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  1. People.com
  2. Politics
  3. A Look at the President Trump's Most High-Profile Critics: Lawmakers, Celebs, a Justice and More

A Look at the President Trump's Most High-Profile Critics: Lawmakers, Celebs, a Justice and More

Donald Trump has built his presidential career on saying and doing things few other commanders-in-chief ever have, a norm-breaking style that has led to ardent admiration from some conservatives but unusually widespread criticism from both sides of the aisle — including these 28 high-profile figures in politics and beyond
By Diane J. Cho
February 04, 2019 02:17 PM
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Lin-Manuel Miranda: 'You're Going Straight to Hell'

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After Hurricane Maria devastated Miranda's home island of Puerto Rico, Trump drew criticism for his delayed response to the crisis and his combative tweets towards San Juan's mayor. After a particularly nasty tweet, Miranda responded: “You’re going straight to hell, @realDonaldTrump. No long lines for you. Someone will say, ‘Right this way, sir.’ They’ll clear a path."

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Rep. Maxine Waters Wants 'Criminal' Trump Out

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While discussing President Trump on AM Joy, the California congresswoman said, “I do believe that impeachment should begin," adding, "This criminal must be brought up by the congress of the United States for impeachment and if we don’t do it, we’re derelicts in our duty.”

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Vice President Joe Biden Is 'Sick and Tired' of Trump

When asked by The Intercept why he thought he could beat President Trump in the 2020 presidential election, the former vice president said, “I think anybody can beat him.” Biden has a history of speaking out against the president, including at a rally at the University of Wisconsin. “I am sick and tired of this administration,” he said. “I am sick and tired of what’s going on. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I hope you are too.”

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President Jimmy Carter Can’t Trust Trump with the Truth

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In an interview with The Washington Post, the former president ripped Trump for his dishonest tendencies. “I think there’s been an attitude of ignorance toward the truth by President Trump,” said Carter. He also called trump “a disaster… in human rights and in treating people equal.”

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Shepard Smith: Fake News Works for Trump

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The Fox News star has called out Trump on a few occasions for lying during his time as president. On a Fox News segment in 2018, Smith — the rare anchor there to express criticism of the president — went on to say that “the fake news seems to be pretty good” for Trump and “real news seems to be unpleasant.”

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg Thinks Trump Is 'a Faker'

Credit: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty

Ahead of Trump's election, the Supreme Court Justice told The New York Times “I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our President.” In another interview, she called him "a faker." The president responded by calling her comments “dumb” and declaring "her mind is shot - resign!" Ginsburg eventually apologized for her comments and said she regretted making them. “Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office,” she said. “In the future I will be more circumspect.

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James Comey Pleads with Audience to Vote Trump Out of Office

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The former FBI Director who was fired by Trump spoke at a New York event and encouraged the audience to vote Trump out of office - no surprise, as he has previously called Trump "morally unfit to be president". "All of us should use every breath we have to make sure the lies stop on January 20, 2021," he said.

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Stephen Colbert Alludes to the Downfall of Trump

The host of The Late Show used his moment at The 2017 Tony Awards to joke about the ongoing drama in the White House. Pretending to discuss a Washington, D.C. play starring a main character who is “totally unbelievable, and the hair and makeup, yeesh," Colbert continued, "the D.C. production is supposed to have a four-year run, but reviews have not been kind. Could close early, we don’t know, we don’t know, best of luck to everyone involved.”

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Katie Couric Finds Trump 'Troubling'

Couric shared her feelings about the president at Advertising Week in New York City. “I’ve never seen a president who seems to have as his guiding principle of leadership sowing the seeds of discourse and divisiveness,” she said. “I find it really troubling and upsetting.”

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John Legend Has Been Saying 'Impeach Him' for Amost a Year

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The EGOT winner has not been shy about his feelings towards Trump. In May 2017, following the president’s decision to pull of the Iran Deal, Legend tweeted, “Impeach him.” In November 2018, while Trump clashed with several members of the media during a heated press conference following the midterms, Legend tweeted, “The president is a f---ing embarrassment.” When good friend Kanye West started to publically tweet about supporting Trump, Legend reached out to the rapper to see if he would reconsider. The list goes on.

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Brad Sherman Preps for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Report

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California Rep. Brad Sherman told CNN that he would re-introduce articles of impeachment from his 2017 rollout against Trump on the first day of the new Congress to build momentum as he waits for special counsel Robert Mueller’s report to come out. Sherman’s articles of impeachment focus on accusations that Trump obstructed justice and had involvement in the Russian interference of the 2016 presidential election.

