101 MORE Reasons Trump Is Unfit to Be President

An updated timeline of Trump outrages

Former U.S. President Donald Trump appears in court during his trial at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 20, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Steven Hirsch-Pool/Getty Images)

IN JUNE 2020, Amanda Carpenter compiled a timeline of Trump outrages titled “100 Reasons Trump Is Unfit to Be President.”

It’s time for an update.

Since then, Trump has added to the list almost beyond enumeration. Chronicling just Trump’s behavior from November 3, 2020 to January 6, 2021 might have yielded more than 100 already familiar offenses. The endless drumbeat of lies about a “stolen” or “rigged” election, the scramble to seat false electors in multiple states, the attempt to strong-arm Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger into overturning the state’s election results, and finally the incitement of a riot at the Capitol in a last-ditch attempt to stop the certification of the vote—all have been extensively documented. Instead, we’ll start the timeline with Trump’s departure from the White House.

1. January 20, 2021. Trump left the White House, becoming only the fifth president in U.S. history—the first since 1869—to snub his successor’s inauguration, and ordered dozens of boxes containing classified documents moved to his Mar-a-Lago estate in violation of the Presidential Records Act.

2. March 1, 2021. In his first public remarks since leaving the White House—a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference—Trump repeated the Big Lie about the 2020 election and announced a vendetta against Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach him in the House and convict him in the Senate.

3. March-May 2021. Boxes with classified documents were moved around Mar-a-Lago in highly accessible areas, with some taken to Trump’s home in Bedminster, New Jersey. In May, the National Archives began asking Trump to turn over the presidential records in his possession (he did not comply until January 2022).

4. April 10, 2021. In an address to Republican National Committee donors in Florida, Trump ranted about election theft and Republican disloyalty, calling Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell a “dumb son a bitch.”

5. July 12, 2021. On Fox News, Trump described the January 6th insurrection as “a lovefest” between his supporters and the Capitol Police, praising Ashli Babbitt—the rioter fatally shot by a Capitol Police officer while trying to reach an area where House members and staffers were sheltering—as “an innocent, wonderful” woman.

6. June 2021. Trump privately urged Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks to push for an election “do-over” to reinstall him as president.

7. July-September, 2021. At least twice, Trump allegedly showed military-related classified documents to individuals with no security clearance.

8. October 11, 2021. After the officer who shot Babbitt had been cleared of wrongdoing, Trump recorded a video tribute to Babbitt, demanding a re-investigation.

9. February 23, 2022. As Vladimir Putin formally recognized the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, the Kremlin-controlled Ukrainian separatist enclaves, and sent in Russian troops in a prelude to the full invasion of Ukraine, Trump praised the move as “genius” and “pretty savvy.” (Three days later, he deplored the invasion but blamed President Joe Biden.)

10. May 13, 2022. Trump assailed a bipartisan bill to send $40 billion worth of aid to Ukraine.

11. May 23, 2022. After lawyers advised Trump to comply with a subpoena for remaining classified documents, he allegedly proposed lying that he had none left.

12. August 6, 2022. At CPAC, Trump dismissed the plot to kidnap and possibly kill Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 as a “fake deal” by the FBI—“just like those who instigated January 6.”

13. August 8, 2022. The FBI seized more than 100 classified documents in a search at Mar-a-Lago after Trump’s legal team asserted that no such items remained there; Trump denounced the search as “an attack by Radical Left Democrats.”

14. September 1, 2022. Trump told a right-wing radio host that if elected, he would issue “full pardons with an apology” to many January 6th rioters.

15. November 1, 2022. After an intruder attacked then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi with a hammer, Trump made comments winking at salacious right-wing conspiracy theories that the attack stemmed from a lovers’ quarrel between the victim and the assailant.

16. November 22, 2022. Trump dined at Mar-a-Lago with notorious white supremacist, Holocaust denier, and antisemite Nick Fuentes—brought as a guest by another antisemite, rapper Kanye (“Ye”) West.

