Now that the disgraceful Trump administration is about to end with Donald Trump being the first president to lose the popular vote twice, while also getting impeached twice, and never having an approval rating over fifty percent, while also joining the club of one term presidents (he's the eleventh), it's time to look back at some of the shameful, unprecedented behavior that he got away with and make some changes so that no equally corrupt president can ever hold the White House again.
#1. All presidential candidates must release their tax returns- This right from the start corruption was classic Trump. Every presidential candidate in modern history before him released their tax returns. But there was no hard fast rule about it, it was just an assumption. One that Trump predictably ignored, first lying about releasing them after an audit, and then just never doing it. It is essential to the American political system that a president should never have possible conflicts of interest regarding their own finances and their policies. Trump tax returns may eventually be outed by the legal and financial issues he's going to face once he's out of the White House, but that's far too late. Congress should pass a law mandating this common sense rule as soon as possible.
#2. All business holdings by an elected president should be placed in a blind trust while he or she is in the White House. The Emoluments Clause of the Constitution specifically bars members of the federal government from receiving gifts, emoluments, offices or titles from foreign states and monarchies. Jimmy Carter put his businesses in a blind trust after he won the white house in nineteen seventy six. Mitt Romney pledged to do the same if he had won in two thousand and twelve. Trump, on the other hand, just said that he would hand over control of his global business to his two sons, an absurd compromise if there ever was one. The worst aspect of this was the Trump Hotel in Washington DC continued to operate, meaning that visiting foreign dignitaries could stay and run up huge hotel bills as a way to influence the president. Again, congress should pass a law ending violations like this.
#3. No president should be allowed to pardon family members, or promise pardons to people he has encouraged to break the law. Because the presidential pardon power is a power that is irrevocable, Trump has clearly enjoyed wielding it like a king. This has lead to some obvious grey areas, like pardoning his son in law's father, and some outright corrupt areas, like pardoning Roger Stone, who committed crimes on Trump's behalf. While Trump has rightfully released a few non violent drug users, for the most part he has used the pardon power as another way to see what he could get away with, pushing the office of the presidency deeper into corruption. There are even some reports that Rudy Giuliani was recently selling pardons on his behalf! Limits must be put on this presidential power.
#4. The president should not allowed to use a nuclear weapon on any country that has not used one on us first. Shortly after taking office, Trump got into a childish war of words with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un; when Un sent out a message saying that his "Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Trump replied by tweet with "Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!" Although, as we all know, nothing came of that petulant rant, it did raise the possibility of the president using the country's nuclear arsenal on another country. And there's no law that could have stopped him. It is perfectly within the power of the president to fire a nuclear weapon at any country at any time. While it would appear to be common sense that our country only has such weapons as a deterrent, the idea that Trump or any other future president could decide to use weapons that could easily kill millions of people as an offensive strategy instead of a defensive one is terrifying. This presidential power should be changed.
While this list does not cover all the violations and corruptions of the Trump administration, adopting these kind of common sense measures in the future could at least undo some of the damage done by the worst president in history. The country deserves better in the future.
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