A hateful president

Bob Sheak, Oct. 3, 2025

This article provides five examples that illustrate this hatefulness.

#1 – The Central Park Five

Here are extracts from Wikipedia’s account (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_jogger_case)/

The Central Park jogger case (sometimes termed the Central Park Five case) was a criminal case concerning the assault and rape of Trisha Meili, a woman who was running in Central Park in Manhattan, New York, on April 19, 1989.^[1][2] Crime in New York City was peaking in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the crack epidemic surged.^[3][4] On the night Meili was attacked, dozens of teenagers had entered the park, and there were reports of muggings and physical assaults.^[2]

Six teenagers were indicted in relation to the Meili assault. Charges against one, Steven Lopez, were dropped after Lopez pleaded guilty to a different assault. The remaining five—Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise (known as the Central Park Five, later the Exonerated Five)—were convicted of the charged offenses and served sentences ranging from seven to thirteen years.^[5]

More than a decade after the attack, while incarcerated for attacking five other women in 1989, serial rapist Matias Reyes confessed to the Meili assault and said he was the only actor; DNA evidence confirmed his involvement.^[6] The convictions against McCray, Richardson, Salaam, Santana, and Wise were vacated in 2002; Lopez’s convictions were vacated in July 2022.”

Donald Trump took out ads in major newspapers for $85,000, urging that the boys suffer the death penalty. Even after they were exonerated, Trump did not publicly admit his mistake.

Tyler Page reports on the case (http://nytimes.com/2025/09/22/us/politics/trump-kirk-memorial-hate.html).

“After five teenagers were accused of assaulting and raping a young female jogger in New York City in 1989, Mr. Trump called for New York State to bring back the death penalty and told reporters, ‘I want society to hate them,’ according to a book on the president by Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter. (The men were later exonerated.)”

#2 – Trump vows retribution against his opponents (e.g. Democrats and critics).

During the campaign for a second presidential term, Trump told his supporters that HE is their retribution, as reported on July 25, 2025, by Jacob Knutson (https://democracydocket.com/analysis/trump-administration-weaponization-government-targeting-political-opponents).

“At a political conference in Maryland two years ago, Trump told hundreds of his supporters that he would be a tool of vengeance should they return him to the White House.

“‘I am your retribution,’ Trump said before repeating it again for emphasis.

Trump’s now returned to the White House, and he is fulfilling his promise. 

From the Department of Justices to the most peripheral federal agencies, Trump and his political appointees are weaponizing the bureaucracy to go after hundreds of the president’s political opponents and public officials who attempt to hold him accountable.

“To carry out this effort, Trump has obliterated the longstanding firewall protecting the Department of Justice (DOJ) and other agencies from being used for political ends.

“The use by Trump of the massive resources of federal law enforcement against his political opponents threatens fair elections and aims to intimidate public officials out of using their positions to hold Trump accountable. As such, it represents perhaps his most chilling move yet to undermine democracy.”

#3 – Trump’s remarks at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service

Tyler Pager reports on some of what Trump said at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service  (http://nytimes.com/2025/09/22/us/politics/trump-kirk-memorial-hate.html. Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.

“As tens of thousands of people mourned the conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Sunday, President Trump made a seemingly unscripted remark that summed up the retribution campaign that has come to define his second term.”

“‘I hate my opponent,’ Mr. Trump told the crowd at the memorial in Arizona, ‘and I don’t want the best for them.’”

“He spoke just minutes after Mr. Kirk’s widow, Erika, said she forgave her husband’s killer. Here is what she said.

“I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and it is what Charlie would do,” she said. “The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is love and always love.”

Pager continues. “‘At a time where the nation desperately needs to be bringing down the temperature, you’re saying he authentically doesn’t want to bring it down, or you’re saying that he authentically hates half of America,’ said Sarah Matthews, who was Mr. Trump’s deputy press secretary in the first term until breaking with him over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. ‘It just goes to show that’s what his mantra has always been. It’s just all about division and feeling like a victim and wanting to hate his opponents and get retribution.’”

#4 – Trump posts tawdry videos of Democratic Leaders Schumer and Jeffries after he met with them and ahead of the government shutdown

Kit Maher reports on this for CNN (https://cnn.com/2025/09/29/politics/trump-ai-generated-video-schumer-jeffries-shutdown). Here is some of what Maher writes.

“As the US government barrels toward a shutdown, President Donald Trump shared a racist video on social media, which appears to be AI-generated, depicting House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero and a mustache and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaking in a fake voice.

“Jeffries and Schumer met with Trump just hours before at the White House to discuss the looming shutdown.

“In the video, Schumer is depicted as arguing for undocumented immigrants to get ‘free healthcare’ because minority voters hate Democrats and they could use the votes in the next election.

“As mariachi music plays in the background of the video, the fake Schumer voice says, ‘There’s no way to sugar coat it: Nobody likes Democrats anymore.’

“The fake voice goes on to echo false GOP claims about Democratic policies and slam liberal leaders as ‘woke.’”

“The video was posted on Trump’s X account as well his official Truth Social account.”

Responses

“Shortly after Trump posted the video, Jeffries wrote on X, ‘Bigotry will get you nowhere. Cancel the Cuts. Lower the Cost. Save Healthcare. We are NOT backing down.’”

“Schumer followed moments later, commenting on X, ‘If you think your shutdown is a joke, it just proves what we all know: You can’t negotiate. You can only throw tantrums.’”

