Donald Trump Insults ALL – Friend and Foe Alike

Donald Trump Insults ALL –
Friend and Foe Alike

© David Burton 2019

     Donald Trump has demonstrated an unbelievable ability to insult enemies and friends at a truly phenomenal pace. His innumerable insults should entitle Trump to a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the president who has handed out more insults than any other White House occupant in U.S history. Trump is, at least, consistent in his treatment of foreign powers – criticizing both enemies and supposed allies alike. Donald Trump has lashed out at a number of countries, and, most often, it’s been seemingly for no reason at all. Donald Trump has proven himself to be an equal-opportunity insulter and he takes the crown away from the late comic, Don Rickles, who was previously regarded as the king of insults

Donald Trump Insults the News Media: Trump has continually insulted the news media with the now-tired phrase “Fake News”. The actual number of times he has done this are just too many to recall. Another of the numerous charges levelled on the press by Trump was that “the press was at fault for creating divisions in American society.
     “ ‘A very big part of the anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the mainstream media that I refer to as fake news’ . . . ‘It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream media must clean up its act, fast!’
     “One week earlier, Trump . . . called the press ‘the enemy of the people.’ ” (Ref. 1)

     In advance of the “White House Social Media Summit” in the summer of 2019, the “president got in a shot at the ‘Fake News Media’ by saying that they will be in attendance, but only for a ‘limited period’ because they are not as ‘important’ or ‘powerful’ as social media. Conveniently for Trump, social media is also far less reliable and far less tethered to the truth than conventional news outlets. His online trolls can spread disinformation helpful to him as much as their dark little hearts desire.” (Ref. 2)

Donald Trump Insults the Federal Reserve Board: Toward the end of August 2019, “President Donald Trump launched a furious and highly personal Twitter attack . . . against the Federal Reserve and Chairman Jerome Powell, fuming that the Fed once more ‘did NOTHING!’ and wondering who is ‘our bigger enemy’ — Powell or China’s leader.
     “The outburst came after Powell, speaking to central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, gave vague assurances that the Fed ‘will act as appropriate’ to sustain the nation’s economic expansion. . . .
     Powell had barely finished speaking before Trump escalated his criticism of the Fed, which he has repeatedly accused of keeping rates too high. For months, the president has ridiculed Powell, the man he picked to lead the Fed. [Emphasis mine]
     “ ‘As usual, the Fed did NOTHING!’ Trump tweeted, adding, ‘We have a very strong dollar and a very weak Fed.’ He went further by saying: ‘My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powel (sic) or Chairman Xi?’ — a reference to China’s President Xi J inping. . . .
      - - -
     “Many private economists have expressed growing alarm about Trump’s criticism of the Fed as an intrusion on its independence and a threat to its credibility.
      - - -
     “ ‘This challenges something that has been sacred in the history of the world’s most successful central bank.' . . . ‘The central banks that have been successful are those which are independent of political pressures and were free to make the appropriate monetary policy.’ “ (Ref. 3)

Donald Trump Insults Macy’s: Continuing his spewing of vituperation, Donald Trump even found time to hurl an insult at Macy’s Department Stores. “Macy’s — Trump called for a boycott after the department store dropped his men’s clothing line. [Emphasis mine] ‘I hope the boycott of @Macys continues forever. So many people are cutting up their cards. Macy's stores suck and they are bad for U.S.A.,’ he tweeted on July 16. ‘Boycott @Macys, no guts, no glory. Besides, there are far better stores!’ he tweeted later.” (Ref. 4)

Donald Trump Insults 2016 Political Opponents: During the 2016 campaign, Trump essentially insulted the entire Republican primary field using nicknames like ‘Low energy Jeb,’ ‘LyinTed’ and ‘Little Marco’. Then, he continued with ‘Crooked Hillary’. [5]

     “Trump mocked {Jeb} Bush for his lack of energy — but that's nothing compared to The Donald's . . . tweet that claimed his opponent, who's wife Columba is from Mexico, ‘has to like the Mexican illegals because of his wife.’ “ (Ref. 6)

     “More so than perhaps anyone else in the history of American politics, candidate Trump honed the art of the ad hominem attack. Despite . . . efforts to portray himself as more presidential, Trump just can’t seem to stop himself from insulting his opponents.
     “While steamrolling the Republican field {in 2015-2016}, Trump largely avoided engaging other candidates on the issues. Instead, he defined them in a negative way by hammering away on their unflattering traits?—?in some cases, using the same line of attack over, and over, and over again.
      - - -
     “In the wake of Kasich going on an eating tour of New York, Trump hammered him for eating in a ‘disgusting’ manner.
     “ ‘Did you see him? He has a news conference, all the time when he’s eating. I have never seen a human being eat in such a disgusting fashion,’ Trump said . . . ‘This guy takes a pancake and he’s shoving it in his mouth. It’s disgusting… Do you want that for your president? I don’t think so.’ ” (Ref. 7)

Donald Trump Insults Potential 2020 Opponents: “The Democratic field of candidates is full to bursting — and so is the list of targets for President Donald Trump.
     “Here's what Trump has had to say so far about his {leading} would-be challengers.
     “Within hours of Joe Biden's announcement, Trump dubbed the 76-year-old former vice president ‘Sleepy Joe,’ and called him someone whose ‘intelligence’ had been ‘long in doubt.’
     “Weeks later, Trump amended the nickname ever so slightly, dubbing Biden ‘SleepyCreepy Joe.’
     “In March, Trump insulted Biden as ‘another low I.Q. individual’ . . .
     “Trump . . . had previously ripped Biden as ‘Crazy Joe,’ tweeting that he was ‘trying to act like a tough guy’ but was ‘weak, both mentally and physically.’
      - - -
     “Trump debuted his ‘Crazy Bernie’ jibe against {Bernie} Sanders during the 2016 Democratic primary . . .
     “Trump has since reprised the insult as the 2020 Democratic race has kicked into gear, tweeting his prediction earlier this month that the contest would come down to ‘Crazy Bernie Sanders vs. Sleepy Joe Biden.’
      - - -
     “Trump has repeatedly used the slur ‘Pocahontas’ against {Elizabeth} Warren, dating back to the 2016 presidential race, when the Massachusetts senator emerged as a fierce critic of Trump. . . .
     “He also slammed her as ‘goofy Elizabeth Warren’ during the 2016 campaign, but revived the slur after Warren announced her 2020 bid.
      - - -
     “Trump took aim at {Beto} O'Rourke in March, just days after his formal campaign launch, ragging on the former Texas congressman’s penchant for moving his hands and arms around when he talks.
     " ‘I think he's got a lot of hand movement. I've never seen so much hand movement,’ Trump said during a White House event. ‘I said, 'Is he crazy or is that just the way he acts?'
      - - -
     “Earlier . . . Trump called the candidate a ‘stone-cold phony named Robert Francis O'Rourke, sometimes referred to as 'Beto.' . . .
     “Trump also slammed O'Rourke as ‘a flake’ . . .” (Ref. 8)

     President Trump . . . took a swipe at three GOP politicians — dubbed the ‘Three Stooges’ — who are contemplating running against him in a presidential primary.
     “Trump didn’t mention any of his potential challengers by name, in a pair of tweets . . . but instead gave them derogatory nicknames as he does with his Democratic rivals.
     “ ‘Can you believe it? I’m at 94% approval in the Republican Party, and have Three Stooges running against me. One is ‘Mr. Appalachian Trail’ who was actually in Argentina for bad reasons,' Trump wrote in the first tweet.
     “ ‘Mr. Appalachian Trail’ is an apparent reference to Mark Sanford, the former GOP South Carolina governor who finished his second term when he admitted to having an affair with an Argentine woman. His office claimed at the time that he was ‘hiking the Appalachian trail’ when he was having the affair in the South American country.
      - - -
     “ ‘Another is a one-time BAD Congressman from Illinois who lost in his second term by a landslide, then failed in radio. The third is a man who couldn’t stand up straight while receiving an award. I should be able to take them!’ Trump added in his second tweet.
     “The failed radio host insult is an apparent reference to former GOP congressman Joe Walsh, who announced . . . that he plans to mount a primary campaign.
     “And the final crack is an apparent reference to former Republican Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, who has been running against Trump since April.” (Ref. 9)

