Talk:First presidency of Donald Trump

Should this page be split into two pages?

Should this be split into two pages? English WP has a page for each: the w:First presidency of Donald Trump and w:Second Presidency of Donald Trump. We've just bolted one on top of the other. There is no link back to WQ from the latter page on WP even though we do have the quotes. I don't really see any advantage of having both in one page, especially as they are not contiguous. GrimRob (talk) 20:58, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I would agree - this sounds like the way to go. ~ UDScott (talk) 17:33, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

I agree as well. This article is huge.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 20:39, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Done! Hopefully ok GrimRob (talk) 13:01, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Great, thanks for that - but one thing still remains to be done: all quotes from each of the presidencies should be removed from the main Donald Trump page to avoid redundancy. Not sure if all quotes from the periods of time of the presidencies appear in both places, but any quotes from the presidency periods should be moved to the relevant page (and removed from the main page). ~ UDScott (talk) 14:06, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

OK I will have a look at that. It's something that can be chipped away at maybe rather than big bang. There is bound to be some grey areas so might be better to start with obvious ones. What do you think? GrimRob (talk) 14:19, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Sounds good - one suggestion is to maybe take everything from a given period (e.g., take all quotes from 2017 - 2021 that cover the period of the first Trump presidency) and move them to the talk page of the relevant presidency page. Then you can chip away, as you suggested, ensuring that ones that are missing are added to the page, and those that are already there are deleted. Thanks again for your efforts on this - it is much appreciated! ~ UDScott (talk) 14:23, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

I have been through the first presidency. Generally in the Quotes section it's not too bad until Covid, the quotes are by Trump and not duplicated in the presidency section. Some of them which are full transcripts of speeches need shrinking IMO. After Covid the main duplication is with the article about the pandemic in the USA. Everyone must have had a lot of time on their hands, and quotes abounded, because the Quotes explode at that point!

Looking ahead the A-Z section in Quotes About Trump looks a nightmare to unpick as its not sorted by date, but the majority of that IMO could move into the presidency section.

Second presidency looks a nightmare, and suggest concentrating on the first.

I think maybe the easiest place to start is the A-Z from Quotes About. In fact just to make it simpler I was start with A! and put in new Talk section. GrimRob (talk) 21:53, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Great work so far - I happened to look at the main page and noticed that there remain many quotes from his presidency periods still on there (example: Inaugural address, (January 20, 2017) remains on the main page, instead of the First presidency of Donald Trump page). I would expect that any quotes during a specific presidency period would be moved to that page. Is this still your plan? Thanks. ~ UDScott (talk) 14:02, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

yes, I have been mainly looking for duplicates at the moment. The Covid ones were quite an easy win because they were a lot identical in both places. There's a few that aren't in the US Covid page that probably should be but they are mainly quite small. So I'll probably starting moving more than deleting duplicates. Bigger chunks first as it reduces the amount to sift through. GrimRob (talk) 16:02, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Just a matter of going through each month and moving anything "presidential" to this page. Anything more personal can be left on DT, or maybe social media stuff to social media Trump page. First presidency doesn't look too bad. GrimRob (talk) 23:27, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Quotes about Trump

Just deciding which of these (if any) can be dated and moved to this section. I have numbered each quote.

A

I don't know him, when I sit with him face-to-face, I can judge him. But I only look at the person on the TV. ~ Bashar al-Assad

• (A1) We have a commander-in-chief who has never failed to signal his xenophobia, his racism, his bigotry and his hatred. And that will absolutely filter down to the youngest and most impressionable members of our communities.
  • Stacey Abrams Interview with Democracy Now (January 2019)

• (A2) The meta-impact of President Trump routinely doing the "impossible" is that it changes how all of us view our world. If Trump can keep doing the impossible, time and time again, why can't we? [...] [D]on't be surprised if 2018 is the year when people all over the world shed their mental prisons and take on the "impossibles" in ways we have never seen. Thanks to President Trump, people everywhere are beginning to recognize the difference between real impossibilities and simple failures of imagination.
  • Scott Adams, "How President Trump Changed Your Imagination" (2 January 2018)