“‘More than 20 million Americans are on the brink of experiencing dramatically increased premiums, co-pays and deductibles because of the Republican refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits which benefit working class Americans,’ Jeffries said. ‘Working-class Americans, their health care, that’s what we’re fighting to preserve, to defend and to strengthen.’”

#5 – Trump is particularly focused on punishing Democratic cities and states  

White House Uses Shutdown to Maximize Pain and Punish Political Foes

By Tony Romm, New York Times, Oct 1, 2025

(https://nytimes.com/2025/10/01/us/politics/white-house-shutdown-punishment.html). Tony Romm is a reporter covering economic policy and the Trump administration for The Times, based in Washington.

Here are excerpts from the article.

“The Trump administration took steps on Wednesday to maximize the pain of the government shutdown, halting billions of dollars in funds for Democratic-led states while readying a plan to lay off potentially droves of civil servants imminently.

“The moves by the White House appeared both unprecedented and punitive, underscoring the risks of a fiscal stalemate that had no end in sight. It also evinced how President Trump might try to leverage the government-wide closure to achieve his agenda, slash the budget and exact revenge on his political enemies.

“In a series of social media posts, Russell T. Vought, the White House budget director, said the administration had paused or moved to cancel the delivery of about $26 billion in previously approved funds across a range of programs, describing the money as wasteful or in need of further review.

Here’s one of Romm’s examples. “The timing seemed to be no mere coincidence, nor were Mr. Vought’s choices of location. He said the administration was terminating one tranche of funds, totaling about $8 billion, because it was ‘Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda,’ a move that affected projects in 16 states, most of which are led by Democrats.”

Romm continues. “In a second instance, the Trump administration paused about $18 billion in approved infrastructure funding for two major transportation projects primarily in New York City, whose state delegation includes Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader. The two men have been frequent targets of Mr. Trump’s personal attacks, and the Transportation Department said the money would be held pending further review.

“Mr. Vought’s budget maneuvers marked an attempt to formalize Mr. Trump’s threat from a day earlier, when he described a shutdown as a ‘good’ opportunity to cut federal agencies, programs and benefits he disfavors in ways that would harm Democrats. He said at the time that it could include another round of mass layoffs targeting ‘a lot’ of government workers.”

Thus, “many federal employees are now furloughed, while others, including military service members and airport baggage screeners, are forced to report for work without pay. While those employees will eventually get back pay, there is no clear indication of when that might happen. Scores of critical government services are also halted or reduced significantly.”

Hours after Mr. Vought pledged to revoke some climate-related funding, the Energy Department offered scant details about its cuts. The agency said it had terminated 321 awards for more than 223 projects, claiming the investments did not ‘advance the nation’s energy needs’ and were not economically viable.’”

“Overall, the government is already expected to employ 300,000 fewer workers by December than it did in January. The substantial decline reflects a series of firings, layoffs and induced resignations that date back to the start of the president’s term, and the work of the cost-cutting campaign orchestrated by the Department of Government Efficiency.”

Concluding thoughts

In a March article for The Atlantic, Peter Wehner writes that “Trump’s Appetite for Revenge Is Insatiable” and he is doing what he can to satisfy this morally twisted urge (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/us/politics/white-house-shutdown-punishment.html). Wehner reminds us that “No one can say they didn’t know.” Indeed, “During his first official campaign rally for the 2024 Republican nomination, held in Waco, Texas, Donald Trump vowed retribution against those he perceives as his enemies.”

Wehner notes, “Last Friday, in the Great Hall of the Justice Department, the president described his adversaries as ‘scum,’ ‘savages,’ and ‘Marxists,’ as well as ‘deranged, ‘thugs,’ ‘violent vicious lawyers,’ and ‘a corrupt group of hacks and radicals within the ranks of the American government.’”

“The threat this poses to American democracy is obvious,” Wehner writes. He continues. “A president and an administration with a Mafia mentality can create a Mafia state. They can target innocent people, shut down dissent, intimidate critics into silence, violate democratic norms, act without any statutory authority, sweep away checks and balances, spread disinformation and conspiracy theories, ignore court orders, and even declare martial law.”

An alternative

Later in the article, Wehner refers to a book by Václav Havel, “written as president of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic,—a playwright, human-rights activist, and dissident whose words shook the foundations of the Soviet empire—meditated on politics, morality, and civility. He emphasized, again and again, ‘the moral origins of all genuine politics.’

“Some people considered him naive, a hopeless idealist, but he pushed back. ‘Evil will remain with us,’ Havel wrote, ‘no one will ever eliminate human suffering, the political arena will always attract irresponsible and ambitious adventurers and charlatans. And man will not stop destroying the world. In this regard, I have no illusions.”

“Havel went on: “Neither I nor anyone else will ever win this war once and for all. At the very most, we can win a battle or two—and not even that is certain. Yet I still think it makes sense to wage this war persistently. It has been waged for centuries, and it will continue to be waged—we hope—for centuries to come. This must be done on principle, because it is the right thing to do.”

Havel later wrote:

“So anyone who claims that I am a dreamer who expects to transform hell into heaven is wrong. I have few illusions. But I feel a responsibility to work towards the things I consider good and right. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to change certain things for the better, or not at all. Both outcomes are possible….

Our republic and its ideals are supremely good causes. We should strive to protect them, which begins by speaking out for them, and by trying to do, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, what Havel did during his ennobling and consequential life: to once again give depth and dimension to notions such as love, friendship, compassion, humility, and forgiveness. To refuse to live within the lie. And to awaken the goodwill that is slumbering within our society.”