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Michael Avenatti Felt Trump Would Be 'Forced to Resign'

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Stormy Daniels’ lawyer thought the president would be “forced to resign” after all of the information on Daniels and Trump’s alleged affair came out to the public but that hasn’t been the case so far. The president has denied the affair but that didn’t stop Daniels from going into quite a bit of detail about their sexual encounter in her tell-all book Full Disclosure.

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George Conway's Anti-Trump Tweets Are In Opposition to His Wife's White House Role

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The attorney does not hold back from harshly criticizing the president, even if Trump is his wife’s boss. The husband to white house adviser KellyAnne Conway has tweeted about the president being “incompetent,” “a laughingstock,” and a “self-parody.”

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Stephen King Highlights Trump’s Hypocrisy

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In a tweet from November 2018, King explained why the president should be impeached. “Trump condones murder, then explains it’s okay for his daughter to do what he wanted Hillary Clinton locked up for,” he wrote. “Oh, and his AG is a f-cking crook. Impeach.” The murder was in reference to Trump’s controversial statement about Saudi Arabia, the Ivanka reference was about her using a personal email account for government business, and his AG reference is regarding Trump’s Attorney General Matthew Whitaker who pocketed over $900,000 from a nonprofit.

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Tom Steyer Puts His Money Where His Mouth Is

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Billionaire Democratic donor and Need to Impeach founder Tom Steyer created an entire organization dedicated to impeaching President Trump. Seyer’s campaign has collected over 7 million signatures for a petition that calls for the removal of the president from office. He plans to spend $40 million of his own money to continue to fund his organization and vowed to “do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to remove [sic] the president.”

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Rep. Al Green Says Trump Is 'Constitutionally Unfit'

At a news conference organized by the Need to Impeach organization, Houston Rep. Al Green, the only member of congress in attendance, spoke out against the president by saying, “failure to impeach a constitutionally unfit president puts society at great risk of additional harm.” Green has been an early advocate for Donald Trump’s impeachment and believes it’s not a lost cause to continue the fight. “This is a cause that is of paramount importance,” he told Dallas News. “It supersedes a good many other things we’d like to do, although these things are important.”

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Mark Ruffalo Gives Trump Two Choices

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After the Unite the Right rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virgina, The Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson tweeted an image of protesters from the rally carrying lit up tiki torches and wrote: ”These people were yelling ‘Death to Jews!’ Donald Trump just praised and defended them as victims.” Ruffalo retweeted Robinson’s tweet and added “#ImpeachOrResign” to his own caption.

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John Cusack Does Too

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Cusack used a tweet from Ben Rhodes, who served as Deputy National Security Advisor during President Obama’s administration, to share his own thoughts about Trump. Rhodes wrote in his tweet about the President's wild claims about terrorism, “He is doing grave damage to US standing - literally and seriously.” Cusack retweeted the statement and added: “Gigs up - no one in a right mind can argue he’s fit for office - or argue against his obvious racism and race baiting - Impeach or 25th.” His mention of “25th” references to the 25th Amendment, which is another way besides impeachment to take power away from a sitting president.

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Moby Is All for Impeachment Now

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In response to a tweet by Trump sharing a discredited story about a U.S. general in response to a terror attack in Barcelona, Moby was outraged. “WHAT? @realDonaldTrump just commended shooting muslims with bullets soaked in pigs blood,” he wrote in a response tweet. “IMPEACH NOW. #impeach #impeach #impeach #impeach.”

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The Atlantic Shared Its Stance On Trump In Big Red Bold Letters

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The Atlantic’s Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg unveiled the magazine's March 2019 cover story in a tweet that read: “I’m biased, but I think we have a good-looking cover coming up.”

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Alec Baldwin Is Looking At Voters to “Overthrow” Trump

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In addition to playing a satirical version of the president on Saturday Night Live, Baldwin used his platform at a political fundraiser for the New Hampshire Democratic Party to say, “The way we implement change in American is through elections ... We need to overthrow the government of the United States under Donald Trump.”

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Carl Bernstein Calls Out Trump’s Lying

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The legendary journalist who exposed Watergate went on CNN’s Reliable Sources to discuss Trump’s pattern of lying. "We have had presidents in the past who have lied, there's no question about that," Bernstein said. "But what we have never had is a president of the United States who uses lying and untruth as a basic method to promote his policies, his beliefs and his way of approaching the American people and engaging in the world."

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Michael Bloomberg Calls Trump a Failure

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The former mayor of New York City ripped into Trump in a speech he gave at Saint Anselm College. “He failed at business, and now I think it’s fair to say he is failing at government,” Bloomberg said. He even commented on Trump’s stance on climate change and said, “I hate to break this to you, Mr. President, but if you don’t believe in science, don’t go to the doctor, don’t get on an airplane, don’t talk on the phone, and don’t even think about tweeting.”