Donald Trump Insults the European Union: In mid-2018 Donald Trump accused the European Union of being America’s biggest foe. On a trip to Europe, he insulted “our longtime allies, saying that the European Union is America’s ‘biggest foe globally right now,’ while going light on Russia, claiming Vladimir Putin and his regime are only a foe in ‘some respects.’
     “ ‘Well, I think we have a lot of foes. I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade. Now, you wouldn’t think of the European Union, but they’re a foe’ . . .
     “ ‘Russia is a foe in certain respects. China is a foe economically, certainly they are a foe. But that doesn’t mean they are bad. It doesn’t mean anything. It means that they are competitive,’ Trump added.
     “The President {continued}, ‘I respect the leaders of those countries {the European Union}. But, in a trade sense, they’ve really taken advantage of us and many of those countries are in NATO and they weren’t paying their bills’
     “Trump’s European trip {was}, by many accounts, . . . a complete disaster. . . .
     “He then went to England where he disrespected Queen Elizabeth II by showing up at Windsor Palace about 10 to 12 minutes late for tea before breaking protocol by briefly walking in front of her.
     “The U.S. President also trashed Prime Minister Theresa May over Brexit. Now he’s trashing our European allies while fawning all over Vladimir Putin . . .” (Ref. 10)

Donald Trump Insults England: “Trump strained America’s relationship with one of its closest allies, the United Kingdom, by accusing Britain’s spy agency of wiretapping him during the U.S. presidential election under direction from Obama. He offered no evidence whatsoever for this unsubstantiated claim and later declined to apologize.
     “. . . Trump was quick to politicize a terrorist attack at a London subway station in September that injured dozens of people: He suggested that the city’s police force could have done more to prevent the incident.” (Ref. 11)

Donald Trump Insults France: Trump, in what would become a theme, used terrorist attacks to criticize France in February of 2017. [12]

     More recently, in November 2018, “President Donald Trump criticized French President Emmanuel Macron on social media just as the Republican leader's plane landed in the European country.
     “In the latest sign of strained transatlantic ties, Macron called . . . for the formation of a ‘true, European army’ to defend the continent against foreign threats presented by ‘China, Russia and even the United States of America,’ which was traditionally an ally. As Trump's aircraft touched down in France, Macron expressed his outrage over the comments on Twitter.
     "‘President Macron of France has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the U.S., China and Russia. Very insulting, but perhaps Europe should first pay its fair share of NATO, which the U.S. subsidizes greatly!’ Trump tweeted minutes after landing.” (Ref. 13)

     Late, in August 2019, Trump again insulted the Frech by threatening to “place tariffs on French wine imports to the U.S. in a spat over France’s digital services tax . . .” (Ref. 14)

Donald Trump Insults Germany: At a 2018 NATO summit meeting, Donald Trump attacked one of the United States’ most important allies – Germany. “Trump leveled . . . sudden and unsparing criticism of Germany during a working breakfast . . . pointing to German reliance on natural gas to accuse the country of being ‘totally controlled by’ and ‘a captive of Russia.’
     " ‘Germany is a captive of Russia,’ said Trump, who has faced mountains of criticism for praising and seeking warm relations with Putin. ‘It's very inappropriate.’
     " ‘It certainly doesn't seem to make sense that they {Germany} paid billions of dollars to Russia and we have to defend them against Russia,’ Trump said . . .” (Ref. 15)

     The previous year, Trump had insulted Germany by falsely claiming that: “ ‘Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO and the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany’ . . . Numerous media outlets reported that this was untrue. NATO members do not pay money to the organization. [Emphasis mine]
     “He also didn’t shake Angela Merkel’s hand when they met at the Oval Office.” (Ref. 15)

     “In December 2015, Trump had accused Merkel of ‘ruining Germany’ by welcoming a large number of Syrian refugees into the country. He also described the key American ally as a ‘total mess’ . . .” (Ref. 11)

Donald Trump Insults Denmark: Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to cancel his state visit to Denmark after it rejected his unsolicited offer to buy Greenland was immediately taken as an insult by the Danes. Tellingly, the Danes, it seems, were quite relieved that the American president was no longer coming. Some Americans responded by apologizing for their president’s bad behavior. The Greenland episode has once again highlighted Trump’s rudeness and undiplomatic willingness to offend US allies. The visit was at the invitation of Queen Margrethe II who, in contrast to Prince Hamlet, was ready to tolerate one thing rotten within the state of Denmark, at least for a few days. The Danish high minister suggested that Trump’s purchase offer smacked of disrespectful, neocolonial attitudes.[16]

Donald Trump Insults Sweden: “Swedish officials reacted strongly . . . to Donald Trump's un-diplomatic remarks about A $ AP Rocky. The New York rapper . . .
     “. . . Swedish officials have responded strongly to Donald Trump . . . after he accused the country of ignoring the fate of black Americans . . .
     “. . . In an unorthodox style, Donald Trump has published two tweets accompanied by the hashtag #FreeRocky, used on the Internet by the hip-hop community and the rapper's fans.
     “Very disappointed in Prime Minister Stefan Lofven for being unable to act.
      - - -
     “In another tweet, the US president lobbied: ‘Make A $ AP Rocky free.’ Then he lashed out at Sweden: ‘We are doing so much for Sweden but it does not seem to be reciprocal, Sweden would be better off focusing on its crime problem!’ {Trump not only insulted the swedes, but he was also clearly interfering in the judicial process of another country. As one Swede put it:} ’The rule of the law applies to everyone and is exercised by an independent judiciary. That's the way it is in the US, and that's the way it is in Sweden. Political interference in the process is distinctly off limits! Clear?’ [Emphasis mine] ” (Ref. 17)

Donald Trump Insults Canada: “At the end of the G7 summit in June {2018}, Trump slammed the leader of Canada—Washington's closest ally—as ‘very dishonest and weak.’ The president made the attack against Trudeau over the issue of trade, angered at criticism that came from his Canadian counterpart during a press conference alongside French President Emmanuel Macron.” (Ref. 18)

Donald Trump Insults Australia: “Almost immediately after Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017, the White House laid out his “America First” foreign policy. It also claimed, ‘The world must know that we do not go abroad in search of enemies, that we are always happy when old enemies become friends, and when old friends become allies.’
     “Days later, Trump held one of his first official phone calls with the leader of an allied nation, {the} Australian Prime Minister . . . Their conversation did not end well. [Emphasis mine]
     “{the Prime Minister} pressed Trump to uphold the U.S. end of an agreement with Australia. The deal, which had been negotiated by President Barack Obama, required the U.S. to accept a number of refugees from the Australian offshore detention centers on Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island.
     “ ‘This deal will make me look terrible. ... I think it is a horrible deal, a disgusting deal that I would have never made,’ Trump said.
     ““{the Prime Minister} calmly and repeatedly attempted to explain elements of the agreement that Trump seemed to misunderstand. But Trump had no time for that. ‘I have had it. I have been making these calls all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day,’ he said, before abruptly ending the conversation.” (Ref. 11)

Donald Trump Insults Mexico: On numerous occasions, Trump has offended our southern neighbor and its people. Below are a selected few of these insults, taken from Reference 19.

