After months of the Trump administration downplaying the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, America now leads the world in Coronavirus deaths and cases at over 200,000 deaths, and ranks 9th highest in per-capita deaths across all countries.
Four years later, Donald Trump continues to refuse to release his tax returns, claiming it was impossible because they are under audit. This breaks a decades-long tradition of American presidents releasing their tax returns for transparency, (including President Richard Nixon, whose taxes were also under audit). The IRS has also stated that tax returns can be shared, regardless of an ongoing audit.
Donald Trump pulls US Troops from Syria, betraying Kurdish allies in the area and drawing bipartisan criticism. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a widely respected general within the United States Marine Corps, resigns, writing that he could not continue to execute Trump's policies.
Donald Trump demands loyalty from FBI Director James Comey, breaking a long-standing principal that the Department of Justice and the FBI remain independent of each other. Comey has since compared Trump's behavior to that of a mob boss.
Donald Trump admits that he would not have chosen Jeff Sessions for his attorney general if he had known Sessions would recuse himself from the Russia investigation - raising ethics suspicions that Trump views the attorney general as his personal lawyer to stomp investigations into his alleged corruption. Sessions has since stated that Trump is "damn fortunate" that he recused himself.
Donald Trump appoints Betsy DeVos as education secretary - DeVos has no government
experience, nor any experience working in public schools.
She has since proposed
billions of dollars of funding cuts to the Department of Education, targeting public schools with class
size reductions and cutting after-school programs. DeVos also proposed to cut funding to the
Special Olympics.
DeVos has redirected much of the department's funding to private schools, even though public schools are
attended by 90% of kids in America - including redirecting
coronavirus relief funds from public schools to private schools.
Donald Trump attacks Senator John McCain, a veteran who was captured in Vietnam, saying "He's not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured."
Donald Trump attacks Senator John McCain again, saying he "only emboldens the enemy! He's been losing so long he doesn't know how to win anymore".
At a campaign trail rally, Donald Trump mocks a disabled reporter, Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from arthrogryposis - a condition that limits his joint movement - by performing an impression of Kovaleski and flopping his arms.
Donald Trump repeatedly claims that 3 million illegal votes went to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election - a claim without evidence, and which has been debunked.
Donald Trump signs a bill to kill the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces regulation, signed by Barack Obama, which protected workers against safety hazards and labor law violations in government contracts above $500,000.
The White House discontinues the disclosure of visitor logs, allowing White House officials to hold private meetings without oversight on visitor identity or affiliation.
Donald Trump calls the US government's system of checks and balances, granted by the US constitution, as "archaic".
Donald Trump blocks VoteVets on Twitter, a group representing 500,000 U.S. military veterans which had been critical of him.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a former Verizon attorney appointed to the FCC by Donald Trump, rolls back the Lifeline program, which provided subsidies for internet access to low-income communities.
Responding to a neo-Nazi and white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which a white supremacist deliberately ran over a crowd of counter-protestors, killing one, Trump says, "There were very fine people on both sides".
Donald Trump appoints Jim Bridenstine, a former climate change denier, to lead NASA. He later also appoints Kyle Yunaska, Eric Trump's brother in law, to the Chief of Staff position at the Department of Energy. It is later found that half of Trump's appointees will engage in unethical conduct.
Donald Trump endorses Roy Moore for an Alabama Senate seat - Moore had multiple allegations of sexually abusing teenage girls, and was known in his community for being a creep.
Taxpayer money is being used to send business to Trump's businesses - for example, the federal government paid $1,092 for a two-night stay at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.
FCC chairman Ajit Pai, appointed by Donald Trump, leads the FCC to repeal net-neutrality regulations. This rollback allows Internet Service Providers to prioritize network requests for companies they have agreements with, and throttle others.
Donald Trump bars EPA employees from posting on social media or speaking with reporters about their work.
Donald Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort, is convicted of tax fraud, bank fraud, and failure to disclose a foreign bank account. Manafort had lied to investigators about meeting with a suspected Russian intelligence asset.
Thousands of migrant children are separated from their parents and kept in detention facilities as a result of Donald Trump's zero-tolerance policy. Many of the children suffered from post-traumatic stress and other mental health issues after being separated from their parents.
On July 29, 2018, Donald Trump threatened to shut down the government if the Democrats didn't vote to provide funding for his wall. On December 22, the government entered the longest shutdown in history, 34 days, leaving 800,000 federal workers without pay.
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer, pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations for paying hush money to women who claimed to have had affairs with Donald Trump.
Contrasting Donald Trump's rhetoric about undocumented workers, it is revealed that the Trump National Golf Club employed undocumented workers for many years - they often worked overtime without pay.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigns after public outrage for spending over
$300,000
on private flights.
Then, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spends $40,000 on a flight to Miami, and nearly $1 million for eight other trips using military aircraft.
Later, in 2018, Ben Carson plans to spend $31,000
for a dining set and $165,000 for lounge furniture for the Department of Housing and Urban Development,
amidst
Donald Trump's $6.8 billion annual funding cut to HUD.