17. December 4, 2022. Trump asserted that the alleged “Massive Fraud” in the 2020 election “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

18. March 7, 2023. “I am your retribution,” Trump told CPAC in a speech in which he promised to use the military to carry out mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

19. March 25, 2023. Trump opened the first major rally of his 2024 presidential campaign in Waco, Texas with “Justice for All”—a recording of “The Star-Spangled Banner” sung by imprisoned January 6th rioters.

20. April 3, 2023. Trump became the first current or former president to be criminally indicted. The charges concerned falsifying business records to hide hush payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

21. April 13, 2023. Trump promised “sweeping civil rights investigations into Marxist local District Attorneys” linked to billionaire George Soros.

22. May 9, 2023. A Manhattan jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual abuse and defamation toward writer E. Jean Carroll.

23. May 10, 2023. Trump commented on the verdict on a CNN town hall by calling Carroll a “whack job.”

24. June 9, 2023. After the Justice Department unsealed a federal indictment of Trump on 37 felony counts in the classified documents case, Trump portrayed it as a plot to “steal a presidential election.” (He later claimed to have “won” the case after Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, dismissed it on a dubious technicality; appeals are ongoing.)

25. June 27, 2023. CNN aired an audio recording in which Trump appeared to be showing military-related classified documents to people without clearances.

26. July 16, 2023. Trump claimed he could end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours by using military aid as leverage to pressure both Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to “make a deal”—in practice, strong-arming Ukraine into a bad and temporary peace.

27. August 14, 2023. Trump was indicted by an Atlanta grand jury for a scheme to reverse the state’s 2020 presidential vote.

28. September 17, 2023. Trump marked the Jewish New year by posting a flier taunting “liberal Jews who voted to destroy America & Israel.”

29. September 22, 2023. Trump suggested that outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley should have been executed for treason (or at least would have been executed “in times gone by”). He was commenting on reports that Milley had called Chinese military leaders after the January 6th riot, with administration officials’ knowledge, to allay worries about a possible U.S. attack.

30. September 26, 2023. Trump was found liable for business fraud in a civil case in New York for inflating the value of his properties.

31. September 27, 2023. Trump asserted that disease-carrying immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country,” drawing a strong condemnation from the Anti-Defamation League.

32. September 29, 2023. At the California Republican convention, Trump made more snarky comments about the hammer attack on Pelosi’s husband.

33. September 29, 2023. Trump suggested that his administration would stop “pillaging and theft” at stores by encouraging law enforcement to shoot shoplifters.

34. November 11, 2023. In a Veterans Day speech, Trump pledged to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections.”

35. December 5, 2023. In a Fox News appearance before a live audience in Iowa, Trump told Sean Hannity (twice) that he wanted to be “a dictator,” though only on “day one.”

36. December 9, 2023. At a New York Republican event, Trump told former administration official and “stop the steal” backer Kash Patel to “get ready” for a new administration job—four days after Patel threatened to “come after” Trump’s enemies in government and the media.

37. December 16, 2023. Trump reprised the theme of immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country” at a rally and online.

38. December 19, 2023: Trump became the first ever presidential candidate to be ruled an insurrectionist by a court when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that he was ineligible for the presidential ballot because the 14th Amendment barred insurrectionists from holding public office.

39. January 8, 2024. Trump returned to his political roots as a promoter of racist “birther” conspiracy theories—boosting a far-right blogger’s claim that Nikki Haley, a U.S.-born daughter of Indian immigrants, was not a “natural born citizen” because her parents were not U.S. citizens when she was born.

40. January 16, 2024. Trump lambasted NBC and CNN for not airing enough of his Iowa victory speech and suggested their broadcasting licenses should be “taken away.”

41. January 26, 2024. In a second case related to E. Jean Carroll’s rape accusation, a New York jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $83.3 million in damages for defamation.

42. February 7, 2024. Trump strong-armed Senate Republicans into killing a bipartisan bill that included border security funding and aid to Ukraine.

43. February 10, 2024. At a rally, Trump bragged about threatening the head of a NATO country that he would give Russia a green light to “do whatever the hell they want” to any member nation that was behind on its “bills.” (NATO members are obligated to spend a percentage of their GDP on defense, not pay “bills” to the organization. Also, Trump probably did not actually threaten a specific NATO leader.)