     “Donald Trump kicked off his presidential bid . . . with harsh words for Mexico. ‘They are not our friend, believe me,’ he said, before disparaging Mexican immigrants: ‘They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.’ ” Some would consider this an oxymoron: How can they be drug traffickers, criminals and rapist while still being good people?

     “. . . he has repeatedly promised to build a wall along the Mexican border and get Mexico to pay for it. . . .”

     “When will the U.S. stop sending $'s to our enemies, i.e. Mexico and others.”

     “The Mexican legal system is corrupt, as is much of Mexico. Pay me the money that is owed me now - and stop sending criminals over our border.”

     “Mexico's court system {is} corrupt. I want nothing to do with Mexico other than to build an impenetrable WALL and stop them from ripping off {the} U.S.”

     “ ‘When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity,’ . . . ‘And now they are beating us economically. They are not our friend, believe me. But they’re killing us economically. The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems.’ ”

Donald Trump Insults Haiti: “President Donald Trump referred to Haiti and African nations as shithole countries during a meeting with a bipartisan group of senators at the White House . . .
      - - -
     “ ‘Why do we need more Haitians {immigrants}, take them out,’ he said . . .
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     “Trump questioned why the United States would want people from nations such as Haiti while he was being briefed on changes to the visa lottery system.
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     “It’s not the first time reports have surfaced of Trump speaking unfavorably about immigrants, and Haitians in particular. The New York Times reported . . . that Trump said Haitian immigrants ‘all have AIDS,’ during a summer 2017 meeting about immigration.” (Ref. 20)

Donald Trump Insults El Salvador: “President Donald Trump referred to Haiti and African nations as ‘shithole countries’ . . .
     “. . . the nations referred to by Trump also included El Salvador.” (Ref. 20)

Donald Trump Insults African Nations: “President Donald Trump referred to . . . African nations as ‘shithole countries. during a meeting with a bipartisan group of senators at the White House . . .
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     “. . . when the group came to discussing immigration from Africa, Trump asked why America would want immigrants from ‘all these shithole countries’ and that the U.S. should have more people coming in from places like Norway.
     “. . . Trump also targeted Nigerian immigrants during that meeting, complaining that once they came into the United States they would never ‘go back to their huts.’ “ (Ref. 20)

Donald Trump Insults Iraq: In late 2018, President Trump visited U.S. troops in Iraq. While doing so he managed to offend the very nation he was visiting – an ally of the United States in the war on Islamic terrorism.

     President and Mrs. Trump “had flown for eleven hours to Iraq to deliver an inappropriately political harangue and spend {just} fifteen minutes to talking with the troops of whom he is commander-in-chief. And he didn’t meet one single Iraqi, which is an even more serious matter.
     “Trump has no idea about how to behave in a situation demanding plain ordinary good manners. He cannot comprehend that diplomacy requires expertise and civility and is unable to understand that the conduct of international affairs rests largely upon basic courtesies.
     “It is essential that any head of state visiting another country should pay respect to that nation by calling on its head of state. . . . But during Trump’s three hour stay in Iraq he didn’t call on President Barham Ahmed Salih.
     “Nor did he see the most important political figure in Iraq, Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, who had expected to meet him when he bobbed into his country for a hurried public relations fandango with US military personnel. But he didn’t. It wasn’t convenient for Trump to meet any citizens of the country in which he spent so little of his valuable time.” (Ref. 21)

Donald Trump Insults Japan: “Japan has constantly found itself lumped in with China during Republican debates during Trump’s various tirades. He has called them threats to American trade while ignoring the alliance between the United States and Japan. His rhetoric includes outrageous claims like ‘When did we beat Japan at anything?’ ” (Ref. 22)

     A year after assuming the presidency, Donald Trump told the Japanese: “ ‘Try building your cars in the United States instead of shipping them over,’ . . . apparently forgetting, or conveniently ignoring, the fact that 75 percent of Japanese cars and trucks sold in the U.S. are made in North America. ‘Is that possible to ask? That’s not rude. Is that rude? I don’t think so. If you could build them.’ ” (Ref. 14)

Donald Trump Insults China: Most recently, President Trump and China have engaged in a tit-for-tat trade war that is threatening to damage the economies of both countries and even lead to a world-wide recession. The Presidents endless tweets are not helping the situation.

     Relations between China and the Donald got off to a rocky start after Trump was elected in 2016. Back then, “. . . President-elect Donald Trump publicly insulted the mainland twice in a span of 72 hours. [Emphasis mine]
     "The first incident took place . . . when the real-estate billionaire accepted a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, a move that broke nearly four decades of U.S foreign policy. The 10-minute call with a Taiwanese leader was the first by a U.S. head of state since 1979, when Washington first embraced the ‘One China’ policy under which Beijing views special territories Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as part of China.
     “Following the call, Trump tweeted: ‘The President of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency. Thank you!’
    “This post may have further enraged Beijing as mainland media always refer to the Taiwanese head of state as ‘leader,’ because the term ‘president’ could imply Taiwan is a separate state. . . .
      - - -
     “{Later,} Trump then accused Beijing of manipulating its currency, unfairly taxing U.S. products and militarizing the South China Sea — also via Twitter.
      - - -
     “ ‘Trump railing against China on Twitter like it is a Celebrity Apprentice feud is not funny, but deeply, deeply worrying for the world,’ {a} U.K. Labor politician . . . tweeted. . .
      - - -
     “. . . {Trump} — who reportedly shunned intelligence briefings in the weeks after his election victory — may have . . . acted too rashly.
      - - -
     “{Trump’s} comment wasn’t the first time Trump has complained about China’s economic policy. But the aggressive language used by the future commander of the world’s No. 1 economy was surprising.
     “ ‘It’s almost as if Trump was looking to kick off China relations as badly as possible,’ {the} Eurasia Group President . . . tweeted.
      - - -
     “If Trump cannot create the millions of jobs he promised in his election campaign, he may escalate his threat to slap a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods . . . thus risking a full-blown trade war between the two heavyweight economies.” (Ref. 23) That prediction has now proven to be highly prescient.

     Trump’s actions with regard to China presaged his subsequent unwise words, tweets and behavior – he clearly had no basic concept of accepted protocols of foreign relations and desire to learn – Trump’s attitude was (and is even more so today): I’m smarter than everyone, I can say/do anything I want and, I therefore have no need to learn.

Donald Trump Insults North Korea: “In {2015}, Trump threatened to ‘totally destroy’ North Korea, which is home to an estimated 25 million people. He also . . . said the rogue nation’s leader was on ‘a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.’
     “Many of the president’s tweets and statements about North Korea have hinted at imminent military action. They’ve even appeared to undermine his administration’s own diplomatic efforts.” (Ref. 23)

     Before Trump’s 180-degree about face in his dealing with North Korea’s despotic leader, he took “to calling Kim Jong-un ‘Rocket Man’ – surely one of the president’s least effective nicknames – and has also referred to the North Korean leader as ‘a mad man’. Trump also believes North Korea is ‘a country ruled by a cult’.
     “North Korea, through state media, has called Trump ‘an old lunatic’, a ‘mean trickster’, a ‘mentally deranged dotard’, a ‘human reject’ and a ‘hideous criminal’. So perhaps they’re about even.” (Ref. 12) .

     "Trump hit the ground running in January {2018} with a series of belligerent tweets taunting the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un. The most memorable would be the one in which he wrote, ‘please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!’ The president later cast aside all normal protocol and met with Kim in an elaborately staged but substance-free meeting in Singapore which Trump later described as the moment he and the murderous dictator ‘fell in love.’ “ (Ref. 24) .

