The Weekly List

This week has the most incidents of violence,  attempted violence, and acts of hate inspired by Trump and his rhetoric  since I started keeping track. The week started with two deadly mass  shootings — one directly linked to the language used by Trump and Fox  News — and rather invoking the role of consoler, Trump instead further  stoked division and hate. What many may ha...

This week started with Trump’s attacks on Black  leader House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings, whose panel has  several ongoing investigations targeting Trump and his family. Trump  used dehumanizing language like “rats” and “infest” to disparage  Cummings’ home district of Baltimore, then broadened his attack during  the week to other prominent Black men includi...

This week Robert Mueller testified before the  House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees about his 448 page report.  The testimony was the first glimpse many Americans had of its findings,  especially Mueller’s stark warnings on Russia’s past and ongoing  interference, and Trump’s and other regime members’ financial and other  conflicts. While the media quibbled over whe...

This week, in a shocking display of racism,  Trump tweeted that four congresswomen of color should “go back” to the  countries they came from. Amid Republican silence, rather than backing  off, Trump ramped up his attacks, leading to a mid-week rally where his  supporters chanted “send them back.” At first Trump seemed to distance  himself from his supporters’ chants, but...

This is the longest week so far, and it felt  that way. The chaos of our lives has obfuscated the damage and extremes  under Trump, as each week blurs into the next week’s crises and  unprecedented actions. This week’s turmoil centered on Jeffrey Epstein’s  arrest and the resignation of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, the 13th  Cabinet member to depart the regime — next week...

This week, two years after visiting France for  Bastille Day and admiring its military display, Trump hosted a “Salute  to America” on July Fourth, replete with an expansive array of military  hardware and troops. The scenes of tanks rolling into the nation’s  capital drew comparisons to other authoritarian regimes who flaunt their  military might through public displays,...

This week as Trump backed off mass deportations,  public outcry grew over conditions at detention centers for migrant  children. Reminiscent of Theresienstadt Ghetto in the Nazi era, the  Trump regime offered limited tours of detention centers to the  media — viewings that contradicted interviews of immigration lawyers and  advocates who described first-hand the inhumane c...

This week Trump manufactured two major story  lines: an almost war with Iran, and mass roundups and deportations of  “millions” of immigrants. The two stories occupied much of the national  attention, while Trump continued to stonewall Congressional attempts at  oversight. Authoritarian expert Masha Gessen wrote about  “The Unimaginable Reality of American Concentration Ca...

This week in an interview with ABC News, Trump  suggested he would take damaging information from foreign governments on  political adversaries without reporting it to the FBI, setting off  alarm bells. The Chair of the Federal Elections Commissions took the  unusual step of issuing a public statement reminding campaigns that  taking foreign assistance is illegal. Nonethel...

This week Trump traveled to the U.K., where he  was met with mass protests which he denied existed, then to his property  in Ireland en route to the 75th anniversary of D-Day ceremony in  Normandy, where he attacked Robert Mueller and Speaker Nancy Pelosi in  an interview. In London, Trump and his children acted more as if a royal  family than a head of state, and continue...

This week, special counsel Robert Mueller addressed the nation for the first time since the start of his investigation. Notably, Mueller said, “If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” contradicting Attorney General William Barr’s statements, and Trump’s repeated proclamations of “no obstruction.” Mueller resigned and closed the special co...

This week the first Republican, Rep. Justin  Amash, came out for impeaching Trump. While Trump allies sought to  attack and punish Amash to avoid further defections, momentum grew among  the House Democratic caucus for impeachment hearings. Feeling the  pressure Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended staying focused on policy, but  directly attacked Trump for a “cover-up,” leading...

This week, in a letter, White House counsel Pat  Cipollone issued a blanket refusal of records and testimony from Trump  and dozens of current and former White House staff, saying Trump did not  recognize Congress as a law enforcement body with the legitimate  purpose to investigate. While the letter sent shock waves, Congress’s  reaction was decidedly muted as House Democ...

This week marked a subtle shift in House  Democrats’ position on impeachment, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and  her committee chairs cited a “constitutional crisis,” and argued Trump  was “goading” them and giving them no choice with his continued  stonewalling. The House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Attorney  General William Barr in contempt of Congress, and threate...

This week a leaked letter sent from special  counsel Robert Mueller to Attorney General William Barr days after Barr  released his four-page “summary” indicated Mueller did not believe that  Barr captured the “context, nature, and substance” of his work.  Mueller’s letter, leaked in part to the Post  the day before Barr was set to testify before the Senate, shook the &nbsp...

This week Trump’s White House refused all requests by House Democrats  to interview current or former members of the regime, or to turn over  records, including those requested by subpoena. The NYT  Editorial Board noted Trump “is effectively declaring lawmakers  powerless over him. This, warn the experts, puts the nation in uncharted  territory and threatens to erode its...

This week Attorney General William Barr publicly  released a redacted version of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s  report, almost a month after he delivered it to Barr. The redacted  report differed substantially from Barr’s March 24 letter, as well as  from statements delivered by Barr at a press conference hours before the  report’s release — casting Barr more as a d...

This week, Trump’s frustration with migrants coming to the southern  border boiled over, as he purged the Department of Homeland Security,  and empowered immigrant hardliner Stephen Miller to be in charge of the  regime’s immigration policy. As the week ended, 12 of the 30 senior  roles at DHS were either vacant or filled with “acting” leaders.  Departures of senior offici...

This week, two weeks after Mueller had sent his final report to  Attorney General William Barr, members of the special counsel  anonymously broke their silence, indicating to the Times and the Post  that their findings were more troubling than Barr’s letter had  indicated. Meanwhile Trump changed his position on public release of the  report, as he and his surrogates went...

This week was dominated by news of the Mueller report, which was  delivered to Attorney General William Barr last Friday, but has yet to  be given to Congress or the American people. On Sunday, AG Barr sent a  four-page letter to Congress, which he characterized as a “summary” of  the Mueller report, but later in the week, in a second letter, wrote it  “did not purport to...

This week started with maniacal tweeting by Trump: more than 50 tweets  over the weekend on a variety of unrelated topics, including multiple  retweets of conspiracy theorists. The week’s news was overshadowed by  Trump’s daily attacks against deceased Senator John McCain and George  Conway, husband of senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway. The  off-kilter — even by...

Trump issued his first veto after the House and Senate voted to block  his emergency declaration. The veto followed Trump’s declaration of a  national emergency after Congress refused to fund his wall, which was  unprecedented. Taken together, Trump irreverently thumbed his nose at  the separations of power. Trump also continued his record pace of appointments to the judicial &...

This week a bombshell exposé by Jane Mayer on the ties between Trump and Fox News sparked questions of whether America had its first version of state TV. The piece had broad fallout, and sparked a renewed conversation on the line between journalism and propaganda. This week Democrats ramped up investigations, while Trump hit back and escalated his pace of daily lies and misleading statements. With...

This week the country was riveted by the public testimony of Michael  Cohen, Trump’s long-time attorney and fixer, before the House Oversight  Committee — the first public testimony in the new Democrat-controlled  Congress. Cohen’s testimony overwhelmed the spectacle of Trump’s second  summit with North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un in Hanoi — which produced  no concrete resu...

This week the FBI thwarted a major domestic terrorism plot by a white  nationalist serving as a lieutenant in the U.S. Coast Guard, who had  called for the establishment of a “white homeland.” His target list  included Democratic politicians and cable-TV hosts, almost all of whom  were subjects of Trump’s public ire on Twitter or in words. Nonetheless,  Trump continued his...