Former President Donald Trump's hair doesn't maintain one uniform color, as fans of the politician have recently observed that it changes now and then.

A source claimed that the hair color issue is because the business mogul is always impatient with his stylist and never gives them enough time to dye his hair correctly.

Donald Trump's Hair Color Changes Based On His Mood

According to Page Six, Trump followers observed during his appearance in a Manhattan federal court last week that his hair color seemed to exhibit different shades, skewing more towards light orange.

Reports say his impatience is to blame for this phenomenon, as he does not give his stylist enough time to work on his hair.

"The hairdressers get mad at him, but can't show it, as Trump can't sit still as he needs to sit still for at least 30 minutes for [his hair color] to take," a source told the news outlet. "Trump's hair color can vary wildly from dark blonde to light — to bright orange, depending on how long his hairdresser can get him to sit still and let the color do its job."

The stylist source continued, "Friends say he's so impatient that he rarely gives the stylist the 30 to 45 minutes... they need to keep his color consistent. The shorter time he gives them, the more orange his hair gets, as it takes time to get the darker blonde locks he associates with his younger years."

Trump reportedly "hates sitting with the dye on his hair, and is always rushing the hairdresser, thus, his color can change every few weeks. And it gets lighter every time he washes it."

Donald Trump Was Slammed With Huge Fine For Defamation

 

Trump was recently slammed with a stunning $83.3 million fine for defaming former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll when he denied her sexual assault allegations in 2019.

At the time, Trump denied the allegations, claiming that "people should pay dearly for such false accusations," and that was what Carroll's lawyer asked the anonymous nine-person jury to effect.

Following several days of arguments and testimonies, the jury decided Trump was to pay Carroll $18.3 million in compensatory damages and $65 million in punitive damages.

It comes after he was found guilty last May of sexually assaulting her, after which he denied it and defamed her, calling her accusations a "con job."

Carroll first went public with the allegations in 2019 when she claimed Trump raped her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s.

Donald Trump Calls Verdict A 'Biden Directed Witch Hunt'

The billionaire mogul notably walked out of the court before the verdict was read but took to social media to share his reaction to the verdict, describing it as a "Biden-directed witch hunt."

"Absolutely ridiculous! I fully disagree with both verdicts and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party," he wrote on his app Truth Social. "Our Legal System is out of control and being used as a Political Weapon."

In a statement after that, Carroll said the verdict was "a great victory for every woman who stands up when she's been knocked down and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to keep a woman down."

Donald Trump Is Convinced He'll Win At The Polls

Despite his persisting legal battles, a source shared that Trump is confident his legal woes wouldn't hamper his chances of being reelected into the Oval Office.

"Trump's on top of the world right now. Everyone [at his private club, Mar-a-Lago] is already treating him like he's the president in Florida," the source told Page Six.

They added, "He's totally convinced he's on the path to winning the presidency again. He's very upbeat. He's elated… he's already predicting a landslide in the entire country to aides and friends."

Trump's wife, Melania, is expected to make several public outings in the coming days to support her husband's reelection bid.

A source noted that she wants to make a "meaningful appearance" and not "routine campaign stops" as his son, Eric, and Don Jr. do. On the other hand, his daughter Ivanka will likely not be making any appearances for him, as she has since stepped back from politics to focus on her business and family.

Donald Trump wants to impose a 10% tariff. Here's what happened when Nixon tried the same thing.

It was Aug. 15, 1971, and then-President Richard Nixon delivered an address to the nation to lay out a new economic approach for a country beset by economic worries and challenges to the US dollar.

A key prong of his plan was an "import surcharge" — in effect a new tariff — of 10% across America's trading relationships to prop up US business in the face of what Nixon called unfair exchange rates.

"This import tax is a temporary action, it isn't directed against any other country," Nixon said. "When the unfair treatment is ended, the import tax will end as well."

The measure was implemented by executive order but was gone by the end of that year. The episode is instructive as former President Donald Trump campaigns around a strikingly similar idea for "universal baseline tariffs" of 10% that would apply to most foreign products coming into the US.

"I love China, I love everybody, but they can't take advantage of us," Trump said at a recent rally in New Hampshire.

The episode is also illustrative of the ties between Trump and Nixon that include a political allegiance that spans their decades of separation on the political stage. The two men socialized at least once and often wrote to each other near the end of Nixon’s life.

As Todd Tucker of the Roosevelt Institute once noted on X: "Love it or hate it, like many Trump ideas, the idea of a 10 percent import surcharge comes from things Nixon actually did."

The import surcharge as a 'negotiating tactic'

The other planks of Nixon's 1971 plan — new limits on the exchange of dollars for gold and a 90-day freeze on wages and prices — became landmarks in financial history.

Nixon's moves on currency eventually ushered in a new era of floating exchange rates and an end of the so-called Bretton Woods international monetary system that had been in place since World War II.

Today, the import surcharge may be less remembered largely because it wasn’t around long enough to have a sizable economic impact. It was also gone after being "bitterly opposed by the United States' trading partners," as the New York Times noted at the time.

But it appears to have served an important role as a negotiating tactic.

Japan was a focus for Nixon at the time as his administration was trying to pressure the nation to negotiate a revaluation of the yen. Germany was also a priority, says Richard Baldwin of the IMD Business School.