     Now, after all these repeated insults, Trump and Kim Jong-un have reversed course and seemingly fallen in love with each other. In Trump’s case, such erratic behavior is commonplace.

Donald Trump Insults California: In August 2019 President Trump took aim at the state of California and its Democratic governor by assailing them over the state’s homelessness problem.

     “ ‘Nearly half of all the homeless people living in the streets in America happen to live in the state of California,’ Trump said. ‘Look at Los Angeles with the tents and the horrible, horrible disgusting conditions. Look at San Francisco.’
     “He went on to bash so-called sanctuary cities that refuse to comply with Trump’s anti-immigrant policies. ‘Look at some of your other cities, and then you have a governor that invites the whole world to come into California,’ he said.” (Ref. 25)

Donald Trump Insults Puerto Rico: In 2017, “Donald Trump landed in Puerto Rico amidst the U.S. territory's ongoing recovery from hurricane damage. First up was a little meeting where Trump ‘huddled with local and federal officials’ . . . to laud his administration's much-maligned response to the hurricane that devastated the island. The comments were immediately met with fury from the world at large.
     “He opened with what may have been a joke, but the comment was met with complete and utter silence.
     ". . . pointing to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, before revving up to prepare for something like comic delivery. ‘Now I hate to tell you Puerto Rico, but you've thrown our budget a little out of whack!’
      - - -
     “And if you stopped the above . . . because it was too painful to watch, then you missed another Trump misstep, where he compared hurricane damage in Puerto Rico to the ‘real catastrophe’ of Hurricane Katrina.” (Ref. 26)

     And at the end of the summer of 2019, “President Trump lobbed insults at the mayor of San Juan . . . and told Puerto Ricans to be grateful for assistance as Tropical Storm Dorian bore down on Puerto Rico.
     “As the first squalls from the storm started to lash the island, Trump founded a flippant note as he claimed disaster officials are prepared to handle the coming damage that could hit Puerto Rico ‘as usual.’
     “Then {he} instructed storm-weary Puerto Ricans to give the federal disaster agency ‘a big Thank You.’
     “ ‘That includes the incompetent mayor of San Juan,’ Trump wrote on Twitter.
     “Trump is still fuming over criticism he has taken for bungling the response to Hurricane Maria, the devastating storm that ripped across Puerto Rico in 2017.
     “He infamously tossed rolls of paper towels to crowds during a visit to the island as millions struggled to survive with no power or water. He has repeatedly claimed the U.S. has spent far more on disaster aid than it actually has.” (Ref. 27)

Donald Trump Insults City of Baltimore: In mid-summer of 2019, Donald Trump continued to insult Representative Elijah Cummings and the city of Baltimore, “calling the city worse off than the third-world country Honduras.
     "The president even described Baltimore as a ‘rodent infested mess.’
     “Trump told reporters . . .that Baltimore residents were ‘living in hell,’ tweeting the city had the ‘worst’ numbers ‘on crime and the economy.’
      - - -
     “ ‘Baltimore happens to be about the worst case,’ Trump spewed to The Washington Post. ‘If you look at it statistically, it’s like, the number of shootings, the number of crimes, the number of everything — this morning I heard a statistic, Baltimore is worse than Honduras, OK?’
      - - -
     “Trump called the city a place where ‘no human being would want to live’ and a ‘very dangerous and filthy place.’
     “The president has also verbally assaulted Maryland’s Black congressman Elijah Cummings.
      - - -
     “Trump blamed Cummings for allegedly wasting and stealing nearly $15 billion of city funding that would’ve been better off spent building ‘20 brand-new cities’ elsewhere.
      - - -
     “Baltimore’s Mayor . . . denounced the president’s remarks, calling them ‘fascicle.’
     “ ‘We know that this president often does not rely on the truth, so we’re not going to dignify nonsense with a response.’ . . . . ‘It’s just patently false.’ “ (Ref. 28)

Donald Trump Insults Women: Donald Trump has insulted women for decades. To list all of his insulting remarks about women would consume an entire tome. Instead, what follows are just a miniscule portion of what he has said, taken from Reference 29.

     In August 2015, Trump insulted Fox News host Megyn Kelly by, “questioning her professionalism and suggesting she treated him unfairly at a Republican debate last year because she was menstruating. . . .
     “Kelly had asked Trump about his stance on women, saying, ‘You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.’ Trump tried to cut her off, insisting he’s only said those things about Rosie O’Donnell.”

     “He insulted pretty much all women. In a May 1991 Esquire magazine profile, Trump had this to say about his recent bad press: ‘You know, it really doesn’t matter what they write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass. But she’s got to be young and beautiful.’ “

     “He insulted a breastfeeding mother. ‘You’re disgusting.’ Trump hurled this barb at a female lawyer, who, during a deposition involving Trump, asked for a medical break to pump breast milk for her 3-month-old daughter.”

     “He insulted all Muslim women. When Donald Trump went after Ghazala Khan, mother of fallen Iraq War veteran Humayun Khan, he invoked gross stereotypes about Muslim women. . . .”

     “He insulted women seeking abortions. More precisely, Trump believes that women who seek abortions should receive ‘some form of punishment’ if abortions become banned. . . .”

     “He body-shamed Kim Kardashian when she was pregnant.”

     “In a tape leaked from 2005, he bragged about sexually assaulting women.”

     “He fat-shamed former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. During the first presidential debate, Hillary Clinton called out Trump for his history of misogynistic comments. In particular, she called attention to Trump body-shaming Machado, whom he has called ‘Miss Piggy,’ ‘Miss Housekeeping,’ and an ‘eating machine.’ Trump then renewed his attacks against Machado in a late-night Twitter rant.”

     In 2018, “Trump hurled some personal insults this year that were truly obnoxious, even for him. He called adult film actress Stormy Daniels ‘Horseface.’ He said dozens of times in his rallies and his twitter feed that Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, is ‘low IQ’ (while at the same time declaring himself a ‘very stable genius’). He called his former staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman ‘that dog’ and cruelly mocked Dr. Christine Blasey Ford for her testimony during Justice Brett Kavanaugh's nomination hearing.” (Ref. 24)

Donald Trump Insults the Disabled: “Donald Trump came under scrutiny when he mocked New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from a disease called arthrogryposis which affects the movement of arms. Trump imitated Kovaleski’s disability while making a speech, flailing his arms and imitating how a mentally disabled person would speak.” (Ref. 22)

Donald Trump Insults American Jews: Donald Trump once again displayed his lack of respect for anyone other than himself when he insulted all American Jewry and some of his best friends by criticizing “Jewish Americans who support Democrats, saying {21 August 2019} that it ‘shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.’ Leaders in the Jewish community were outraged and said the president was promoting anti-Semitic stereotypes. [Emphasis mine]
      - - -
     “Critics and Jewish organizations immediately called attention to Mr. Trump's use of the world ‘disloyalty,’ which echoed anti-Semitic sentiments that question the ‘dual loyalty’ of Jewish citizens. . . .
     " ‘If this is about Israel, then Trump is repeating a dual loyalty claim, which is a form of anti-Semitism, {the} executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, tweeted. ‘If this is about Jews being 'loyal' to him, then Trump needs a reality check — we live in a democracy and Jewish support for the GOP has been halved in the past four years.’
      - - -
     " ‘American Jews — like all Americans — have a range of political views and policy priorities,’ {the } CEO of the nonpartisan American Jewish Committee, said in a statement. ‘His assessment of their {Jews’} knowledge or 'loyalty,' based on their party preference, is inappropriate, unwelcome, and downright dangerous.’
      - - -
     “Mr. Trump has invoked the dual-loyalty trope before. Speaking to the RJC {Republican Jewish Coalition} in April, he reiterated the sentiment that Netanyahu was ‘your prime minister’ and the Democratic agenda ‘very well could leave Israel out there all by yourselves.’ “ (Ref. 30)

