We all know that President Donald Trump says what he thinks, that’s what got him into the White House in the first place.
But as you may have noticed, some of the things he says are met with a serious backlash, which is often followed by the comments being brushed off or assumed to be ‘just a joke’.
On National Presidential Joke Day (and no, this day wasn’t just created for him), we take a look back at some of his most inappropriate comments that have been dismissed in the name of so-called humour.
Police brutality
Trump appeared to endorse police brutality when giving a speech to law enforcement officials on Long Island, New York last month by suggesting it was okay to bang suspects’ heads on their car doors.
He said: “When you see these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon - you just see them thrown in, rough - I said, ‘Please don’t be too nice.’”
He added: “Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over, like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody, don’t hit their head, I said, ‘You can take the hand away, OK?’”
When White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was quizzed on the comments at the next press briefing, she dismissed them by simply saying: “I believe he was making a joke.”
Inciting violence
Back when Trump was running to be president, he encouraged his supporters at his rallies to get into fights with protesters.
He told a campaign rally in Iowa in January 2016: “There may be somebody with tomatoes in the audience. So if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you?
“Seriously. Okay? Just knock the hell — I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise. It won’t be so much ’cause the courts agree with us, too.”
When that exact thing happened and his rallies became dogged with violent clashes in the audience, Trump took no responsibility, telling MSNBC: “I certainly don’t incite violence” which would leave us to assume he was ‘just joking’.
Collusion with Russia
As a candidate, Trump clearly thought sending a public plea to Russia - a country he insisted he had no contact with that is now the subject of an ongoing federal investigation - to hack Hillary Clinton’s private email server would be a funny thing to do.
In the midst of the separate investigation into Clinton’s deleted emails from her time as Secretary of State, Trump told a news conference in July 2016: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”
Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer brushed it off one year later, saying: “He was joking at the time. We all know that.”
Obstructing justice
In his testimony in June this year, sacked FBI director James Comey reported, under oath, that the President had asked him to find a way to drop the probe into ex-national security advisor Michael Flynn.
He wrote that Trump said: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He’s a good guy. I hope you can let this go.
“I replied only that ‘he is a good guy,‘” Comey wrote, adding: “I did not say I would ‘let this go.’”
But then White House officials began telling reporters that what he said wasn’t to be taken literally and was yet another funny joke.
The Health Care bill
There were so many inappropriate comments made at the Boy Scouts Jamboree last month. But the one that was a clear ‘joke’ was when he threatened to fire Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price if Republicans didn’t pass his healthcare bill through the Senate - which they didn’t, after three of his own party members voted against it.
Telling a group of seven year olds that he’d fire someone if things don’t go his way, a great lesson for young kids we’re sure you’ll agree.