Republican Politician Firsts
An incomplete list of the "firsts" leading Republicans have achieved
“Republicans” are good at making history. Here’s a preliminary and surely incomplete list (it’s off the top of my head) of the “Firsts” they have achieved. In particular, there are many other “firsts” achieved by Donald John Trump. It is beyond question that he he has more firsts than any other president.And they’re making history with increasing rapidity. The last six “firsts” were accomplished over the past week or so and the last three came just yesterday and today:
First President to turn the White House into a speakeasy during Prohibition: Warren Gamaliel Harding (1921)
First Vice President to plead nolo contendere to criminal charges and resign: Spiro Theodore Agnew (1973)
First President to resign in order to avoid being impeached: Richard Milhous Nixon (1974)
First President to be pardoned by his successor: Richard Milhous Nixon (1974)
First President never elected to a national office: Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr (1974)
First President to grant “a full, free, and absolute pardon … for all offenses against the United States which he … Nixon, has committed or may have committed” while president to his predecessor: Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr (1974)
First Speaker of the House to pledge not to let a day go by without reminding the American people of the evil immorality of a president having sex with an intern while simultaneously having sex with an intern himself: Newton Leroy Gingrich (1998)
First President to invade another country on false pretenses: Richard Bruce Cheney/George Walker Bush (2003) — NO, WAIT, that was done by several others before, dating back at least to Democrat James Knox Polk (1846)
First President to encourage illegal foreign assistance to help him win an election: Donald John Trump (twice: 2016, 2019-20)
First President to call Americans who serve in the military “suckers” and “losers”: Donald John Trump (2018)
First President to tell more than 30,000 documented lies while President: Donald John Trump (2017-2021) [Lyndon Baines Johnson and Richard Milhous Nixon are competitors for this distinction, but Mr. Trump outdid them.]
First President to be Impeached Twice: Donald John Trump (2019-20, 2021)
First President to suggest injecting bleach or ultraviolet light into patients as a way to deal with a pandemic: Donald John Trump (2023) (NOTE: Mr Trump also tried to hide the danger of a pandemic from the public, but he was not first on this. Thomas Woodrow Wilson did it in 1918.)
First President to encourage an insurrection to overthrow the American Republic and stay in office after he lost an election: Donald John Trump (2020-21)
First President to attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power to his successor: Donald John Trump (2021)
First Former President to Be Indicted: Donald John Trump (2023)
First Former President to Be Indicted Twice: Donald John Trump (2023)
First Former President to Be Indicted Three Times: Donald John Trump (2023)
First Former President to Be Indicted Four Times: Donald John Trump (2023)
First Former President to have a criminal mug shot taken of him: Donald John Trump (2023)
First Former President to announce that if reelected he will arrest those who oppose him, close down media outlets that criticize him, purge all people in the government who will not do everything and anything he tells them to do, arrogate all power to himself, and become a dictator: Donald John Trump (2023)
First Former President to laugh about the husband of the former Speaker of the House being beaten with a hammer by a supporter of that former president: Donald John Trump (2023)
First Former President to call for the execution of the man he chose as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Donald John Trump (2023)
First Former President to have a summary judgment against him because the evidence of his massive business fraud was overwhelming: Donald John Trump (2023)
First Former President to be placed under a gag order by a judge: Donald John Trump (2023)
First Speaker of the House to be Removed from the position by a vote of his own party: Kevin Owen McCarthy (2023)
First Speaker Pro Tempore of the House to order to Speaker Emerita to vacate her office and lock her out of it so he can have it: Patrick Timothy McHenry (2023)