Donald Trump had a very busy (and totally insane) holiday weekend online
Like your Aunt Marge after her third glass of spiked ‘nog, Donald Trump just couldn’t seem to do anything right over the holidays. From his cozy Palm Beach hearth, the president-elect used the holidays to fire off a series of tweets that managed to make basically everybody mad.
If you were smart and threw your phone in the sea over the holidays, here’s all the Donald Trump nonsense you missed.
1. Trump loses the Nazi vote
Trump made a lot of noise about restoring Christmas tidings to their rightful place over generic greetings that acknowledge any other winter holidays. But that didn’t stop him from offering a different sort of holiday greeting.
Some of Trump’s, uh, more extreme followers quickly put two and two together and figured out that “#Hanukkah” might be a reference to the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.
@realDonaldTrump @heidivongr WTF?!
— militesTempli (@militesTempli) December 25, 2016
They did Nazi this coming.
2. Trump offers honest critique of international governance.
Trump’s views about the United Nations have come a long way since that time he gave Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi a place to stay during the annual General Assembly meeting.
After the Security Council adopted a resolution to condemn Israeli settlements, the real estate mogul tweeted:
Trump is certainly knowledgeable about clubs for people to get together, talk, and have a good time, having spent the last week at his luxury Mar-A-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
The U.N. certainly has its problems, but I think anyone who’s looked at the work of say, UNICEF or UNHCR might disagree with the notion that anyone is there to have a “good time.”
4. Trump shutters selfless charity
According to its namesake founder, the Trump Foundation–which is currently being shuttered–was a magical place that managed to do great work in the world without receiving or spending any money.
There is one nugget of truth in that sentence, because an organization that operated like this certainly would be “unlike most foundations,” or any incorporated body in these United States.
A lot of reporting was done on Trump’s charitable foundation before the election. David Farenthold at The Washington Post reported it had violated an IRS ban on “self-dealing,” spent money on a six-foot-tall portrait of Trump, and actually received donations from Trump himself.
5. Trump could totally beat Obama in a fight, you guys
This one’s partially on President Barack Obama, who said in an interview on David Axelrod’s podcast that he thinks his message would’ve won him a third term in 2016 had it been permitted under the Constitution. Of course, the president-elect couldn’t resist firing back on Twitter.
For the demographic that cares about a fictional Trump-Obama match-up—all five of you—unemployment is down, people don’t want Obamacare repealed and ISIS…well, yeah, ISIS still exists. You got him there. Still, Obama won the popular vote twice, something Trump has not managed.
6. Transition team drama
This is the only item on the list that doesn’t involve a direct tweet from Trump but it deserves a mention just for the schadenfreude.
Two days after the transition team announced Jason Miller would be Trump’s White House communications director, the former Ted Cruz aide stepped down, ostensibly to spend more time with his family. But a string of tweets from Trump surrogate A.J. Delgado seem to tell a very different story.
The tweets have since disappeared, along with Delgado’s entire account, and Delgado and Miller have had nothing more to say on the subject. It also makes Kellyanne Conway’s earlier remarks–that she can balance her time between a White House job and her children because she doesn’t “have a mistress“–feel awfully prescient.
It’ll be an interesting four years if all of Trump’s surrogates adopt his style of using Twitter.
7. Everything is great, nothing is ruined
My therapist would disagree.