     Trump delivered a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington back in {2016} that contained a number of Jewish stereotypes used by hate groups to repress them. He talked about how Jewish people have a lot of money and like to negotiate deals. He then told them that he did not ‘want their money.’ “ (Ref. 22)

Donald Trump Insults American Muslims: “Donald J. Trump belittled the parents of a slain Muslim soldier who had strongly denounced Mr. Trump during the Democratic National Convention {in 2016}, saying that the soldier’s father had delivered the entire speech because his mother was not ‘allowed’ to speak.
     “Mr. Trump’s comments, in an interview {on} ABC . . . drew quick and widespread condemnation and amplified calls for Republican leaders to distance themselves from their presidential nominee. With his implication that the soldier’s mother had not spoken because of female subservience expected in some traditional strains of Islam, his comments also inflamed his hostilities with American Muslims.” (Ref. 31)

Donald Trump Insults Muslims: During the 2016 presidential campaign, “Republican front-runner Donald Trump once again lashed out at Muslims . . .
     " ‘I think Islam hates us,’ the billionaire told CNN . . . when asked whether the religion was ‘at war with the West.’
     " ‘We have to get to the bottom of it,’ Trump said. ‘There is an unbelievable hatred of us — anybody.’
     “He added: ‘And we can't allow people coming into this country who have this hatred of the United States.’ [Emphasis mine]
     “In December, the real-estate mogul triggered uproar when he called for a ‘complete shutdown’ of Muslims entering the country.” (Ref. 32)

     “Islamophobia does not surprise many people when considering the qualities of Trump. He has talked about surveillancing Mosques to make sure that no extremist activity happens in them as well as arguing that a registry for Muslims would help keep America safe. He also spread lies saying that Muslims celebrated the destruction of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. Trump has also gone on to add that Americans should target innocent civilians near terrorists, which is a war crime in the United States and he recently stated that ‘Islams hate us.’ “ (Ref. 22)

Donald Trump Insults Blacks: “President Donald Trump has repeatedly used a form of the word ‘infested’ as he refers to Black and brown people, clearly expressing his view of them as something less than human. [Emphasis mine]
     “This was the observation of an emotional CNN anchor, who happens to be a Baltimore native, as well as activists, civil rights leaders and the general public in response to Trump’s latest racial insult. This time he was referring to Baltimore Rep. Elijah Cummings, chair of the House Oversight Committee, which has heavily monitored Trump and his administration, including on their treatment of immigrants.
      - - -
     “Baltimore-born CNN anchor Victor Blackwell, clearly fed up with Trump’s insults of people of color, issued a live, on the air rebuke, quoting the times the president has used a form of the word, “infested” in descriptions of people of color or where they live: . . .
      - - -
     “. . . Donald Trump has tweeted more than 43,000 times. He’s insulted thousands of people. Many different types of people. But when he tweets about infestation, it’s about Black and Brown people.
      - - -
     “. . . The President’s latest racist remarks drew ire from Black Republicans and Democrats alike. Trump’s latest tweets comes on the heels of the U. S. House of Representatives’ condemnation of his Twitter attacks on four Congresswomen of color as ‘racist’.
      - - -
     “. . . ‘But he has a particular venom for Black and people of color. He doesn’t refer to other opponents or critics as infested. He does not attack their districts. He attacks Nancy Pelosi, he attacks Chuck Schumer, he attacks other Whites. But he never said that their districts or their states are places that no human being wants to live.’ “ (Ref. 33)

     Basketball superstar LeBron James gave an interview to African-American “CNN journalist Don Lemon, where the future Los Angeles Lakers player discussed his school for at-risk children. James discussed the country's roiling race problem, and said it was fueled by the president. Trump . . . exploded in anger and attacked both African-American men on Twitter.
     “{In his rant, Trump Twittered:} ‘Lebron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made Lebron look smart, which isn’t easy to do. I like Mike!
     “Lemon is a frequent target of Trump, who repeatedly calls him ‘dumb’ for no apparent reason. . . .
     “The journalist reminded the public how Trump has attacked other prominent African-Americans, including Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who Trump calls a ‘low IQ individual.’ That's the tip of the iceberg, Lemon points out, explaining how there should never be any more discussion over whether Trump is racist; he is, and he's using it to his advantage.” (Ref. 34)

Donald Trump Insults Hispanics: Trump’s disparaging of Hispanics and Latinos goes back well before he became a presidential candidate and has continued well into his term in office. Before his election in 2016, he implied a federal judge, Gonzalo Paul Curiel, was biased and “hostile” because the judge was Hispanic.

     “The ongoing legal battle over whether Trump University is what former employees have called a ‘fraudulent scheme’ took an even uglier turn during a February rally when the candidate implied the judge handling the lawsuits against him was biased because of his Hispanic heritage. First, Trump identified the judge as ‘Spanish,’ which is what some erroneously call people who they believe speak Spanish. When in fact, ‘Spanish’ should only be used to describe people from Spain.
     “The federal judge Trump was referring to . . . was born and raised in Indiana to parents who emigrated from Mexico.
     “He insisted Curiel had ‘an inherent conflict of interest’ in the case despite being American.
     “In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump doubled down on his comments about Curiel and said the federal judge had ‘an inherent conflict of interest’ in the Trump University cases because of his Mexican heritage. More specifically, Trump suggested that the judge would treat him unfairly because of his plans to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. He continually ignored the fact that Curiel was an American, born and raised in the United States.
      - - -
     “As proof that Judge Curiel was biased because of his Mexican heritage, Trump repeatedly pointed out that the federal judge was a member of the San Diego chapter of the La Raza Lawyers Association. In an interview with CBS’ Face the Nation he named it as a reason for Curiel’s alleged bias.
     “On the topic, {La Raza} San Diego chapter president . . . told The Huffington Post: ‘A lot of people are assuming that since it’s called ‘La Raza lawyers’ that it’s only Mexicans. But we consist of 300 members: judges, lawyers, law students, non-legal professionals that work in the legal field.’ He added that members are ‘Latino, non-Latino, Mexican, non-Mexican, Caucasian.’ (Ref. 35)

Donald Trump Insults Immigrants: Donald Trump's insults to immigrants - legal and illegal - are simply too numerous and onerous to repeat. He has labeled immigrants, rapists, drug dealers, murderers and worse. He has done this without any acknowledgement of the enormous contributions these immigrants have made, and continue to make, to the growth, success and prosperity of this nation. He ignores the incontrovertible fact that America was and is a nation of immigrants. Unless one is a Native American, we all come from immigrant families. His insults and attacks upon the immigrant community continue to be despicable and below the dignity of someone who occupies the Oval Office.

