Number 2 in NEWS 1130’s Top 10 of 2017

WASHINGTON, DC. (NEWS 1130) – On January 20th, Donald John Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States of America. In front of thousands of onlookers, the billionaire businessman from New York laid out his plans for his country’s future.

“For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost… from this moment on, it’s going to be America First. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.”

LISTEN: Amelia John has Number 2 in NEWS 1130’s Top 10 of 2017

 

Some political columnists like Benjamin Wallace-Wells with The New Yorker dubbed the address one of the darkest commencement speeches in modern history, although many Trump supporters were encouraged by the Make America Great Again message.

But it was a retweet from the National Park Service that compared Trump’s smaller inauguration crowd size to President Obama’s that sparked outrage from the new president. The next day, then Press Secretary Sean Spicer took an opportunity to attack the media reports, something he would later regret.

The former communications director for the Republican National Committee stood in front of journalists and claimed Trump had “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration-period-both in person and around the globe.”

One of Trump’s first executive orders addressed immigration concerns. The travel ban ignited a global backlash, with many critics comparing it to a Muslim ban, a pledge Trump made on the campaign trail. The order blocked people from temporarily entering the US from seven Muslim-majority countries. It would take several rewrites of the document and legal challenges before it was upheld by the Supreme Court.

More questions started to rise about the Trump campaign’s interaction with Russians ahead of the lead up to the election. The White House was quick to hit back at the speculation, putting surrogates and officials like Vice President Mike Pence on TV to distance the administration from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Fox News’ Chris Wallace asked Pence about the intelligence community’s assessment that Moscow meddled in the election.

“This is all a distraction and it’s all part of a narrative to delegitimize the election and to question the legitimacy of this presidency.”

While Pence may have thought he was telling the truth, it turns out he was missing part of the story. National Security Advisor Michael Flynn spoke with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak about sanctions during the transition last December.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates would go on to testify in front of Congress that the Department of Justice was aware of Flynn’s lies and warned White House Counsel Don McGahn. But she said her advice was not addressed in a meaningful way and it wasn’t until reports went public about Flynn’s shadiness that he was eventually asked to submit his resignation.

Trump blamed the media for Flynn’s political demise at a news conference, calling the former general “a wonderful man” who was “treated very, very unfairly by the media.”

One guy who wasn’t in Trump’s good book was FBI Director James Comey. In May, the president sent his long-time bodyguard Keith Schiller to give Comey his walking papers. The problem was, Comey wasn’t at FBI headquarters that day. He was in California, and saw reports of his firing live on TV. According to people who were with him at the time, Comey thought it was a joke at first. Political analysts were shocked and comparisons were made to the Saturday Night Massacre during the Nixon administration.

Initially, the White House said Comey was fired because of DOJ recommendations based on how he handled the Hillary Clinton email investigation. In an interview with NBC, Trump undermined that claim, calling Comey a “showboat” and a “grandstander.”

“And in fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won’.”

When Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation into Russian meddling, his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to lead the case as special counsel. Mueller would end up hiring a team of prosecutors, which discovered evidence that members of the Trump campaign team were not entirely honest about their contacts with Moscow.

Despite months of denials of any collusion with the Russian government, Trump’s eldest son tweeted out an email chain that showed there was at least one meeting between several Russians as well as himself, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and campaign manager Paul Manafort in June of 2016. At first, the Trump team claimed the meeting was about adoptions. But the email trail proved the Russians offered dirt on Hillary Clinton, which Donald Trump Jr. responded with “If it’s what you say, I love it.”

In August, a different type of firestorm took shape when white nationalists and neo-Nazis organized a demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was promoted as a “Unite the Right” rally. Counter-protesters took to the streets and violence broke out. On Saturday, August 12th, Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal, died after a vehicle plowed into a crowd of people. James Alex Fields Jr., who has been linked to the alt-right movement, is accused of intentionally targeting the counter protesters and has been charged with first-degree murder.

Although Trump had been typically quick to respond to international terror attacks via Twitter, he was relatively slow to comment on Heyer’s death. He was criticized for not calling out the racists who attended the rally, instead suggesting there was violence on both sides.

“What about the ‘alt-left’ that came charging at, as you say, the ‘alt-right,’ do they have any semblance of guilt?”
Some pundits thought Trump was protecting his base and called him out. The president gave them even more ammo the next month. During a speech in Alabama, Trump attacked NFL players who had been protesting social justice issues and police brutality by taking a knee during the national anthem. Trump was blasted for whipping up his base when he accused athletes of disrespecting the flag.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a b—- off the field right now. Out. He’s fired. He’s fired!”

At the same rally, Trump made headlines for a nickname he debuted. The man who was happy to call his political rivals “Crooked Hillary,” “Lyin’ Ted” and “Little Marco” announced a new term for North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un amid rising nuclear tensions.

“We can’t have madmen out there shooting rockets all over the place. And by the way, ‘Rocket Man’ should have been handled a long time ago. By Clinton. I won’t mention the Republicans right? By Obama.”

Trump’s October surprise in 2016 would have ended most other campaigns. The Access Hollywood tape would go down in infamy when The Apprentice star was caught on video admitting to kissing and grabbing women because he couldn’t help himself and was allowed to get away with it because he was famous. There was a different kind of surprise this October, when former Trump campaign Chair Paul Manafort was indicted in connection with the Russia investigation. George Papadopoulos, a former advisor on the Trump campaign team, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller wasn’t done yet. Michael Flynn, the former general who supported Trump throughout the campaign, and as National Security Advisor in the White House, ended up pleading guilty to lying to the FBI as well. There are reports Mueller’s team has been going through the financial records of Trump’s company. His sons Don Jr. and Eric are now ruling their father’s empire, which includes the licensing of the Trump name to a fancy hotel and condo tower on Georgia Street in Vancouver.

In between it all, there were claims of voter fraud, wiretapping, and several feuds (sometimes with senior members of his own party and cabinet).

Opinion polls declined throughout the year, but many folks who voted for Trump in 2016 still support him. They cheered when Trump appointed conservative Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, celebrated when he rallied Republicans around tax reform, and have been lauding job growth and strong economic numbers. But there are still several items left on Trump’s to-do list. The future of healthcare remains unclear, despite pledges to kill Obamacare. No one is really sure when or if that wall with Mexico will be built. And there could be more violence when the American embassy is officially moved to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

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