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Donald Trump appeared before the House and the Senate last night to address a joint session of Congress. He was joined by his new besties Mike Pence and Paul Ryan, who wore matching blue ties and grinned shittily while our tacky-ass president laid out his plan for tanking the country, commonly referred to as “making America great again.” Here are the highlights and lowlights. We use the word “highlight” veeeeery loosely here.
HIGHLIGHTS
Trump Condemning Anti-Semitism, Shouts Out Black History Month
Kudos to whoever keeps making the President denounce anti-Semitism and acknowledge black people exist outside of Chicago, because it’s working! Trump took a whole two minutes at the start of his speech to denounce the recent wave of attacks on Jewish cemeteries, and to call for more unity and understanding. The general response was, “Good for you, Donald! You finally did president good!” Even though earlier that same day he seemed to have suggested that Jews were vandalizing their own cemeteries and threatening their own community centers in order to make other groups look bad. Ah, to be white, male, and mediocre in today’s America.
Nancy Pelosi’s Face
Nancy Pelosi encapsulated all of our emotions last night by completely failing to hide her hatred for the president and everything he stands for:
Elizabeth Warren
As we have come to expect, Queen Elizabeth of Massachusetts used Donald Trump’s joint address as an opportunity to throw some grade-A shade by inviting an Iraqi refugee, aka the exact type of person Trump is trying to ban from entering the U.S, as her guest. It’s like inviting your frenemy’s ex to a party just to show her who the fuck is in charge.
LOWLIGHTS
He’s Still Obsessed With The Whole ‘“Wall” Thing
Donald Trump is still delusionally obsessed with his stupid wall idea, and wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it last night. He promised the American people that we will build a wall, but appears to have dropped the whole “Mexico will pay” aspect. Which, of course, means we’re paying for it. Ugh Trump can you please stop trying to make The Wall happen?
WTF Is V.O.I.C.E?
Donald Trump used his terrifying speech to our terrifying government to lay out a terrifying new agency called V.O.I.C.E, and it’s not a new singing competition coming to NBC. It stands for the Victims of Immigrant Crime Engagement. So what the fuck does that mean? Well, it appears to be solely dedicated to policing, publicizing, and punishing crimes committed by illegal immigrants. Hmm…anybody else getting some serious Hitler vibes here?
Someone Announced “The President Of The United States” And Donald Trump Came Out
This was the lowest point in the evening. Probably one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. Truly horrible. RIP me.
HONORABLE MENTION: The Democratic Response
The Democratic response was given by former Kentucky Governor and current total random Steve Beshear, who sat in what appeared to be a diner and stared lifelessly at the camera while surrounded by a handful of garden-variety white people. It was very boring and honestly I started looking at my phone halfway through and have no idea what he said.
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Congrats fam, we officially made it through week one in Trump’s America. Barely. There’s been a lot going on this week, most of it horrifying and awful. Let’s outline the most important things, because there’s a lot to keep track of. For more news delivered straight to your inbox three times a week, sign up for The ‘Sup.
MEXICO
President Trump has wasted no time getting to work on the Mexico border wall, one of his most consistent campaign promises. He’s still adamant about Mexico paying for the wall, even though the Mexican president is like “fuck no” and even canceled a meeting with Trump.
On Thursday, the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (he’s a mess and a half) said that the President was considering a 20% tax on imports to pay for the wall. This received immediate backlash from literally everyone (Republicans included), because it would likely raise prices for American consumers and would also be a violation of NAFTA. Not so good. So now they’re not so sure about the tax, but this all boils down to the same point: MEXICO ISN’T PAYING FOR THAT FUCKING WALL. Also, do not fucking come for my tequila and guacamole.
MUSLIMS
During his campaign, Trump talked endlessly about a “Muslim ban” that is probably not actually constitutional at all. Last week, he announced plans to block immigration from seven countries with majority Muslim populations. But don’t worry, it’s not a total Muslim ban. Of course, Trump was careful to exclude the countries he has personal business ties with. This includes Saudi Arabia, even though the majority of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudi. Sounds fair.
Of course, Syria is one of the countries on the list, because God forbid we help some refugees. Trump still says he’ll “absolutely do safe zones in Syria,” but he hasn’t made it a priority to talk about how that might actually happen (hint: it won’t). Protests erupted at JFK and other major airports around the country this weekend when we learned this ban was already being put into effect (that was fast) and those with valid documentation, including green-card holders, were being detained. Trump’s bullshit executive order received another blow Saturday night when a judge in New York granted an emergency stay, temporarily halting the deportation of those being detained. Also, the ACLU is suing him. Sorry Donald, I guess the president can’t just do whatever the fuck he wants. Maybe you should have like…looked that up before taking the job?
VOTER FRAUD
While Trump has spent his first week in office dealing with some major issues, he’s also spent a disturbing amount of time on one of our least pressing issues: popularity and voter fraud. Of course, there’s the clear lie that his inauguration was the most watched ever, but we’re not here to talk about Kellyanne “Lying Ass” Conway and alternative facts.
Trump’s new favorite thing to talk about is voter fraud. He maintains that there were millions of illegal votes cast in the election last November, even though there is literally zero evidence to support this, and HE WON THE FUCKING ELECTION. Basically, his ego can’t handle the fact that he lost the popular vote, so all those extra Hillary votes must have been cast by dead people and illegal immigrants. He’s now promised a “major investigation” into voter fraud, so that should be fun and not at all a waste of time and taxpayer money.
One of his favorite things to bring up is that people are registered to vote in more than one state, which is actually perfectly legal, provided you don’t vote twice. He should really try talking to his daughter Tiffany, who herself is registered in two states. But let’s be real, Tiffany probably doesn’t even have his real phone number.
ABORTION
We hope you all got IUDs before the inauguration, because the next four years are basically going to be a war on your reproductive system. Early last week, Trump reinstated something first done by Ronald Reagan called the Global Gag Order. It’s about as fun as it sounds. Basically, if any organization uses any money to perform or even provide information about abortions, they won’t get any funding from the United States government. This has been standard practice for every Republican president, but Trump has broadened the focus to include any government assistance, not just from the State Department.
This executive order could have a major impact around the world on women’s ability to access safe healthcare and reproductive care. It’s not just about abortions—these organizations will lose funding altogether. To add insult to injury, Trump signed the order surrounded by a half-dozen white men and (you guessed it) zero women. Buckle up ladies, shit’s gonna get rough.
SCIENCE
It’s looking more and more like this presidency will also wage a war on science and knowledge. This is tremendously disturbing, and it doesn’t seem like it’s getting better. Government Twitter accounts for the Department of Agriculture and the National Parks Service have been ordered to stop tweeting factual information about things like climate change, and some Twitter accounts have been completely shut down.
In one of the better things to happen this week, real MVPs the National Parks, NASA, and more than a dozen agencies have started rogue Twitter accounts, determined to spread truth. Keep fucking shit up, we need people like you.
Last week, Trump also ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to stop giving grants, because like, why protect the environment anyway? What’s the point? It’s not like we all live here, on this planet. The freeze was lifted later in the week, but the fact that it happened in the first place could be a troubling sign of things to come.
THINGS TO COME
We’re just getting started. The Affordable Care Act will be repealed any day now, so go to the doctor while you still can, and who the hell knows what will happen with that border wall? All fun things. Stay strong Betches, we’ll get through this. Maybe. Honestly we’re not even sure anymore.
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