     Trump has all-too-often attacked immigrants to the United States from Mexico, Central America or predominantly Muslim countries with insulting language that implies that they are dangerous criminals or undeserving of being here. He has mostly focused his attacks on undocumented immigrants and on refugees seeking asylum in the United States. And all of this while our economy continues to depend heavily on the labor of undocumented immigrants, those who work the toughest jobs for the smallest amount of pay. These are the jobs that most American non-immigrant workers won’t accept. And, in spite of want the President claims, undocumented immigrants contribute more money in taxes a year than they receive back in public benefits.[36]

     While Trump has been viciously working to restrict the flow of migrants and refugees into the U.S., he has also attacked the undocumented immigrants already living in the U.S. who have been contributing to the U.S. economy.[36]

     In another well-publicized attack on immigrants, Trump, in September 2017, announced his decision to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that protects undocumented immigrants who arrived to the U.S. as children or were born here. Most of these children have grown up in America, been educated in America, and know no other country but America. Trump’s action has created unjustified fear in this group, who are as American as you or I.[37]

Donald Trump Insults LGBT Community: Politicians think that Pride Month “is the time to court LGBT votes - even those ‘dispicables’ who tout our demise! Including Donald Trump: In effect Trump is complicit in the ongoing assault, rapes and deaths of LGBT people worldwide.
     “{Trump’s June 2019} Tweet about LGBT Pride Month may ring supportive to an ignorant ear, or a supporter who believes the lie, or a racist ear - you know those very odd gays who want to pretend that Trump is their friend. . . . its sentiment is an outright lie, it is couched in hypocrisy and its undertone can be interpreted as a threat! Do not allow anyone to be fooled . . .
      - - -
     “Here is the Trump lie: Trump’s actual acts and actions barely begin to comport with these words {in his Tweet} in terms of their literal meaning: Trump is attempting to bring back a Trans form of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, to roll back the progress the LGBTQI military community has taken decades to achieve. His stance which for now targets trans people in the military, serves not only to discriminate against trans service members and those who would like to enlist, but also sets trans people up for further violence, through the insidious message Trump is delivering through policy.
     “Trump and his Republican led Senate have made it clear that they will not support the Equality Act. The very critical piece of legislation that would protect LGBT from a myriad of inequities on a Federal level – the very many discriminatory circumstances that this new law would dramatically mitigate. This means Trump and the Republicans have said they do not support equality for LGBTQI individuals. [Emphasis mine] So, the very history and our actual reason for engaging in our PRIDE, in the form of protests and celebrations during Pride Month, is THUS negated by his so called supportive Tweet! . . .
      - - -
     “Here is the Trump hypocrisy: . . . If trump truly cared about the criminalization of homosexuality, he might care about those impacted by it. The 70 plus countries that criminalize LGBT people all participate in persecution that leads to evictions, firings, blackmail, extortion, assault, rape, torture, and arbitrary arrests - noting state participation. Has Trump done one thing or called out one single country on this? . . . Not a word on behalf of gays. . . . He has therefore failed LGBT refugees and asylum seekers who are desperate for a pipeline to safety. In effect Trump is complicit in the ongoing assault, rapes and even deaths of LGBT people worldwide. . . .
     Here is the Trump threat: . . . ‘Translation of the Tweet: YOU ARE ALL LUCKY WE DO NOT ARREST YOU OR KILL YOU TOO!!!’
      - - -
     “. . . the Log Cabin Republicans are complicit with Trump in actually hurting LGBTQI people, here and worldwide. And no Tweet or Facebook Post is going to change that!” (Ref. 38)

Donald Trump Insults Native Americans: “In a {2017} ceremony to honor Native American veterans at the White House Monday, Trump provoked the ire of groups representing North America's indigenous communities.
     “Trump repeated his ‘Pocahontas’ jibe about Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has claimed to have Cherokee ancestry. The use of the name is regarded as insulting and derogatory by many Native Americans.
    " ‘The name becomes a derogatory racial reference when used as an insult,’ the Alliance of Colonial Era Tribes' general secretary said in a statement.
    " ‘American Indian names, whether they be historic or contemporary, are not meant to be used as insults. To do so is to reduce them to racial slurs.’
      - - -
    ”The event was not the first time Trump had offended Native Americans.
     “In the early 1990s, Trump attacked expanding Native American–run casinos that he believed posed a threat to his own gambling empire. [Emphasis mine] In media appearances, he claimed Native American reservations had fallen under mob control, and he questioned the ethnicity of Native Americans on a Connecticut reservation.
     " ‘I think I might have more Indian blood than a lot of the so-called Indians that are trying to open up the reservations,’ Trump said during a 1993 radio interview . . .
     “In 2000, Trump paid more than $1 million for an ad campaign that portrayed members of Indian tribe in upstate New York as cocaine traffickers and career criminals. . .
     “But even as he was attacking some tribes, he was striking deals with others when it suited his interests. He paid for a group to document its lineage and achieve recognized status as a tribe in exchange for a cut of casino profits, and he tried to cut a deal with a California tribe to run its casino.” (Ref. 39)

Donald Trump Insults Robert Mueller: When polls showed him doing poorly in May of 2019, “President Trump said . . .that special counsel Robert Mueller’s ‘illegal witch hunt’ is to blame for his recent low poll numbers.
     “Without the ILLEGAL Witch Hunt, my poll numbers, especially because of our historically ‘great’ economy, would be at 65%. Too bad! The greatest Hoax in American History,’ the president tweeted. {Heaven forbid, anything Trump himself did or said could result in unfavorable poll results!}
     “Mr. Trump could be reacting to a Quinnipiac poll finding his approval rating at only 38 percent, with 57 percent saying they had negative feelings about the president.
      - - -
     “ ‘Everything the Democrats are asking me for is based on an illegally started investigation that failed for them, especially when the Mueller Report came back with a NO COLLUSION finding. Now they say Impeach President Trump, even though he did nothin wrong, while they ‘fish,’ {ranted the president} . . .
     “ ‘After two years of an expensive and comprehensive Witch Hunt, the Democrats don’t like the result and they want a DO OVER. In other words, the Witch Hunt continues,’ he tweeted. ‘The Democrats are getting ZERO work done in Congress. All they are focused on is trying to prove the Mueller Report wrong, the Witch Hunt!’ ” (Ref. 40)

     “President Donald Trump insulted . . . former special counsel Robert Mueller from the shores of Normandy, during an interview . . . that delayed a D-Day anniversary event.
     “The president called . . . Mueller a ‘fool’ . . . as thousands of veterans, foreign dignitaries, U.S. officials and others waited for him to take part in a ceremony marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day . . .
      - - -
     “He . . . mocked Mueller and his investigation as the assembled crowd waited.” (Ref. 41)

Donald Trump Insults President Obama: Donald Trump met with President Barack Obama in 2016 as he prepared to transition to four years in the Oval Office. To say that the two had a bitter public relationship would be an understatement.

     “Trump rose to political prominence by propagating the false conspiracy theory, viewed by many people as racist, that Obama, the nation’s first African-American president, was not born in the United States. . . .
     “Beyond birtherism, Trump hasn’t been kind to the sitting president on the campaign trail, regularly declaring that he is a terrible president and that his tenure and many legislative accomplishments, such as health care reform, are a ‘disaster.’ And in Trump form, he made some more outlandish statements about the president, including the claim that Obama had founded ISIS.
     “Here are nine of the most inflammatory things Trump has said about Obama.
     “1. Trump started out by saying that Obama was not born in the United States.
      - - -
     “2. ‘President Obama has been the most ignorant president in our history’
      - - -
     “3. ‘He has been a disaster’
      - - -
     “4. Trump called the president the ‘founder of ISIS’
      - - -
     “5. ‘I believe I know far more about foreign policy than he knows’
      - - -
     “6. Trump said the country’s generals were ‘reduced to rubble’ under Obama.
      - - -
     “7. He said Obama was ‘concerned I’m going to win’
      - - -
     “8. He called Obamacare a ‘catastrophe’
      - - -
     “9. Trump said he would have beaten the president in 2012” (Ref. 42)

Donald Trump Insults Senator McCain: Way back in 2015, Donald Trump started hurling insults at war hero and U.S. senator, John McCain. “Appearing . . . at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, the real estate mogul took his running feud with Arizona Sen. John McCain to a new level.
     “ ‘He’s not a war hero,’ said Trump. ‘He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.’ “ (Ref. 43)

     This came from the same man who never served a day in his life in the service of this country. In 1968, when Donald Trump “was a 22-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate, Trump was a tall, fit athlete who played football, tennis, and golf. His age and clean medical history qualified Trump as a perfect candidate for the draft to serve in the United States Army and fight in the Vietnam War, but he avoided combat after receiving a 1-Y medical deferment, which he has said was due to ‘bone spurs in his heels.’ . . .
     “The son of Fred Trump, a wealthy New York real estate developer, Donald Trump did what many other wealthy young men were allowed to do: He dodged the draft. [Emphasis mine] Between 1964 and 1972, a few months before the draft ended, he received five deferments — in addition to his ‘bone spurs’ claim, the other four were based on his educational status. He received two deferments while he attended Fordham University from 1964 to 1966, and two more after transferring to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
     “As a draft dodger, Trump never knew the horrors of war . . . {unlike John McCain who was seriously injured after bailing out of his damaged fighter jet over North Viet Nam and who spent years in a prison camp.} . . .” (Ref. 44)

     What makes Trump's behavior and his insulting remarks about Senator McCain obscene is that despite having never served, he has fashioned himself as the arbiter of military courage.

