Donald Trump an Even More Horrible Bigot Than Previously Thought

The Real Trump

Of all of Donald Trump’s terrible qualities, the one redeeming one that has always shined through is his steadfast belief that all humans should be treated with fairness and respect, no matter their race, religion, country of origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Indeed, not once during his four years in Washington did he ever give anyone any reason to believe he had even a drop of prejudice or discriminatory inclinations running through his body. “People could learn a lot from how Donald Trump approaches the world,” even his most ardent critics would frequently admit, noting that if Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks, Anne Frank, Harvey Milk, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Moses were all alive today they’d have great things to say about the 45th president.

Yes, obviously, we’re just f--king with you. In reality, Trump has and likely always will be a colossal bigot, particularly regarding race—though when it comes to groups of people to discriminate against, in this one instance, he does not discriminate. While the examples backing up this claim could fill an entire series of books that we do not have time to type out right now, just a few of the lowlights include:

- Calling for the execution of five Black and Latino teenagers;

- Spearheading an entire movement around the lie that the country’s first Black president wasn’t born in the United States;

- Kicking off his bid for the presidency by describing Mexicans as rapists and criminals;

- Tweeting an image of Hillary Clinton’s face atop a pile of cash next to the Star of David and the phrase, “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!”;

- Banning travel to the US from seven predominantly Muslim nations;

- Claiming that a group of neo-Nazis contained some “very fine people”;

- Telling four congresswoman of color to “go back” to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” despite the fact that three-quarters of those women “came from” the US;

- Describing Baltimore, whose population is majority Black, as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being” would “want to live”;

- Pardoning a guy a US Department of Justice expert said oversaw the worst pattern of racial profiling by a law enforcement agency in US history;

- Banning transgender people from joining the military;

- Ranting that American Jews aren’t loyal enough to Israel;

- Suggesting Jews control the media;

- Throwing an absolute shit fit over the removal of statue of a Confederate general who thought Black people should be white people’s property, and insisting said general was one of the greatest military leaders of all time.

That’s a lot—and yet, somehow, just a drop in the bucket. So while it’s literally the opposite of surprising, it’s still stomach-churning nevertheless to learn, via New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman’s new book, that there’s apparently an entire storage facility worth of anecdotes re: Trump being a horrible bigot that we’d never even heard about.

Per CNN:

Confidence Man chronicles how Trump’s fixation on race, gender, and religion dates back decades, shaped by a tumultuous period in New York City’s history. “Racial is more severe in New York than it is anywhere else that I can think of,” Trump said in a post-presidency interview with Haberman, who writes that Trump “often seemed frozen in time” in 1980s New York and viewed tribal conflict as inevitable.

During the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, Trump’s fear of germs and illness led him to announce publicly he would require dates to take an AIDS test, and Haberman writes he called reporters to inquire if people he had met with might be gay—concerned because they had exchanged a handshake.

In the late 1990s, after Trump divorced Marla Maples, he had a relationship with a model, Kara Young, who was the daughter of a Black mother and white father. Haberman writes that after meeting Young’s parents, Trump told her she had gotten her beauty from her mother and intelligence “from her dad, the white side.” Trump laughed as he said it, Haberman writes. Young told him it wasn’t something to joke about.

Confidence Man also reveals this charming incident, via Rolling Stone:

It was January of 2017, and a newly inaugurated president Donald Trump held a reception at the White House to meet with top congressional leaders. Hors d’oeuvres were on the menu. And the new president turned to a row of racially diverse Democratic staffers and asked them to retrieve the canapés, according to [the] book.

“Why don’t you get” the food, Trump told staffers for Senator Chuck Schumer, Representative Nancy Pelosi, and others…. Then White House chief of staff Reince Priebus rushed to correct Trump’s remark, telling the then president that he’d just addressed top congressional aides before going to find the actual White House waitstaff. 

At other times, according to Haberman, Trump would boast to people visiting the White House that he’d had his private White House bathroom redone, which one guest “interpreted…to mean Trump did not want to use the same bathroom as his Black predecessor.”

Of course, Black people were far from the only ones on the receiving end of Trump’s not-at-all-disguised prejudice. According to CNN, the book describes an episode in which Trump was preparing for a 2016 debate, when Priebus, playing the part of a transgender student, asked the then candidate if a trans woman could use a girls’ bathroom.

