On Jan. 20, pretty much everyone saw Trump ally Elon Musk do what appeared to be a Nazi salute — twice! Of course, despite what we all saw with our own eyes, Trump and Musk supporters immediately scolded us, saying we hadn’t seen what we thought we had, insisting that Musk was simply doing a Roman salute, or, er, saying “My heart goes out to you.”
And you know what? Maybe Musk wasn’t making a Nazi salute (even if he did speak at the far-right National Conservatism Conference in Berlin days later and say that Germans needed to move beyond “past guilt”). Because when you look at a scandal like this in isolation, it is possible for his supporters to create enough reasonable doubt to make you question what you saw.
But here’s the thing — Trump and his ilk have had a LOT of scandals like this, and when you take them out of isolation and look at them in totality, they’re basically impossible to defend. So, here are 34 times Trump and his supporters tried to tell us we hadn’t actually seen what we thought we had:
1.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: At Trump’s 2015 campaign announcement, he called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and criminals.
2.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In 2015, after Washington Post reporter Serge Kovaleski was one of the journalists who debunked Trump’s lie that he saw “thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey cheering the 9/11 attacks, Trump mocked Kovaleski by imitating his physical disability. Kovaleski has arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that affects joint movement and muscle development and limits mobility in his arms and hands.
3.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In July 2015, Trump tweeted an image of himself above soldiers who wore German uniforms of “Waffen-SS,” a Nazi unit.
4.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: Following the first Republican presidential debate in 2015, where moderator Megyn Kelly pressed Trump about his past sexist comments (including calling women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals”), Trump criticized Kelly in an interview, stating: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” This remark was widely interpreted as Trump implying that Kelly was menstruating during her grilling of Trump, leading to more accusations of sexism.
5.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In Nov. 2015, Trump retweeted a racist and offensive image showing Jeb Bush next to a swastika. The image also depicted Bush — who is married to a Mexican woman and speaks fluent Spanish — as a mariachi, along with the text: “ADIOS, JEB aka JOSÉ.”
6.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In Nov. 2015, Trump shared a graphic about crime statistics that falsely claimed the majority of white murder victims were killed by Black people. The statistics were debunked and seemingly originated from a neo-Nazi account.
7.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In Jan. 2016, Trump retweeted a Twitter user named “@WhiteGenocideTM.” The user’s handle — as you probably surmised yourself — is explicitly tied to white supremacist ideology, and his feed included links to a website containing a pro-Adolf Hitler documentary and retweets about violence allegedly committed by Black suspects.
8.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In 2016, when Trump was asked if he would publicly reject the support of former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke, Trump initially hesitated to disavow Duke during a CNN interview, stating, “I don’t know anything about David Duke.” This was untrue, as Trump had discussed Duke publicly as early as 1991.
9.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In July 2016, Trump said, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” referring to Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails. This was seen as encouraging a foreign adversary to interfere in the U.S. election.
10.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In a chilling moment on the campaign trail in Aug. 2016, Trump warned there would be no way to prevent a President Clinton from appointing Supreme Court justices if she were elected, then suggested that maybe “Second Amendment people” could do something to stop it.
11.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In Oct. 2016, just weeks before the presidential election, a tape of a private 2005 conversation between Trump and Access Hollywood host Billy Bush leaked, with Trump saying about women, “I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
12.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In 2017, Trump retweeted three anti-Muslim videos from a far-right British fringe group. The videos were widely condemned as Islamophobic, and some were later determined to be misleading or fake.
13.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In Aug. 2017, Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides” while speaking in the aftermath of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which was organized by white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other far-right groups, and resulted in a white supremacist murdering Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old civil rights activist, with his car.
14.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: Shortly after the Aug. 2017 Charlottesville rally — where a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, murdering civil rights activist Heather Heyer — Trump retweeted a meme with a train running over a person and the caption, “Nothing can stop the Trump train.” The tweet was widely condemned as insensitive.