• (A3) Trump gives about four months for Syria troop pull-out: NYT
  • Aljazeera, 1 January 2019 in response to 31 December 2019 article by Eric Schmitt and Maggie Haberman of New York Times titled "Trump to Allow Months for Troop Withdrawal in Syria, Officials Say" that says "Trump has agreed to give the military about four months to withdraw the 2,000 United States troops in Syria, administration officials said on Monday"

• (A4) I think it's funny because Donald Trump is kind of in the spirit of old Greek tyrants where they used to vote in a guy that had no encumbrances. So the smartest thing about him, which is probably most overlooked, to me, is that he doesn't owe anybody anything and if he would just stick to fixing the bridges, roads and infrastructures that's what he knows how to do...just keep him doing that.
  • Tim Allen, as quoted in "Tim Allen says he leans left, leans right, and ends up 'center right'" by Blanche Johnson, FoxNews.com (13 January 2016)

• (A5) I think Trump failed to pull off his coup because of three enduring weaknesses in his character. First, many high school students know more about how the American government works than he does. He particularly does not understand the way the Constitution’s division of powers, even after all the growth in executive power over the decades, still can check an overreaching president. Thus he seems to have assumed that Republican judges would agree the election had been rigged simply because they were Republicans, when actually they were foremost judges in an independent judiciary bound by precedent, by a duty to see that justice is done, and by a demand for evidence. Similarly, Congress has many ties to executive agencies such as the FBI and the Department of Defense, especially the ties that bind with purse strings, that give it considerable influence in these agencies.
  Second, organizing something as complicated as a coup d’etat takes some serious cognitive chops, and by 2020 Donald Trump had trouble “staying on topic” for even a minute. If he were huddling with a conspirator over, say, control of the U.S. Marshalls during a takeover, he would soon be talking about how windmills kill eagles or the steam catapults on aircraft carriers. His thinking processes were too chaotic to orchestrate a coup.
  Third, even though Donald Trump convinced millions that he was a self-assured, super-confident, take-charge individualist, he has long lacked resolve. He always had the courage of his convictions, which meant he had almost none. He frequently changed positions on important issues, notoriously being swayed by whoever spoke to him last, and his decision-making could be fairly characterized as “Charge ahead impulsively, then quickly retreat.” For example, two days after the networks declared Joe Biden had won the election, Trump signed an executive order commanding the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and elsewhere by inauguration day. This surprised everyone at the Pentagon, whose officials immediately pointed out the dangers of precipitate withdrawals. Trump almost never went toe-to-toe with advisors who stood up to him. Instead he just sulked and complained about having “too many lawyers.” Like the executive order Trump signed curtailing military aid to South Korea that an aide simply took off his desk and deep-sixed, the order about Afghanistan was ignored.
  Harry Truman famously said, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” and he had a sign on his desk that read, “The buck stops here.” Trump can’t stand the heat, and accordingly he always makes sure the buck stops somewhere else. Like most bullies, he usually gets another person to do his dirty work and face all the danger. The mob who attacked the Capitol on January 6th were the latest version of the throngs who bought Trump’s junk bonds in earlier days, taking all the risks, for his benefit, while he watched.
  • Bob Altemeyer, "Lessons of the 2020 American Election, January 6th, and Beyond", October 20, 2021.

• (A6) What's more appalling is that huge numbers of those left behind in the wealth transfer genuflected to the new plutocratic class, celebrating the most vicious of the uber- CEOs. This craven CEO-worshipping is still going on today- middle Americans drag themselves home after work in order to gather around the television and watch billionaire assholes like Donald Trump deliver his "You're fired!" line to some desperate, stressed-out Smithers-abee.
  • Mark Ames, Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond (2005), p. 87-88

• (A7) He really does remind you of the original Narcissus, the frigid pretty boy of Greek myth who was mortally smitten by his own reflection. Narcissus is autoerotic; he is self-aroused.
  • Martin Amis "Don the Realtor" Harper's Magazine (August 2016)