44. February 16, 2024. A federal judge ordered Trump to pay $355 million in civil penalties for business fraud.

45. February 20, 2024. In a Fox News town hall, Trump commented on the death of Russian political prisoner Alexei Navalny by comparing his own legal troubles to Navalny’s persecution. He refrained from criticizing Putin.

46. March 2, 2024. Trump started using “Too Big to Rig” as a campaign slogan, telling supporters a landslide was needed to overcome cheating by the Democrats.

47. March 15, 2024. In an appearance on Fox News, former Vice President Mike Pence announced that he “will not be endorsing Donald Trump.” 

48. March 16, 2024. At an Ohio rally, Trump referred to jailed January 6th insurrectionists as “hostages” and “patriots.” He had earlier pledged to “free” them as one of his first acts in office.

49. March 18, 2024. In an interview, Trump said that Jews who vote for Democrats hate their religion and Israel.

50. March 29, 2024. Trump shared a video featuring a pickup truck with pro-Trump signs and a decal of Joe Biden tied up in the back.

51. April 12, 2024. In a post endorsing a MAGA Republican challenger to GOP Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington, who had voted to impeach Trump after January 6th, Trump slammed Newhouse as a “weak and pathetic RINO.”

52. April 30, 2024. In a Time interview, Trump refused to promise to concede if he lost the election and suggested that 2020 election denial would be a litmus test for a job in his administration.

53. May 5, 2024. Trump told donors at a private gathering that Joe Biden was running a “Gestapo administration,” adding, “It’s the only way they’re going to win.”

54. May 21, 2024. On Truth Social, Trump amplified the deranged accusation that Biden had approved his assassination during the August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago—where Trump was not present at the time—because the warrant authorized the FBI to use deadly force in self-defense or in defense of others, in accordance with standard procedure. He called Biden “A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY” and called for his removal as “MENTALLY UNFIT.”

55. May 27, 2024. Trump wished a “Happy Memorial Day to All, including the Human Scum that is working so hard to destroy our Once Great Country” and to the “Radical Left” judge in the E. Jean Carroll trials.

56. May 31, 2024. Trump became the first president convicted of a felony when the jury in the hush money case returned guilty verdicts on 34 counts.

57. June 15, 2024. At a Turning Point USA conference, Trump derided Zelensky as “the greatest salesman . . . every time he comes to our country, he walks away with $60 billion.” He falsely claimed that the Ukrainian president had “just left” with such an aid package.

58. June 25, 2024. In an interview, Trump suggested that he might not defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion, saying that “Taiwan should pay us for defense” as one would pay “an insurance company.”

59. July 22, 2024. The day after Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid and endorsed Kamala Harris, Trump called Harris “Dumb as a Rock.”

60. July 24, 2024. Trump pledged to defund public schools that mandate vaccines—seemingly not only COVID-19 shots but standard childhood vaccinations, too.

61. July 26, 2024. In a speech to the Turning Point Action Believers’ Summit, Trump reprised the “Too Big to Rig” theme and promised to “fix” everything so that Christians will need to vote “just this one time” and then never need to again.

62. July 31, 2024. In an appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists, Trump berated an interviewer for a “nasty question” and said that Harris (who is biracial) was “always of Indian heritage” until she “happened to turn black.”

63. August 1, 2024. After a prisoner exchange with Russia in which three U.S. nationals (including reporter Evan Gershkovich) were brought home, Trump mocked the swap as a bad deal and falsely claimed that as president, he “got back many hostages, and gave the opposing country NOTHING.”

64. August 3, 2024. The Washington Post reported that of the 42 people who served in Trump’s cabinet, only 24 endorsed him.

65. August 8, 2024. Trump may have set a record for lies per minute in an hour-long news conference. While some of the 162 lies and distortions counted by National Public Radio were nebulous, vague statements, many were provable lies—e.g., that at least 20 million people had illegally crossed the border under the Biden/Harris administration, or that Harris replacing Biden on the Democratic ticket was unconstitutional.

66. August 8, 2024. At the same event, Trump repeatedly derided Harris as “barely competent” and “not smart enough to do a news conference,” falsely stating that she had failed the California bar exam (like many applicants, she had passed on the second try).

