Photo: Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty
Well into his third year in the White House, PresidentDonald Trumpcelebrated his 73rd birthday on Friday.
What would normally be a celebratory occasion, the 45th president’s birthday is, for political rivals and critics, another excuse to protest a tense year under the Trump administration. This year, while Trump appeared onFox and Friends, some Twitter users turned the occasion into #JohnMcCainDay, instead preferring to honor the late Republican senator Trump has repeatedly criticized even after McCain’s death, and a celebration of former PresidentBarack Obama‘s birthday, which actually falls on Aug. 4.
Meanwhile, Trump received a tribute from his daughterIvanka Trump, 37, who posted a photo of the president walking hand in hand with her daughter Arabella, 7, and Joseph, 5, with whom she shares with husbandJared Kushner, 38.
“Happy Birthday, Dad!” wrote Ivanka, including a cake emoji.
Here’s a look at President Trump’s biggest controversies and accomplishments since his last birthday.
The release of the Mueller report and its aftermath
After a nearly two-year investigation,Special Counsel Robert Muellerdid not find evidence that President Trump conspired with the Russian government to interfere with the 2016 election, Attorney General William Barr said in a letter summarizing thehighly anticipated report in March. Barr went on to explain that despite the findings, thereport did not fully exonerate the president. In May, Trump stirred up even more controversy when heclaimed executive privilege to block Congressional Democratsfrom obtaining the un-redacted version ofRobert Mueller’s Russia report,as well as its underlying evidence. After Democrats took over control of the House, there has been heated debate about pursuing impeachment.
Nathan Congleton/NBC/NBCU
President Trump’s verbal attacks on John McCain and Joe Biden
President Trump and McCain had a tempestuous relationship prior to the senator’s death from brain cancer. The president called McCain’s war hero status into question and labeled him “evil.” McCain famously voted against Trump’s efforts to dismantle Obamacare, essentially dooming the effort at the last second. Trump’s disparagement of McCain continued even after the latter’s death, to much criticism from Republicans and Democrats.Just last month, Trump said he “wasn’t a fan” of the war veteran.
The president’s attack on former Vice President Joe Biden, the forerunner of the 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, has been just as aggressive. On May 29, Trump criticized Biden over his support of a controversial 1994 federal crime bill. But Trump quickly got a wave of backlash from other Twitter users whonoted his hypocrisy given his history with race. As part of his continued attack on Biden, the president told reporters on May 27 that heagreed with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un that Biden is “a low-I.Q. individual.”
President Trump’s financial history revealed
Michael Cohen.MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty
The president’s former associates get jail time
Michael Cohen, Trump’s former “fixer,” was sent to jail to serve his three-year sentence. In December, Cohen was sentenced to federal prison after he pleaded guilty to crimes including tax evasion, lying to Congress about Trump’s business dealings with Russia and the illegal “hush money” he paid during the 2016 presidential election toStormy Danielsand formerPlayboyplaymateKaren McDougal— who both claimed they had affairs with Trump — for their silence. (Trump has denied the affairs.)
And in March,Paul Manafort, an ex-Trump campaign chairman,wassentenced to 47 months in prisonfor tax and bank fraud. In September 2018, he pled guilty to two criminal charges as part of a deal that required him to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing Russia investigation. Manafortpled guiltyto one count of conspiracy against the U.S. and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice due to attempts to tamper with witnesses, CNN reported, citing court documents. The two men are the latest in a string of former Trump associates who became legally entangled during the Mueller investigation.
Kim Kardashian West and President Donald Trump.
President Trump joined forces with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West for criminal justice reform
A month after President Trump passed the First Step Act, a bipartisan federal criminal justice reform legislation which he signed into law in December 2018, hetweeted out his thanks to Kanye West, who passionately pushed the legislation.
“Criminal Justice Reform is now law,” Trump wrote in his tweet on January 5, 2019, adding that it was “passed in a very bipartisan way!”
West’s wife,Kim Kardashian West, has also been vocal about the issue, having first met with the president to discuss the topic at the White House last May. Those conversations led the formerCelebrity Apprenticehost tocommute the sentenceof Alice Marie Johnson, a 63-year-old great-grandmother who was given a life sentence for a first-time nonviolent drug offense after she helped facilitate communications in a drug trafficking case. She was released from a federal prison in Aliceville, Alabama, in June 2018, after serving her sentence for more than 20 years.
The longest government shutdown in American history
Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, has said Trump’s insistence on a wall with Mexico amounted to “holding Americans hostage.” She called such a wall “immoral” and “ineffective.”
Cast of Central Park Five Series on Donald Trump: ‘He’s Indicative of a Larger Problem’
Despair and death at the southern border, as the president pushes for a wall
“They say walls don’t work,” Trump said. “Walls work 100 percent.”
source: people.com
