Top Trumps: the 10 worst things the former president said in 2023
Martin Pengelly
in Washington

Hard to keep track of all the racist, unhinged, authoritarian comments by
the former president? Don�t worry, we�ve got you covered
In 2015, the man who coined Godwin�s law, a famous maxim about argument on
the internet, wrote a column for the Washington Post. Its headline: �Sure,
call Trump a Nazi. Just make sure you know what you�re talking about.�
Donald Trump addresses a campaign rally in Reno, Nevada, on Sunday, at
which he made inflammatory comments about immigrants.
Trump�s �dehumanising and fascist rhetoric� denounced by top progressive
Read more

By the lawyer and author Mike Godwin�s own definition, his law reads thus:
�As an online discussion continues, the probability of a reference or
comparison to Hitler or Nazis approaches one.� Since Republicans fell under
Trump�s thrall, the law has often been invoked. Why? See our list of the 10
worst things Trump said in 2023:
Vermin

In November, in Claremont, New Hampshire, Trump continued his dominant
primary campaign. His rant was familiar but it held something new:

We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists,
fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the
confines of our country.

Hillary Clinton, who Trump beat in 2016, had already likened him to Hitler.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian from New York University, told the Washington
Post: �Calling people �vermin� was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini
to dehumanise people and encourage their followers to engage in violence.�
Poison

Of course, the signs were already there. In September, discussing
immigration with the National Pulse, Trump said:

Nobody has ever seen anything like we�re witnessing right now � It�s
poisoning the blood of our country.

He had already promised �the largest domestic deportation operation in
American history�. Plans to hold migrants in camps would be reported. But
Mehdi Hasan of MSNBC summed up the �poisoning� comment as �a straight-up
white supremacist/neo-Nazi talking point�. Trump went there again in
December, too.
Dictator

Trump wasn�t done. In December, at an Iowa town hall, the Fox News host
Sean Hannity asked if he would promise not to �abuse power as retribution
against anybody�. Trump said: �Except for day one�, then explained:

I love this guy. He says, �You�re not gonna be a dictator, are you?� I
say, �No, no, no � other than day one.� We�re closing the border. And we�re
drilling, drilling, drilling. After that I�m not a dictator, OK?

Noting Trump�s laughter and the crowd�s cheers, Philip Bump of the
Washington Post wrote: �What fun! I guess we can put that to bed.�
Retribution

No one could say such comments were surprising. In March, closing CPAC in
Maryland, Trump told conservatives:

In 2016, I declared: I am your voice. Today, I add: I am your warrior.
I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am
your retribution.

Jonathan Karl of ABC would report that the Trump strategist Steve Bannon
said Trump was speaking in code, referring to a Confederate plot to take
hostage � and eventually kill � President Abraham Lincoln.
Death

In September, the Atlantic profiled Mark Milley, then chair of the joint
chiefs of staff. Milley�s work to contain Trump at the end of his
presidency was already widely known but the profile set Trump off
nonetheless. On Truth Social, referring to a call in which Milley assured
Chinese officials he would guard against any attempted attack, Trump
lamented �

� an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have
been DEATH!

Milley was moved to take �appropriate measures to ensure my safety and the
safety of my family�.
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Courts

This has been the year of the Trump indictment. He faces four, spawning 91
criminal charges regarding election subversion, retention of classified
information and hush-money payments. On 4 August, lawyers for the federal
special counsel Jack Smith notified a judge of a post in which Trump
appeared to threaten them, writing:

If you go after me, I�m coming after you!

Trump claimed protected political speech but the exchange teed up one of
many tussles over gag orders and the general impossibility of getting Trump
to shut up.
Indict

A recurring question: if re-elected, will Trump seek to use the federal
government against his enemies? The slightly garbled answer, as expressed
to Univision in November, was of course � yes:

If I happen to be president and I see somebody who�s doing well and
beating me very badly, I say go down and indict them, mostly they would be
out of business. They�d be out. They�d be out of the election.

Animal

In April, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, filed 34 charges
over Trump�s 2016 payments to Stormy Daniels, an adult film star who claims
an affair. Trump had already made arguably racist comments about Letitia
James, the New York attorney general. Aiming at Bragg, Trump used Truth
Social to say:

He is a Soros-backed animal who just doesn�t care about right or wrong.

Calling Bragg an animal played to racism about Black people. �Soros-
backed�, commonly used by Republicans, refers to the progressive financier
George Soros and is widely regarded as antisemitic.
Whack job

In May, Trump was found liable for sexual abuse of the writer E Jean
Caroll. Ordered to pay about $5m, he was not about to be quiet. The next
night, in New Hampshire, he ranted:

And I swear and I�ve never done that � I have no idea who the hell �
she�s a whack job.

Carroll called the comments �just stupid � just disgusting, vile, foul�.
Then she sued Trump again.
All-out war

Trump is 77. Questions about his mental fitness for power are not going
away. Recently, he has appeared to think he beat Barack Obama in 2016 and
become confused about which Iowa city he was in. On 2 December, however,
another Iowa gaffe seemed to point to a worrying truth:

That�s why it was one of the great presidencies, they say. Even the
opponents sometimes say he did very well � but we�ve been waging an all-out
war on American democracy.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/27/worst-things-that-trump-
has-said

Ryan fucked with the followup groups as cowards tend to:

> Milley was moved to take “appropriate measures to ensure the
> safety of trannys”.

Fuck you hairlip commie cunt!