67. August 11, 2024. Trump flogged a far-right conspiracy theory that a large crowd at a Harris rally in Michigan was a computer-generated fake.

68. August 22, 2024. Trump responded to Harris’s Democratic National Committee speech with frenzied posts about Hunter Biden, “Crooked Joe,” and “Comrade Kamala Harris.”

69. August 26, 2024. Attending a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery at the invitation of some family members of soldiers killed in the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Trump brought a photographer and videographer in violation of cemetery rules; a cemetery staffer who objected was shoved and verbally abused.

70. September 7, 2024. Repeating the Big Lie about the 2020 election, Trump accused the Democrats of “rampant Cheating” and threatened “long prison terms” for political operatives, donors, and “Corrupt Election Officials . . . involved in unscrupulous behavior.”

71. September 10, 2024. In his disastrous debate with Harris, Trump recycled a far-right hoax about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio eating local residents’ dogs and cats.

72. September 10, 2024. During the debate, Trump also refused to acknowledge losing the 2020 election.

73. September 10, 2024. Also during the debate, Trump blamed the Democrats and Harris herself for provoking his attempted assassination by accusing him of endangering democracy. (The shooter was a mentally unstable young man with no apparent political agenda.)

74. September 11, 2024. Trump told Fox News the debate was “rigged” by the moderators’ fact-checking and added that ABC should be stripped of its broadcasting license.

75. September 11, 2024. Trump appeared at a September 11 memorial event in the company of far-right freak Laura Loomer, who had previously pushed “inside job” 9/11 conspiracy theories and posted a racist tirade about Harris’s Indian heritage.

76. September 13, 2024. Trump threatened to cut federal disaster funds for California wildfires unless Gov. Gavin Newsom (“Newscum”) changed the state’s environmental policies limiting water deliveries to farmers.

77. September 16, 2024. After a gunman was found hiding near Trump’s golf course, Trump again accused Democrats of “causing [him] to be shot at” with rhetoric depicting him as a threat to democracy—while also accusing the Democrats of “destroying the country.”

78. September 19, 2024. Speaking to two conservative Jewish groups in Washington, D.C., Trump not only warned that Israel will be “wiped off the face of the earth” if he loses but suggested that Jews “voting for the enemy” would bear much of the blame for his loss.

79. September 24, 2024. After Zelensky’s visit to a Pennsylvania munitions factory, Trump ratcheted up his derision of the Ukrainian president at a Georgia rally and claimed Russia was unbeatable. (After conciliatory efforts from Zelensky, the two met on September 27.)

80. September 29, 2024. At a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump suggested “one really violent day” of policing as a solution to property crime.

81. September 30, 2024. After Hurricane Helene hit several Southern states, Trump falsely claimed that President Biden was “sleeping” and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp had been unable to get through to him—even after Kemp confirmed a call with Biden. Trump claimed baselessly that the federal government was withholding help from “people in Republican areas.”

82. October 1, 2024. Trump, who had repeatedly questioned Biden’s age and mental fitness, gave two rambling speeches in Wisconsin in which he mixed up words, confused Iran with North Korea, compared the Israel/Iran conflict to “two kids fighting in the schoolyard,” and warned against immigrants from the African country of Congo while adding, “I don’t know what that is.”

83. October 3, 2024. At a rally in Michigan, Trump falsely claimed that “Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on . . . illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.”

84. October 3, 2024. Trump asserted that Biden and Harris were “universally being given POOR GRADES” for their handling of the hurricane—even though the federal response had been praised by Republican governors including Kemp and Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin.

85. October 5, 2024. At a Pennsylvania rally, Trump falsely asserted that the federal government was giving just $750 to hurricane survivors who had lost homes (that’s only an upfront payment for immediate needs).

86. October 8, 2024. Reports about Bob Woodward’s about-to-be-released book, War, claimed that Trump had repeatedly spoken to Putin on the phone since leaving office, as recently as early 2024. “If I did, it’s a smart thing,” Trump said a few days later, adding that “Russia has never had a president that they respect so much.”

