10 utterly jaw-dropping things Donald Trump did on his fourth day back in power

Donald Trump marked his fourth day back in the White House by suggesting America’s allies should just roll over for its enemies, among other things.

It was a busy day for the President – who spoke via vidolihk at the World Economic Forum in Davos, as well as taking questions as he signed another huge raft of wildly controversial executive orders.

Meanwhile, one of the orders he signed on Monday is already being struck down by courts across the land as “unconstitutional”.

Here’s a roundup of the most jaw-dropping things Donald Trump did and said while you were sleeping.

1. Doubled down on his January 6th pardons

As predicted yesterday, Trump casually said in the Oval Office that he’s open to meeting with the violent thugs who stormed the capital on January 6th in an attempted coup d’etat – doubling down on his incredibly unpopular raft of pardons.

“What they did is they were protesting a crooked election,” he lied.

He continued: “People understand that also.”

Some do, sure – but when it was last polled, more than two thirds of the American people believed Biden beat Trump fair and square. Barely 2 in 10 Americans are in favour of the pardons.

“They were treated very badly,” he said. “Nobody’s been treated like that.”

He said he hadn’t spoken to any rioters yet, but he knows they’re “very happy.”

“I gave them their life back. Their life was taken away from them”.

He went on to accuse members of the congressional committee that investigated January 6th of a raft of crimes, none of which have any basis in fact.

2. Indicated a halt on renewable energy sources

Turns out Fox News held back some of the Hannity interview for a day two – during which the President came out with these gems of wisdom: “We don’t want windmills in this country. We’re putting and order on it. I’ve already sort of done it. We don’t want windmills….

After making some spurious claims about the loss in value to homes in sight of turbines, he went on: “You know what else people don’t like? Those massive solar fields.”

We’re certain this has nothing to do with the $96m the fossil fuel industry donated to Trump’s re-election campaign and political action committees.

3. Suggested AI data centres should just build coal power stations right next door

Speaking by video link to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump came up with an easy solution to the massive amount of power needed (and emissions caused) by AI.

Referring to a conversation he had with AI business leaders on Tuesday, he apparently suggested the kind of urban planning that would very quickly lose you a game of Sim City.

He said “I said “Build your electric generating plant right next to your plant as a separate building”‘

Trump said his tech bro guests, had replied “Wow…you’re kidding”.

Trump was not kidding – and even suggested the plants could be off the grid entirely. And powered with coal.

“You know, good clean coal,” he said, indicating this mad idea was something that was actually going to happen.

Which actually it might, because Donald Trump is the President.

4. He said Volodymyr Zelensky is “no angel” and should have just let Putin invade

Again, on Hannity, Trump claimed “Zelensky? He wants to settle. He’s had enough.

“He shouldn’t have allowed this to happen, either”, the President of the United States said, presumably suggesting Ukraine should have just let Putin’s troops invade their country.

“He’s no angel, he shouldn’t have allowed this war to happen.

“First of all, he’s fighting a much bigger entity. Much bigger. He was talking so brave….he was brave, but we gave them billions of dollars.”

He went on: “He shouldn’t have done that. We could have made a deal. It would have been a deal that would have been a nothing deal, I could have made that deal so easily.”

Again, this is the President of the United States, openly saying the correct response to an aggressive invasion from a foreign power is immediate capitulation.

He went on: “Zelensky decided that ‘I wanna fight’.”

Yesterday, Keir Starmer’s official spokesman said of Trump: “We have a strong relationship with the US. We look forward to working closely with them, and any differences we have with that administration will be raised privately and constructively.”

Presumably this will be one of those differences.

5. Started his attacks on judges early

Last time round it was a few weeks at least before Trump started undermining the independence of the judiciary.

But this time, one of his executive orders – the one redefining ‘birthright citizenship’ – has been temporarily halted by a Judge in Seattle.

Birthright citizenship is the rule that if you’re born in the United States, you’re a US citizen, regardless of your parents’ immigration status.

Republicans have long argued this leads to undocumented immigrants having “anchor babies” – a truly unpleasant term suggesting some people have children to make them harder to deport.

Trump’s executive order would deny citizenship to those born after February 19 whose parents are in the country illegally.

Some 22 states have brought lawsuits challenging the order, with one brought by Washington state, Arizona, Oregon and Illinois heard first in Seattle.

“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is,” U.S. District Judge John Coughenour told a Justice Department attorney. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”

Asked about it in the Oval Office, Trump said: “They put it before a certain judge…and there’s no surprises with that judge.”

From that you might think the judge was some kind of softy liberal, perhaps an Obama appointee.

Nope, he’s 82 and was appointed by noted softy liberal Ronald Reagan.

Other than opposing mandatory minimum sentences for a variety of crimes, he doesn’t appear to have had a particular liberal leaning in his career history.

6. Hinted he could pull the US out of NATO. Or at least stop funding NATO

Asked why, when he complains about other countries not putting enough cash in to NATO, America funds it by less than the recommended 5% of GDP, Trump said: “We’re protecting them, they’re not protecting us.”

He went on: “I’m not sure we should be spending anything. But we should certainly be helping them.

“But they should up their 2% to 5%.”

7. Said he’d visit Saudi Arabia …for a trillion dollars

In his Davos speech, Trump demanded Saudi Arabia invest a trillion dollars in the US.

And later in the Oval Office he indicated that if they agreed to that, he’d make the Kingdom his first overseas visit.

“If they do that I would,” he said. “I’d be glad to do that. I did it as you know four years ago [sic – it was eight years ago]. We did it for $450 million – meaning the money all goes to American companies….

“I guess we’re at $600-$650 [billion]. I’ll see if I can talk him into a trillion.

8. Pardoned 23 people prosecuted for storming and blockading abortion clinics

Trump said it was a “great honour” to sign the pardons for anti-abortion activists – including those who blockaded a clinic in Washington which led to a nurse being injured.

Among them was Lauren Handy, who was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for leading the blockade.

During the protest, a nurse was pushed and sprained her ankle. Another woman was accosted by a blockader while having labour pains, according to prosecutors.

Searching her home in 2022, Police found five foetuses in Handy’s fridge. She claimed to have obtained them from a medical waste truck driver outside a DC abortion clinic – and found 110 smaller sets of remains, along with five larger foetuses.

She held a mass funeral for the 110 smaller foetuses, but kept the larger bodies in her fridge.

She was never charged with a crime connected to the incident.

Signing her pardon, Trump said: “Many of them are elderly people. They should never have been prosecuted. This is a great honour to sign this.”

Lauren Handy is 31.

Trump will later today speak by video link at America’s largest anti-abortion rally.

9. Signed an order to make America ‘crypto capital of the world’

Trump, who days before his inauguration launched a cryptocurrency which netted him billions of dollars, and which he is still advertising on his social accounts from the Oval Office, signed an order setting up a working group to make America “the world capital of crypto.”

Trump, who definitely, definitely understands what cryptocurrencies are, said crypto “is going up, right?”

10. Ordered the release of all remaining files relating to the assassinations of JFK, RFK and Martin Luther King Jr

No, wait. Hang on. This one’s actually good. No complaints here.

Carry on.