     “McCain, a former Navy pilot, spent roughly five-and-half years in a notorious North Vietnamese prison known as the ‘Hanoi Hilton,’ where he was repeatedly tortured. He spent two of those years in solitary confinement.
      - - -
     “He also continued his attacks on the Arizona senator, saying, ‘I think John McCain’s done very little for the veterans. I’m very disappointed in John McCain.’ “(Ref. 43)

     Years later, Trump proved once more, that he simply cannot keep his mouth shut. “Despite John McCain’s two daughters begging Donald Trump to stop insulting their dead father, POTUS laid into the late war hero yet again on March 21 {2019} by calling him ‘horrible’.
     “Another day, another instance of Donald Trump, 72, attacking a decorated war hero, who has been dead since Aug. 2018. Trump was on Fox Business Network’s Mornings With Maria show on March 21, when he doubled down on the insults that he hurled at the late John McCain over the last few days, saying, ‘I’m not a fan. He was horrible what he did with repeal and replace. What he did to the Republican Party and to the nation, and to sick people that could have had great health care was not good. So I’m not a fan of John McCain, and that’s fine.’
     “Immediately after, news anchor Maria Bartiromo criticized Donald for attacking someone who’s dead and can’t defend himself. . . . And Donald, of course, refused to take any blame for slamming John McCain. Instead, he said it’s everyone else’s fault that he keeps talking about the war hero. . . .
      - - -
     “Donald also complained that John’s family, including John’s wife Cindy McCain, didn’t thank him for his funeral, which POTUS also claimed he had to approve (something that Washington National Cathedral has since denied [Emphasis mine]). . . .
     “As you can see . . . Trump does seem to care about insulting McCain after his passing from brain cancer. Trump’s latest attack on McCain comes just days after the late senator’s daughter Bridget McCain asked Trump to leave their family alone. . . ..” (Ref. 45)

Donald Trump Insults America’s Military: “President Trump has not visited troops in a war zone. He suggested ballots cast by active-duty members of the military should not be counted in Florida because some arrived, perfectly legally . . . after Election Day. These are servicemembers voting from war zones, some of them. And right now, thousands of American servicemen and women are on the border, where, by law, they cannot actually help detain undocumented immigrants, missing Thanksgiving with their families, for a caravan invasion that was really just a political talking point.
     “And this is coming from a president who had five draft deferments during the Vietnam War, avoiding the service that so many other young men were compelled to provide. One of those deferments for bone spurs that Candidate Trump couldn't remember which foot they afflicted. Both feet, his campaign later said. And he recounts this story attributing his avoidance of service to luck, when he had already secured a medical disqualification, making his draft lottery number irrelevant.” (Ref. 46)

     A year before being elected president, Trump insulted the nation’s military leaders by tweeting that: “I know more about ISIS than the generals do, believe me.” Then, in June of 2016, he struck again with: “[The generals] don’t know much because they’re not winning.” (Ref. 47)

     Adding insult to injury, when Trump Appeared at the Commander-in-Chief forum on MSNBC, he said the generals of the U.S. military were ‘embarrassing’ to America.
     “Trump said that the generals had been ‘reduced to rubble.’
     “Trump . . . previously said he knows more about ISIS than the generals.
     “All of this {was} particularly confusing, since, just hours earlier, Trump said that he would rely on the generals of the U.S. military to create a plan to defeat ISIS.” (Ref. 48)

     So which was it? Were our top generals “embarrassing” and was the president, who had never served a day in the military, really “smarter” than these generals? And if Trump was so much “smarter” than these “embarrassing” generals, why was he tasking them to come up with a plan to defeat ISIS, instead of doing so himself?

     “The President has insulted war heroes, prisoners of war, Gold Star families and, some critics say, tried to use the troops to score political points. He's directed 5% cuts at Veterans Affairs, which for some time he left in the control of non-veterans who happened to be members of his Mar-a-Lago club.
     “He's neglected to visit combat zones, unlike other presidents, suggested troops' midterm election ballots not be counted, passed up Veterans Day ceremonies other leaders made time to attend and repeatedly said he knows more about military issues than generals do.
     " ‘These unnecessary unforced errors, when you attack people like Adm. McRaven and (the late Sen. John) McCain, it shows a lack of respect that's just baffling,’ said {the} chief policy officer at the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, and a veteran of the Iraq War.” (Ref. 49)

Donald Trump Insults America’s Intelligence Services: Donald Trump egotistically sees himself better qualified to make intelligence assessments than the trained professionals who staff America’s intelligence agencies. At the start of 2019, Trump became “furious after seeing cable-television news headlines saying that the intelligence chiefs had contradicted him . . . and he attacked them in two tweets, without having seen their full testimony. ‘The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong!’ Trump tweeted. ‘Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!’ . . .
     “That twenty-four-hour cycle—from a two-hour hearing to two angry tweets—was the latest charged interaction in the fraught relationship between Trump and the intelligence agencies. In an unprecedented act for a sitting President, Trump has repeatedly accused members of the F.B.I. and other agencies of being part of a ‘deep state’ that is trying to oust him from power. His critics say that he is blatantly pressuring the intelligence community to politicize intelligence by producing findings that match his political goals . . . But the President may also be trying to achieve something simpler: bullying the intelligence agencies into silence.
      - - -
     “Current and former intelligence officials warned that, within the community, Trump’s rancor is having an impact. . . . there is a growing sense that the President and his inner circle are rejecting intelligence assessments that disagree with their views. [Emphasis mine] . . .
      - - -
     “. . . current and former officials . . . are most concerned about the long-term impact of the President’s claims that the F.B.I. and C.I.A. are part of the deep state. They worry that such statements will fuel a decline in the willingness of Americans to work for intelligence agencies. ‘The whole gutting of the institution’ is possible, the former official said. ‘What kind of talent will we attract in the future? That is a huge concern.’ “ (Ref. 50)

     Trump had his big meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2018. “The two leaders met in private in an unrecorded session for two hours and then emerged for a press conference in which Trump behaved as if he were the Russian president's majordomo. In one of the most memorable moments of his presidency thus far, he made it clear that he did not believe his own intelligence community was more credible than the Russian leader [Emphasis mine] . . .” (Ref. 24)