• (A8) We support Trump because he is the savior of the White race, sent by God to free us from the shackles of the Jew occupation and establish a 1000 Reich.
  • Andrew Anglin, as quoted in "Trump's Neo-Nazi And Jewish Backers Are Both Convinced He's Secretly On Their Side" (26 May 2016), by Jessica Schulberg, The Huffington Post

• (A9) We’re not talking about creeping fascism here. This is full on police state tyranny from the gangster President Donald Trump.
• I’ve received hundreds of messages of concern and outrage from Canadians that a convicted felon, sexual predator, and a man who threatened our nation’s sovereignty, is being allowed into our country.
• Donald Trump poses a clear threat to American democracy, to Canadian sovereignty, and to the international rule of law.
• Canada can no longer view the United States as an ally. We know that Donald Trump doesn’t believe in liberal democracy.
• Canada must be focused on containing this clear and present danger to our nation and the rule of law.
  • Charlie Angus, quoted in "Canadian politician rips Trump as ‘gangster president’ ahead of G7 visit" The Hill (June 12, 2025)

• (A10) Yes, Trump is worse than imperfect. So what? We can lament until we choke the lack of a great statesman to address the fundamental issues of our time—or, more importantly, to connect them. Since Pat Buchanan's three failures, occasionally a candidate arose who saw one piece: Dick Gephardt on trade, Ron Paul on war, Tom Tancredo on immigration. Yet, among recent political figures—great statesmen, dangerous demagogues, and mewling gnats alike—only Trump-the-alleged-buffoon not merely saw all three and their essential connectivity, but was able to win on them. The alleged buffoon is thus more prudent—more practically wise—than all of our wise-and-good who so bitterly oppose him. This should embarrass them. That their failures instead embolden them is only further proof of their foolishness and hubris.
  • Michael Anton (as "Publius Decius Mus"), "The Flight 93 Election", The Claremont Institute (September 5, 2016)

• (A11) Trump is not the only president in the modern era to have switched sides. Ronald Reagan famously changed from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, but the change was driven by principle, and the change stuck. He didn't sway back and forth, again and again. It would be tough for anyone to claim Donald Trump flipped parties on "principle" like Reagan. Some have sought to dig into Trump's ideological evolution, figuring out what changed or who inspired him to become a Republican. I'll spare them the needless waste of effort. Donald Trump became a conservative when it became politically convenient for him. I have no doubt he would have become the raucous rising star of the Democratic Party, too, if that looked like a shorter path to the Oval Office. Either way, he did with his belief system what he did with any Trump product. He outsourced it for low-cost manufacturing to someone else, then slapped his name on it. A handful of hired minions gave him the bare-bones requirements of a "conservative" platform. And he covered it with gaudy gold plating to make it his own.
  • Anonymous, A Warning (2019), p. 97

• (A12) Donald Trump has America back on the road to bankruptcy, an area where he has unparalleled expertise for a president of the United States. The small band of fiscal conservatives who remain in the Trump administration warned the president about the eventual dangers of his out-of-control spending addiction. In one such meeting, Trump reportedly said, "Yeah, but I won't be here." I never heard him say those words, but it doesn't come as a surprise. That's how he thinks. What does he care if the federal government goes belly-up? By then it won't be his problem.
  • Anonymous, A Warning (2019), p. 101

• (A13) The president's denial-turned-apathy to Moscow's actions is why America responded with the diplomatic equivalent of a whimper to one of the biggest foreign affronts to our democracy. Of all the failures of Trump's foreign policy, letting Russia off the hook is perhaps the most frustrating. The outgoing Obama administration imposed modest sanctions on Moscow, including expelling several dozen alleged Russian agents from the United States, but it left the rest to the incoming White House. Trump was reluctant to take further action that might offend Putin, with whom he hoped to develop a close working relationship. He hesitated to even raise the subject in conversations with the Russian leader, dumbfounding people on the inside. I remember when Congress sanctioned Russia in summer 2017. Representatives vented their anger over how little the administration had done to hold Russia accountable, so they took matters into their own hands and passed legislation punishing the country. Though he would later take credit for the sanctions in order to claim our administration had been unusually tough on Moscow, Trump in fact was furious. He felt Congress was getting in the way of his goal of a warm friendship with the Kremlin. Russia responded to the sanctions by kicking out hundreds of US embassy staff from their country and seizing US diplomatic compounds. President Trump's response was startling. "I want to thank him because we're trying to cut down on payroll," Trump told reporters about Putin's move, without a hint of irony. "And as far as I'm concerned, I'm very thankful that he let go a large number of people, because now we have a smaller payroll. There's no real reason for them to go back. So I greatly appreciate the fact that we've been able to cut our payroll of the United States. We'll save a lot of money."
  • Anonymous, A Warning (2019), p. 164-165