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Sen. Cory Booker Condemns Trump’s Stance On Women

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Hours after Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh was confirmed, Booker stood before an audience at the Iowa Democratic Party’s annual fall gala to condemn President Trump for mocking Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a party in high school. “We’re not defined by a president who mocks a hero, Dr. Blasey Ford,” he said. “We’re not defined by a president who does not believe women. We’re going to be defined when this state not only says that we believe women, but we elect women.”

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Hillary Clinton Thinks Trump Is Putting the Country in Danger

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When the White House said it would begin to withdraw troops from Syria, Clinton tweeted her response. “Actions have consequences, and whether we’re in Syria or not, the people who want to harm us are there & at war,” she wrote. “Isolationism is weakness. Empowering ISIS is dangerous. Playing into Russia & Iran’s hands is foolish. This President is putting our national security at grave risk.”

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo Declares His Resistance Against the President

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In his third inaugural address as Governor of New York, Cuomo was highly critical of the president, although he did not address him by name. “America’s only threat is from within: It is the growing division amongst us,” said Cuomo. He then vowed that New York would “be the light to lead the way through the darkness.”

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Bob Woodward: “It’s a Gambling Presidency”

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In an interview with The Seattle Times Woodward (with Bernstein, the other half of the Watergate-exposing journalist duo) opened up about his latest book Fear and how he feels about the president. “I think people should be alarmed about Trump,” said Woodward. “I think overall the book shows we have a governing crisis. That the president has set up policies based on ideas and facts that are not true, and that he is gambling in so many areas of foreign affairs, with the economy, with immigration, with tariffs, you name it. It’s a gambling presidency.”

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren Battles It Out with Trump Regularly

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Warren has gone head to head with the president a number of times. She uses Twitter and public appearances to speak out against Trump’s behavior, governing style, and policies. “A small insecure money grubber who doesn’t care who gets hurt so long as he makes a profit off of it,” said Warren in a 2016 speech about the president.

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The President Responds to the 'Haters'

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Long before he took over the Oval Office Trump was not been shying about pushing back against the "haters and losers" who criticize him. (Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s attorney, contended in August that the public would “revolt” against any impeachment, according to CNN.)

In early January, with a characteristic mixture of boastfulness and lies, Trump tweeted: "How do you impeach a president who has won perhaps the greatest election of all time, done nothing wrong ... had the most successful first two years of any president, and is the most popular Republican in party history 93%?"

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Everything in This Slideshow

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1 of 29 Lin-Manuel Miranda: 'You're Going Straight to Hell'
2 of 29 Rep. Maxine Waters Wants 'Criminal' Trump Out
3 of 29 Vice President Joe Biden Is 'Sick and Tired' of Trump
4 of 29 President Jimmy Carter Can’t Trust Trump with the Truth
5 of 29 Shepard Smith: Fake News Works for Trump
6 of 29 Ruth Bader Ginsburg Thinks Trump Is 'a Faker'
7 of 29 James Comey Pleads with Audience to Vote Trump Out of Office
8 of 29 Stephen Colbert Alludes to the Downfall of Trump
9 of 29 Katie Couric Finds Trump 'Troubling'
10 of 29 John Legend Has Been Saying 'Impeach Him' for Amost a Year
11 of 29 Brad Sherman Preps for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Report
12 of 29 Michael Avenatti Felt Trump Would Be 'Forced to Resign'
13 of 29 George Conway's Anti-Trump Tweets Are In Opposition to His Wife's White House Role
14 of 29 Stephen King Highlights Trump’s Hypocrisy
15 of 29 Tom Steyer Puts His Money Where His Mouth Is
16 of 29 Rep. Al Green Says Trump Is 'Constitutionally Unfit'
17 of 29 Mark Ruffalo Gives Trump Two Choices
18 of 29 John Cusack Does Too
19 of 29 Moby Is All for Impeachment Now
20 of 29 The Atlantic Shared Its Stance On Trump In Big Red Bold Letters
21 of 29 Alec Baldwin Is Looking At Voters to “Overthrow” Trump
22 of 29 Carl Bernstein Calls Out Trump’s Lying
23 of 29 Michael Bloomberg Calls Trump a Failure
24 of 29 Sen. Cory Booker Condemns Trump’s Stance On Women
25 of 29 Hillary Clinton Thinks Trump Is Putting the Country in Danger
26 of 29 Gov. Andrew Cuomo Declares His Resistance Against the President
27 of 29 Bob Woodward: “It’s a Gambling Presidency”
28 of 29 Sen. Elizabeth Warren Battles It Out with Trump Regularly
29 of 29 The President Responds to the 'Haters'

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