Trump’s Worst Statements of 2023
Unlike any of his previous predecessors, former president Donald Trump disregarded the bounds of presidential authority, leaving a record of unparalleled abuses ranging from transgressions of established standards to perhaps illegal actions. With the daily barrage of diversionary tweets and contentious statements that characterized the Trump administration, it was difficult to stay focused. Furthermore, some of the most heinous misuses of authority were unclear at the time but became evident after thorough investigations. The year 2023 not only saw Trump in and out of the court but also a bundle of racist , unhinged, authoritarian comments that got him in trouble.
1. All-out war
Trump seemed to make a linguistic blunder at a campaign rally in Iowa, which sparked a surge of memes and comments. On December 2, he was still criticizing the results of the 2020 election when the viral moment happened. He stated at the time, “In 2016, you voted to stand up to those liars, looters, losers, crooks, and creeps. You elected an outsider as your president, and it was about America first. We want to put our country first; they haven’t done that in a long time, but we did it for four years, and that’s why we did so well.” He further said, “From that day on, our opponents, and we had a lot of opponents, but we’ve been waging an all-out war on American democracy .”
2. Animal
Trump used increasingly harsh and personal language to criticize Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. He has even gone so far as to call Bragg a “Soros-backed animal.” He wrote on his Truth Social , “BRAGG REFUSES TO STOP DESPITE OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY. HE IS A SOROS-BACKED ANIMAL WHO DOESN’T CARE ABOUT RIGHT OR WRONG NO MATTER HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE HURT. THIS IS NO LEGAL SYSTEM, THIS IS THE GESTAPO, THIS IS RUSSIA AND CHINA, BUT WORSE. DISGRACEFUL!” Trump drew harsh criticism for referring to the African-American Bragg as an “animal,” a remark that had strong racial overtones.
3. Whack Job
Trump was judged accountable in May for abusing the writer E Jean Caroll sexually. He was not going to be silent despite being ordered to pay around $5 million. In New Hampshire the next evening, he confessed in a CNN interview with Kaitlin Collins, “And I swear and I’ve never done that, and I swear to – I have no idea who the hell – she’s a whack job.” The 2024 presidential contender Trump has continuously refuted Carroll’s allegations . Shortly after the decision was made, he attacked the ruling on his social media accounts.
4. Threaten Judges
Trump posted on his Truth Social, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU.” The post “is the definition of political speech,” according to a prepared statement from the Trump campaign, which was in response to “dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs.” He is facing four of the 91 criminal accusations that stem from electoral subversion, keeping secret information, and payments of hush money. As reported by USA Today , Attorneys for federal special counsel Jack Smith informed a court on August 4 about a tweet in which Trump seemed to threaten them.
5. Indict the Enemies
If given a second term, Trump has often threatened to use state authority as a weapon against his political rivals. If he returns to the White House, the former president has vowed to crush his rivals. As per the Washington Post , in a Univision interview, he discussed using the FBI and the Justice Department to target political opponents as payback for their purported harassment of him. He said, “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’. They’d be out of business. They’d be out of the election.”
6. Retribution
Retribution was the former president’s consistent message while announcing his candidacy for president in 2024. As reported by ABC , Trump declared at the time, “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.” ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl’s book tells the tale behind that contentious topic. Karl was informed by his longtime advisor Steve Bannon that the wording was his “Come Retribution” speech. Karl claims Bannon recommended he read a book on the background of “Come Retribution”. Although there was no “overt call for the assassination of his political opponents,” Karl points out in the extracts that Trump did advocate for their “destruction by other means.”
7. Death
Trump said that Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ought to be put to death for treason in a Truth Social post. General Milley of the US Army received criticism from Trump for phoning his Chinese counterpart to reassure him during the Capitol storming on January 6, 2021. According to what Trump posted on social media , “If the Fake News reporting is correct, was dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH! A war between China and the United States could have resulted from this treasonous act.”
8. Poison
The anchor of MSNBC’s “The Medhi Hasan Show,” Medhi Hasan, wrote on X on October 4, 2023, citing former US President Donald Trump’s statement that illegal immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.” Trump’s statement was described by Hasan as “a straight-up white supremacist [or] neo-Nazi talking point.” He wrote , “I had missed this: among the many crazy and offensive Trump statements in recent days, he also told a right-wing website that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” which is a straight-up white supremacist/neo-Nazi talking point.”
9. Vermin
In November 2023, Trump continued his primary campaign in Claremont, New Hampshire. He said at the time, “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.” New York University historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat told the Washington Post : “Calling people ‘vermin’ was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in violence.”
10. Dictator
After Fox News anchor Sean Hannity pressed Trump to promise to “never abuse power as retribution against anybody,” Trump responded by saying he would only act as a “dictator” on “day one” in the White House. He told the presenter, “I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill. That’s not retribution. We love this guy. He says, ‘You’re not gonna be a dictator, are you?’ I said, ‘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?”