• (A14) Trump's cavalier attitude toward the Russian security threat has had a predictable yet devastating consequence. Moscow has not been deterred from attacking American interests. It has been emboldened. They continue to take advantage of the United States, around the world and on our own soil. Former director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testified in January 2019 that Russia was still sowing social, racial, and political discord in the United States through influence operations, and several months later, Robert Mueller said the same. "It wasn't a single attempt," he testified to Congress. "They're doing it as we sit here. And they expect to do it during the next campaign." This should be a national scandal, a cause for outrage and action against the Russian government. Instead, it's being ignored where it should matter most- in the Oval Office. Reporters asked Trump about Mueller's assessment days later and quizzed him again on whether he'd pressed Putin on the topic. "You don't really believe this," he shot back. "Do you believe this? Okay, fine. We didn't talk about it." Then he boarded Marine One.
  • Anonymous, A Warning (2019), p. 167

• (A15) As we tried to make sense of Donald Trump's positions or when one of us tried to argue against them, we first had to ask: Why is the president so attracted to autocrats? After a contentious meeting about the president's engagement with a foreign dictator, a top national security aide offered me his take. "The president sees in these guys what he wishes he had: total power, no term limits, enforced popularity, and the ability to silence critics for good." He was spot on. It was the simplest explanation.
  • Anonymous, A Warning (2019), p. 171

• (A16) Mr. Trump is a wild card, but he is likely to sign pro-life measures, and he is seeking advice now from the right people to appoint a plausible successor to Justice Scalia. In this Guide for the Perplexed, we may find reason to bite our lips and take the Wild Card over the brutal Sure Thing on the other side.
  • Hadley Arkes, "A Guide for the Perplexed", The Catholic Thing (4 May 2016)

• (A17) I don't know him, when I sit with him face-to-face, I can judge him. But I only look at the person on the TV, you know, on the TV you can manipulate everything, you can...rehearse, you can prepare yourself...
  • Bashar al-Assad, Interview with Bill Neely (July 2016) on "NBC: Exclusive Interview with Bashar al-Assad"

• (A18) My analysis is that Trump would not be permitted to win. Why do I say that? Because he has had every establishment off his side. Trump does not have one establishment, maybe with the exception of the Evangelicals, if you can call them an establishment. Banks, intelligence, arms companies, foreign money, etc. are all united behind Hillary Clinton. And the media as well. Media owners, and the journalists themselves.
  • Julian Assange, interview with John Pilger; "Assange: Clinton & ISIS funded by same money, Trump won't be allowed to win", RT.com (4 November 2016)

• (A19) [Trump] is consistent. He is the same person that you see behind the scenes as he is in the public or through the media.
  • Jacinda Ardern in A brief history of Donald Trump v Jacinda Ardern

• (A20) There is no greater sacrifice than to lay down one's life for their country, and that's the sacrifice that Captain Humayum Khan made fighting to defend our freedom and our constitutional rights. He was a true American hero. The Khan family deserves nothing less than our deepest support, respect, and gratitude, and they have every right to express themselves in any way they choose. I am appalled that Donald Trump would disparage them and that he had the gall to compare his own sacrifices to those of a Gold Star family.
  • Kelly Ayotte, statement regarding Donald Trump's comments about Khizr and Ghazala Khan [1] (July 31, 2016)

GrimRob (talk) 21:59, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

maybe A3,A13,A14,A18 could be moved to First presidency? In the About section? GrimRob (talk) 22:05, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Not in the About section as the whole thing is About! GrimRob (talk) 22:07, 28 January 2026 (UTC)