     During January of 2019, that most brilliant intelligence analyst, “President Trump . . . renewed his attacks on the intelligence community, calling them ‘extremely passive and naïve’ after {the} Director of National Intelligence . . . and other senior intelligence leaders contradicted the president’s assertions on Iran, North Korea, and ISIS.
     “ ‘They are wrong!’ Trump wrote in a pair of early-morning tweets bashing ‘the intelligence people’ for testifying on Tuesday that Iran is not currently taking the steps that intelligence officials believe would be necessary for them to produce a nuclear device — an assessment at odds with Trump’s assertion that the regime was cheating on the spirit of the 2015 deal curtailing its nuclear program. ‘[They] are coming very close to the edge…Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!’
     “The tweets were latest in a series of Trump salvos at the intelligence community. Soon after he was elected in 2016, he horrified career professionals when he attacked the CIA for its assessment that Russian hacks on Democratic political targets were intended to help him win the White House. . . . As he prepared to take office, he declined to receive many of the daily intelligence briefings typically given to the president-elect, {egotistically} saying that he was ‘a smart person’ who didn’t ‘need to hear the same thing every day.’ [Emphasis mine]
     “Field professionals and scholars have raised concerns about these attacks, and about Trump’s wider approach to his intelligence community. [Emphasis mine] {Should critical security decisions to be made based upon Trump’s uninformed I-know-it-all beliefs rather than on the informed information and analyses by our intelligence experts?} In theory, career officers and analysts are supposed to gather, analyze, and then present intelligence to stakeholders without taking domestic politics into consideration, in order to ensure that the information on which policy-makers are basing critical national security decisions is as accurate as possible. Although experts say that healthy skepticism is an important part of a functioning relationship between intelligence and policy-makers, critics fear that Trump’s dismissal of the intelligence community suggests that the administration is ignoring its own trained professionals in order to advance policies that are not based on the true nature of a given threat. [Emphasis mine] The attacks might also dissuade officials from bringing important information to the president that they know he won’t like . . .
      - - -
     “ ‘The President has a dangerous habit of undermining the intelligence community to fit his alternate reality,’ . . . the Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, tweeted. . . ‘People risk their lives for the intelligence he just tosses aside on Twitter.’ ” (Ref. 51)

Donald Trump Insults the United States: While Donald Trump struts the world stage insulting all – friend and foe alike, what is far sworse is the fact that his behavior is an insult to the United States of America and its people. The president’s undisciplined public statements and threats of violence undermine America’s position in the world, and denigrate the office of president. He constantly damages America’s reputation. Trump has shown that he has no idea about how to behave in a situation demanding plain ordinary good manners. He cannot comprehend that diplomacy requires expertise and civility and is unable to understand that the conduct of international affairs rests largely upon basic courtesies. His egotism and boorishness are simply reprehensible. As president, Trump has beaten facts to death long after they are clear, in what are obviously deliberate attempts to replace the truth with his own opinionated version of it. He not only makes blatant mistakes and misstates things, but he purposely attempts to insert false information into the discussion. Trump appears to be an unrepentant pathological liar. As such, this petulant and arrogant individual with a proven compulsion to tell monstrous lies, has insulted the intelligence of nearly all Americans.

     “A new {mid-2019} Associated Press-NORC poll finds that 62 percent of Americans disapprove of what Donald Trump is doing, while 36 percent approve. [Emphasis mine]
      - - -
     “Rest assured, the world as a whole does not see Donald Trump as ‘favorably’ as Americans do. He is the most reviled American leader in history. No contest. Check any poll you want.
      - - -
     “Away from the tweeting and the flapping of lips that are sorely in need of a restraint device, Trump consistently shows that he doesn't know what he says about matters that matter, like guns:
     "He has crossed the gun-sanity Rubicon over and over since the horrors of El Paso and Dayton, intimating he supports heightened background checks and then backing off after one ringy-dingy from the National Rifle Association.
      - - -
     “Now let us consider the plight of the Republicans, who polls show are still enamored with this man who has put a clown's nose on our nation's image.
     “The president blithely has predicted a ‘Jexodus’ -- Jews fleeing the Democratic Party. That's more pink elephant fodder from him, particularly after the damage from his ‘disloyal’ comments.
     “Indeed, the latter language harks, for many of the Jewish faith, to the rhetoric that led to pogroms, concentration camps and, in the age of Trump, lit tiki torches.
     “The actual, certifiable exodus is from Republican moderates in Congress and Trump voters in the swing states that made him king -- or at least so he thought.” (Ref. 52)

     So, will Donald Trump, the person who insults all – Friend and Foe alike - be re-elected in 2020? “During a December 2015 debate among Republican presidential candidates in Las Vegas, former Florida governor Jeb Bush said to Donald Trump: ‘You can’t insult your way to the presidency.’
     “Never mind.
     “The question for next year’s election is whether the insulter-in-chief can use the same tactic to win a second term.
     “It depends on two other questions:
     “Who the Democrats end up nominating and whether voters see that person as too far left (as the leading candidates unarguably are).
     “Whether enough voters who held their noses and voted for Trump last time will be sufficiently turned off that they will stay home.
      - - -
     “A new Fox News poll suggests potential problems for the president on the second question. The president’s favorite network (until recently when he began criticizing the goose laying golden eggs for him) shows his disapproval rating has soared to 56 percent, one point lower than his record high in October 2017. His disapproval numbers ticked up sharply last month, rising 5 percent.
     “More troubling is the drop in approval of the president’s job performance from 46 percent last month, to 43 percent now. His record low approval rating was 38 percent, also in October 2017.
      - - -
     “None of this seems to bother the president, who engaged in more insults in a speech last week in Manchester, N.H. . . .
     “In that speech Mr. Trump took a ‘vote for me, even if you hate me, because the Democrats will ruin the economy’ approach. While that may be true, there are intangibles that also influence voters, including how America positions itself before the world. There is no question that President Trump is pushing back against liberalism, socialism and the notion that Democrats must always set the agenda and Republicans are left to respond to it. That is what has solidified uncritical support among his base.
     “But – and this is a very big but – there is also the issue of deportment, something taught at home and in school . . . Manners, character, honesty, consistency and how others see you were also traits thought important to instill in young men and women.
      - - -
     “The president might win a second term, insulting along the way, but will it have been worth it if he continues to appeal to the worst devils that are also in our nature?” [Emphasis mine] (Ref. 53) Insults are used by those whole lack the mental capacity to hold a discussion or debate, grounded upon facts and inherent intelligence. For them, insulting is a substitute for the ability to discuss and to argue from a base of knowledge and intellect. It also demonstrates an ugly side and mean streak of the person issuing the insults. Donald Trump’s incessant flood of insults has reflected poorly upon him and greatly diminished respect for the office of President and for the country he has represented, both at home and abroad.

     It was said of President Eisenhower: “People were proud to be Americans, proud of our country, and proud of our president.” (Ref. 54)

     Of President Trump, it will likely be said: People were embarrassed to be Americans, ashamed of their country, and insulted by their president.

     As the 2020 elections drew closer, Donald Trump continued his penchant for flinging insults left and right. A high-level meeting in mid-October 2019 “between President Donald Trump and top congressional leaders over the Syria crisis ended abruptly after Trump insulted Speaker Nancy Pelosi [Emphasis mine], which spurred Democratic leaders to walk out of the White House.
      - - -
     “Trump told reporters . . . that his decision to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria — which was quickly followed by the Turkish attack on U.S.-allied Kurdish forces — was ‘strategically brilliant’ while downplaying Russian intervention in the conflict.
      - - -
     “But Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) accused Trump of having ‘a meltdown’ during their meeting in the historic Cabinet Room.
     “The three Democrats said Trump appeared unhinged by a House vote condemning the Syria withdrawal, and the meeting quickly degenerated into a name-calling session led by the president, according to the Democrats. The trio walked out of the meeting before it was over, they told reporters afterward.
     " ‘[Trump] was insulting, particularly to the speaker,’ Schumer said. ‘She kept her cool completely, but he called her a third-rate politician. [Emphasis mine] . . . This was not a dialogue; this was sort of a diatribe, a nasty diatribe not focused on the facts.’ " (Ref. 55)

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