“I have a question,” Trump said to a room full of people, Haberman recounts. “Cocked or decocked?” After the group responded with blank stares, Haberman writes, Trump made a chopping gesture. “With cock or without cock?” he asked.

Cisgender women were apparently similarly afforded the same level of respect. Per The Daily Beast:

It was…in the ’80s, while he was at a black-tie dinner with his first wife, Ivana Trump, when the topic of Brazilian women came up. “They have so much pussy hair,” Trump said. According to Haberman, New York City socialite Tony Gliedman’s wife, Ginny, stared at Trump as he dove into how Brazilian women have to wax frequently.

Elsewhere in the tome, Haberman reportedly writes that Trump would frequently show photos of women he’d slept with to his employees and, while serving as president, referred to German chancellor Angela Merkel as “that bitch.” Of Nikki Haley, his ambassador to the United Nations, the then president would complain: “Can’t we do better lighting or give her better makeup?” Before Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, he would reportedly joke about her worsening health, putting his hands in mock-prayer and saying, “Please, God. Please watch over her. Every life is precious.”

Naturally, Trump had many thoughts about gay men too. Former Trump employees, Haberman writes, “recalled Trump mocking gay men, or men who were seen as weak, with the words ‘queer’ or ‘faggot.” According to the author, he would bully these men behind closed doors; former Trump Organization executive Alan Marcus told Haberman that Trump would “belittle” another executive who Trump believed was gay and “bragged that he paid the executive less.”

In a statement to CNN, Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich suggested no one cares that the ex-president is an even more horrible person than previously thought, telling the outlet: “While coastal elites obsess over boring books chock-full of anonymously sourced mistruths, America is a nation in decline. President Trump is focused on saving America, and there’s nothing the fake news can do about it.”

Oh: Trump thought he could sue congress for impeaching him because yes, he’s that big of an idiot

Is the pope Catholic? Does a bear shit in the woods? Is Donald Trump one of the biggest morons on the face of the earth? Can you tell where we’re going with this?

Obviously, apart from the supporters who actually believe him when he calls himself a stable genius, the majority of the world is all too aware of the fact that Donald Trump will likely go down as the dumbest president in US history. (Yes, even dumber than the guy who once said, “It’s the executive branch’s job to interpret law.”) In September 2017, responding to a Washington Post–ABC News poll on what “what one word best describes your impression of Trump,” Americans most commonly described Trump as “incompetent.” In December 2017, the most frequent answer to a similar question from Quinnipiac was “idiot,” followed by words such as “incompetent,” “moron,” “ignorant,” and “stupid.” In July 2017, then national security adviser H.R. McMaster reportedly said at a private dinner that Trump had the intelligence of a “kindergartner.” The following January, then Defense secretary James Mattis gave him an upgrade—but just barely—telling aides the president had the mental capacity of “a fifth- or sixth-grader.” Other phrases Trump’s own allies have used to describe him include “dumb as shit,” “this idiot,” “an idiot surrounded by clowns,” and “a fucking moron.“ Foreign leaders were told not to assume he knew anything whatsoever about their country. Some aides believed he didn’t understand how time zones work. He once famously suggested that Frederick Douglass was still alive.

At this point, you might be thinking, We get the idea: There is no one dumber than Donald Trump. And obviously, you would not be wrong. But given this man’s apparent ambitions to seek yet another four years in office, it feels necessary, in a fate-of-the-planet kind of way, to make sure every instance of him being a full-on halfwit is recorded for posterity. For example, the time he thought he could block Congress from impeaching him by suing them.

Per CNN:

[Confidence Man] shows Trump’s failure to grasp basic policy concepts, such as Trump suggesting in an interview with Haberman that the Senate’s minority party could block legislation by skipping votes. “The vice president’s vote doesn’t count. It doesn’t count. You might want to check this,” Trump said.

When the House introduced articles of impeachment against Trump for the first time in 2019, Trump reacted with a familiar refrain, according to the book: “I’ll just sue Congress. They can’t do this to me.”

It’s not clear whether Trump responded similarly after lawmakers filed a second round of impeachment articles against him. Though, there’s got to be at least a 50% chance he did.

Bess Levin – Vanity Fair