump could end up getting reelected into office.

I haven’t mentioned anything pertaining to Taekwondo yet, what does ANY of this have anything to do with Taekwondo?

The answer is, EVERYTHING…

In November 2021, at his Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida, there was a ceremony in which the Kukkiwon awarded an honorary 9th Dan in the art of Taekwondo to Donald Trump. This is almost a year after the January 6th insurrection in Washington D.C. There are even pictures of Trump posing with Lee Dong-Seop who is the current president of the Kukkiwon.

World Taekwondo (WT) chose to distance itself from the decision. It’s obvious that WT didn’t like the decision and immediately said it had NOTHING to do with the decision to give Trump that honorary 9th Dan. Inside The Games, which reported on WT’s decision to distance itself from the matter, added that Trump represents the complete OPPOSITE of what WT seeks to create for itself.

Despite the indictments and court rulings against Trump, the Kukkiwon has YET to retract the honorary 9th Dan certification. The fact that the Kukkiwon hasn’t taken back the honorary 9th Dan from Trump says a whole lot.

I wouldn’t be surprised because South Korea’s current president, Yoon Suk-Yeol, is nicknamed “K-Trump.” For those that don’t know, Taekwondo is the only style in the world whose development is regulated by the South Korean government.

The government delegates the responsibility for Taekwondo’s development through the Kukkiwon.

Taekwondo has a doctrine known as the “Tenets of Taekwondo” which encompasses five things: Courtesy, Integrity, perseverance, Self-Control, and Indomitable Spirit. Trump is a person that has either violated or perversely warped the tenets.

Trump violated the tenets of “courtesy” and “integrity,” for example, with his “grab them by the p-ssy” remark.

Trump violated the tenet of “self-control” with his actions before, during, and after his presidency.

He warped the hell out of “perseverance” and “indomitable” spirit by refusing to admit his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 United States Presidential Election. Trump continues to spew lies about how the election was “stolen” from him.

When Hope Hicks testified about the elections, she explained how Trump was complaining that his legacy would be “damaged” and “forgotten” if he had lost.

The leaders of TKD contradicted themselves and the tenets of the style that they espouse by awarding an honorary 9th Dan to someone who is the polar opposite of what the tenets represent. For the head of the Kukkiwon to appear and to personally award the disgraced former POTUS, who could end up getting reelected in 2024, says a whole f — king lot.

We’re having the tenets drilled into us on a regular basis, which I believe is a good thing, but for the Kukkiwon (the organization officially in charge of leading the development of TKD) to award an honorary 9th Dan (usually the highest level awarded to one who is still alive) to one of the most despicable people in the world makes the tenets hollow words.

If you’re a member of the TKD community and are disgusted by everything that Trump represents, then you NEED TO BE F — KING SCARED at how the CNN town hall turned out. Despite all the things that Trump has said and done over the years, which are grounds for any TKD practitioner to lose their rank, he still has his honorary 9th Dan.