The CEO of Merck Pharmaceuticals, Kenneth Frazier, resigns
from Trump's American Manufacturing Council after Trump hesitates to condemn
the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. Frazier states, "America’s leaders must honor our
fundamental values by clearly rejecting hatred, bigotry, and
group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal."
Donald Trump responds on Twitter, saying, "Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from
President’s Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!"
As Donald Trump rolls back environmental protections, he mocks renewable energy at a CPAC speech, and incorrectly suggesting that there would only be energy on windy days: "When the wind stops blowing, that's the end of your electric. Let's hurry up. Darling? Darling, is the wind blowing today? I'd like to watch television, darling".
The White House orders four witnesses in his impeachment inquiry to defy their subpoenas to testify in Donald Trump's impeachment hearing.
Donald Trump asks the president of Ukraine to investigate conspiracy theories against political rival Joe Biden, in exchange for $400 million in military aid - raising concerns about using presidential powers to solicit foreign intervention in a US presidential election.
Donald Trump, once again, requests for foreign intervention in a US election, publicly asking China to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden.
In a Fox News interview, Donald Trump boasts about his results on a cognitive test. The doctor who developed the test - which is meant to detect Alzheimer's - later explained that the test is supposed to be easy for someone who is not cognitively impaired.
Donald Trump commutes the prison sentence for his friend Roger Stone, who was convicted of obstructing a criminal investigation.
Senior White House counselor Kellyanne Conway promotes Ivanka Trump's retail brand
on Fox and Friends: "I own some of it. I’m going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody".
Her promotion appears to violate rules prohibiting employees of the executive branch from using their public office to promote
products or companies.
White House adviser Ivanka Trump posts an image of herself holding up a can of Goya Beans after Goya's CEO praised Trump - violating rules prohibiting employees of the executive branch from using public office to endorse any product, service, or enterprise.
The Trump administration rolls back a regulation that required oil and gas companies to repair methane leaks. The EPA estimates that this will release 850,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere by 2030.
Steve Bannon, a former top aide to Donald Trump, and three other We Build The Wall organizers are charged with defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors while purportedly raising money for the United States border wall. Prosecutors claim that the organizers took money for themselves, although the campaign claimed that 100% of donations would go toward building the border wall.
Donald Trump spreads conspiracy theories about mail-in voting being used for election fraud, a myth debunked by members of the U.S. intelligence community. Historically, Democratic voters outnumber Republican voters when requesting absentee ballots in key swing states.
Donald Trump admits to not providing USPS critical funding, to prevent mail-in voting. This has additionally led to delays in prescription medication delivery.
Donald Trump incites false conspiracy theories about a peaceful protestor in Buffalo, Martin Gugino, who was pushed to the ground by police and left with a fractured skull. Without evidence, Trump accused Gugino of faking the fall and being part of antifa.
The National Guard and Parks Police are called in to Lafayette Square, and used tear gas and concussion grenades against peaceful protestors, so Donald Trump could have a photo op with a Bible in front of a nearby church.
During a white house briefing, Donald Trump asks, "I see the disinfectant that
knocks it out in a minute, one minute... Is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or
almost a cleaning?"
After significant backlash
from the medical community, Trump later claimed he was being sarcastic.
Donald Trump retweets a video of a Trump supporter shouting "white power" to anti-Trump protestors at a Florida retirement community, writing "Thank you to the great people of The Villages".
In a secretly recorded conversation, Donald Trump's sister a federal judge, Maryann Trump Barry is caught saying about her brother, "His goddammned tweet and lying, oh my God. ... The change of stories, the lack of preparation, the lying. Holy shit".
Audio is released from a February 2020 interview with Bob Woodward, in which Donald Trump admits to downplaying the COVID-19 pandemic, which would later kill over 190,000 Americans.
During the Presidential debate, Donald Trump is once again asked to condemn white supremacists and militia groups, such as The Proud Boys, a known far-right neo-fascist group, and responded with, "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by". The Proud Boys have since celebrated Trump's remark as a call to action.
The lack of a full condemnation even drew criticism from Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade, who said, "Donald Trump ruined
the biggest layup in the history of debates by not condemning white supremacists ... That's like, are you against evil?"
Donald Trump congratulates Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican congressional candidate from Georgia who is a vocal supporter of QAnon, for winning Georgia's Republican nomination. The FBI has identified QAnon as a potential domestic terror thread.
In a Fox News interview, Donald Trump says that he might not accept the results of the 2020 election if he loses.
The Trump administration refuses to confront Russia about Russian bounties offered to Taliban militants to kill American troops - a situation which they had known about for months.
In a White House news conference, Donald Trump says that he refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power , referencing debunked conspiracy theories about mail-in voting.
Leaked tax returns reveal that Donald Trump had avoided paying income taxes for 10 of the past 15 years, because he reported losing significantly more than he made. Many of Trump's core businesses, such as his golf courses and resorts, have reported losing hundreds of millions of dollars.
A New York Times investigation reveals that Trump maintains a secret bank account in China, and paid $188,561 in taxes in China between 2013 and 2015. Trump had only paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017.
The deadline to register to vote
is quickly approaching.