15.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: During the Helsinki Summit on July 16, 2018, Trump sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies regarding Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election by saying, “I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.” and “I don’t see any reason why it would be [Russia].”
16.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: At a 2018 meeting with a bipartisan group of senators at the White House, Trump is reported to have called Haiti a “shithole country” and asked, “Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out.” He also asked why we couldn’t have more Norwegian immigrants. Hmm. I wonder what the difference could be between those nations in Trump’s eyes.
17.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: During his first term, Trump separated immigrant families and detained children in cages.
18.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In an August 2018 tweet, Trump called NBA star LeBron James and CNN anchor Don Lemon “dumb” and “the dumbest man on television,” respectively. This received widespread condemnation, with Lemon commenting, “Notice a pattern? The president constantly denigrates people of color and women, too.” He added, “This president trafficks in racism and is fueled by bullying.”
19.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In July 2019, Trump tweeted that members of the “Squad” — congresswomen Omar, Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, and Pressley — should “go back” to their countries of origin, even though most were born in the U.S. New York-born Ocasio-Cortez responded to his widely-condemned tweets with: “You are angry because you can’t conceive of an America that includes us, while “Pressley, who was born in Ohio and is black, said, “THIS is what racism looks like.”
20.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: At a press briefing, Trump recklessly suggested on live TV that injecting disinfectant into the human body could treat COVID-19.
21.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: On June 28, 2020, Trump retweeted a video of a white man — driving a golf cart with signs reading “Trump 2020” and “America First” — yelling “White power!” at protestors.
22.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In 2020, Trump repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the “Kung Flu” and “China Virus” (often to great applause from his rally crowds). Trump’s use of these terms was widely criticized as offensive and racially insensitive and contributed to the anti-Asian sentiment during the pandemic.
23.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In a debate with Joe Biden in Sept. 2020, Trump dodged the question of whether he would disavow the White supremacist group Proud Boys, instead saying, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”
24.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: One of the most disgraceful and sad moments in American history, when Trump supporters rioted, storming the capitol building and violently attacking police. Many in the crowd chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” for his refusal to not certify the rightful results of the election.
25.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In a 2023 speech, Trump called his political opponents “vermin,” saying, “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.” Adolf Hitler infamously referred to Jews and other groups as “vermin” to dehumanize them.
26.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In late 2023, Trump said multiple times that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.” This phrase was criticized for echoing Nazi-era rhetoric about racial purity and eugenics.
27.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In a Dec. 2023 town hall interview with Fox News, Trump said he would only be a dictator on “day one” of his presidency to implement certain policies. Since we’re supposed to live in a democracy and not an authoritarian state, the remark was a worrying red flag for a lot of people.
28.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In May 2024, Trump shared a video that included text stating he would be responsible for “the creation of a unified Reich.” The use of the word “Reich” sparked outcry as it echoed Hitler’s referring to Nazi Germany as the “Third Reich.”
29.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: Throughout his career (notably in May 2018 and April 2024), Trump referred to immigrants as “animals.”
30.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: At the 2024 Harris/Trump presidential debate, Trump repeated baseless internet rumors about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, stealing and eating pets.
31.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: In Oct. 2024, John Kelly — Trump’s former Chief of Staff — told the New York Times that Trump “commented more than once that, you know, that Hitler did some good things, too.” Kelly also said Trump meets “the general definition of a fascist.”
32.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: At a rally in March 2024, Trump warned that if he weren’t re-elected, it would be a “bloodbath for the country.” Many interpreted the term “bloodbath” as a call to political violence.
33.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: On October 27, 2024, at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made a joke referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” and another about carving watermelons with Black people.
34.
WHAT WE SAW WITH OUR OWN DAMN EYES: Hours after the tragic collision between an airplane and an Army Black Hawk helicopter, taking the lives of 67 people, Trump suggested — with no evidence — that DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) hires were responsible for it.
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