87. October 10, 2024. Trump ranted about CBS editing a Harris interview for 60 Minutes, supposedly to hide a “CRAZY, OR DUMB” answer (previously aired on Face the Nation). “TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE,” he wrote, while also suggesting that the Democrats “should be forced to concede the Election.”

88. October 11–12, 2024. At a rally in Aurora, Colorado, Trump repeated claims (debunked by local Republican officials) that the city had been “invaded and conquered” by a Venezuelan migrant gang and referred to the United States as an “occupied state.” He promised to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798—which applies to nationals of countries with which the United States is at war—to summarily deport suspected members of drug cartels and gangs. He repeated his points about the United States being “an occupied country” at a rally in Coachella, California the next day.

89. October 12, 2024. Also at the Coachella event, Trump mocked a heckler by suggesting that she would “get the hell knocked out of her” by her pro-Trump mother.

90. October 13, 2024. In a Fox News interview, Trump said that any election-related violence would not come from his supporters or foreign subversives, but from “the enemy from within” (“radical left lunatics”) and suggested that they could be handled by the National Guard or even the military.

91. October 14, 2024. After two attendees at a Pennsylvania town hall had medical issues, Trump abruptly decided not to take more questions and told his staff to play music from his favorite playlist. He spent nearly 40 minutes swaying on the stage, causing some to question his mental acuity.

92. October 17, 2024. Trump continued to rant online about stripping CBS of its license for the supposed falsification of the Harris interview. He also asserted that “Kamala should be investigated and forced off the campaign, and Joe Biden allowed to take back his rightful place.”

93. October 17, 2024. In a podcast interview, Trump not only blamed Biden for having “instigated the war” in Ukraine but also suggested that Zelensky “should never have let that war start”; he also made more snarky comments about Zelensky’s skill at extracting money from the United States.

94. October 18, 2024. Asked about favorite presidents on Fox & Friends, Trump mentioned Abraham Lincoln but then mused, “Why wasn’t that settled? . . . It doesn’t make sense we had a Civil War.” It’s hard to say what’s more disturbing: Trump’s ignorance of American history or the implication that Lincoln should have done more to accommodate slave owners (just as Zelensky should have done more to accommodate Putin?).

95. October 18, 2024. Also on Fox & Friends, Trump affirmed that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who backed him after ending his own candidacy, would be in his administration. RFK Jr., an anti-vaccine crackpot and conspiracy theorist, has claimed that Trump asked him to tackle corruption and health and that he would help pick leaders of healthcare-related federal agencies.

96. October 19, 2024. In a campaign stop at a Pennsylvania airport named after the late golfing legend Arnold Palmer, Trump launched into a bizarre riff about how well-endowed Palmer supposedly was.

97. October 20, 2024. In an appearance on Fox News, Trump was asked about his comments on “the enemy from within” against whom he had suggested deploying the military. He reiterated the claim that such domestic “enemies” were more dangerous than foreign adversaries—and specifically named California Democrats Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi. Trump also stood his ground on the Springfield pet-eating story and defended the January 6th “protest” as an event filled with “beauty” and “love.”

98. October 21, 2024. Visiting storm-battered North Carolina, Trump resumed attacks on federal emergency responders (who were already concerned about being targeted by far-right militias). He also repeated claims—earlier debunked by the Republican House members standing right next to him—that hurricane relief had been hampered because FEMA was doing too much for migrants.

99. October 22, 2024. ABC News reported that Trump was considering Judge Aileen Cannon, who had controversially dismissed the classified documents case against him after drawing criticism with her earlier rulings in the case, for attorney general.

100. October 22, 2024. John Kelly, retired Marine general and former secretary of homeland security and White House chief of staff in the Trump administration, went on the record to confirm Trump’s long-reported remarks calling fallen American soldiers “suckers” and “losers” and admiring Hitler’s generals. He also recalled Trump saying that “Hitler did some good things”—and expressed the view that Trump’s authoritarian leanings and admiration for dictators “falls into the general definition of fascist.”

101. October 22, 2024. Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton questioned the “fascist” label—but only because he thinks Trump lacks the mental capacity to have any political philosophy. Bolton suggested instead focusing on Trump’s actual behavior and the dangers of his presidency.