"The US was mad at the Germans for keeping the value of the Deutschmark low," he explained in a recent interview.

Nixon's import surcharge forced both the Germans and Japanese to take another look at their currencies. The import surcharge ended in December 1971 as part of the so-called Smithsonian Agreement among G-10 nations that included significant initial currency wins for the Nixon administration.

But Baldwin warns that there may be fewer off-ramps when it comes to Trump’s approach to a 10% tariff this time around, especially with his keen focus on China.

"There's nothing that the Chinese could do that would make us happy with them," he says, noting that the current rivalry is essentially about the financial structures of two superpowers and the question of who will be the world’s economic engine over the coming decades.

Trump is also eyeing much more aggressive measures aimed at China beyond anything on the table for Nixon. The current GOP hopeful has publicly discussed an effort to rapidly decouple with China beginning in 2025 and "phase out all Chinese imports of essential goods." On Saturday, the Washington Post also reported that Trump is privately discussing the possibility of imposing a flat 60% tariff on all Chinese imports.

China has "gained competitiveness and that's what people like Trump are all upset about and there's no cure to that," Baldwin notes.

As he crisscrosses the country for his current run, Trump often promises he can "get things solved" with China but offers little detail on what that would look like and how long a tariff, which could extract significant economic consequences if left in place for an extended period, might be needed.

Instead the candidate whose historic wins this month in Iowa and New Hampshire appear to put him on the path to a third consecutive GOP nomination talks about his tariffs as ones that could be in place for the long term.

He has likened them to "a ring around the collar" of the US, adding a claim that they would be a bonanza for the US Treasury as businesses are hit with the new duties. The Tax Foundation recently pegged the proceeds of the 10% tariffs at $300 billion a year.

A populist tactic

The 1971 episode with Nixon is also evidence of the power of the idea of a tariff to sway public opinion.

Future Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker — who in 1971 was the Treasury undersecretary for monetary affairs — later recalled that the surcharge was thought of as two pronged: "both an essential negotiating tactic and a way to attract public support."

The import surcharge push from Nixon was also seen as a way to head off more protectionist impulses that were percolating at the time on Capitol Hill.

Tucker of the Roosevelt Institute also noted the importance of the surcharge as a PR tool, writing in a 2009 book with Lori Wallach that the surcharge did almost nothing to change the US trading balance. "However," he wrote, "the underlying political goal had been accomplished: Nixon had established his populist credentials" and boosted his poll numbers.

This time around, Trump is the one pushing the conversation in a more protectionist direction over many in his own party who might be wary of another round of global tensions.

Trump often touts his tariff plan as evidence of how he is the candidate looking to protect Americans even as economic studies of the trade wars he undertook during his term in office suggest mixed results. His tariffs did indeed protect some US jobs but at the cost of higher prices for everyone, according to some of the results.

Nevertheless, as Trump declared at a recent rally, "We will impose stiff penalties."

‘SNL’ Weekend Update Roasts Donald Trump After Defamation Trial Verdict & “De-Bank” Fumble.

Colin Jost and Michael Che had a field day roasting Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” segment.

The topic at the top of the show was news that Trump was ordered to pay $83 million to E. Jean Carroll in the defamation trial.

“Trump is a billionaire, so obviously, he immediately hit up your grandma for five bucks,” Jost joked, referring to Trump hitting up his followers to donate to his presidential campaign.

Jost continued saying that the jury ordered Trump to pay that much because “that’s how unlikeable he is,” adding, “For perspective, OJ Simpson only had to pay $33 million for double murder.”

“He didn’t even do it,” Che chimed in, making Jost laugh.

Jost even took a jab at Trump’s courtroom sketch that was released, saying that they “made him look like that lady who got her face ripped off by a monkey.”

“The only way this could’ve gone worse for Trump is if they took away his businesses,” Jost added. “Which is, of course, what happens in next week’s trial,” Jost quipped while showcasing the news headline, “Trump New York Civil Trial To Resume; Attorney Seeks 370 Million.”

Trump’s Republican presidential rival, Nikki Haley, has questioned his mental competency, calling for him to take a test. Jost then presented a clip of Trump making noises, saying, “See, he’s fine. Hasn’t lost a step.”

Jost reminded viewers of a stumble Trump had this past week when he used the word “de-bank.”

“They want to de-bank you and we’re going to de-bank,” Trump said.

Jost added, “I don’t know what the hell de-bank means but he might have to take de-ambulance to see de-doctor.”

Watch the segment above, and more of Weekend Update below.

 

Fact Check: Rumors Have Swirled For Years That Trump Once Said Republicans Are the 'Dumbest Group of Voters.' Here Are the Facts.

Claim:

In 1998, Donald Trump said he would run as a Republican in a presidential campaign because they are the "dumbest group of voters."

Rating:

For years, claims have spread that former U.S. President Donald Trump told People magazine in 1998 that Republicans are “the dumbest group of voters in the country.”

The alleged quote began to spread again in January 2024 around the same time reputable news publications like Axios reported Trump had “cemented” his status as the Republican presidential front-runner.

We found no evidence that Trump said Republicans are “the dumbest group of voters.”

“If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican,” the purported 1998 Trump quote begins. “They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.”

The quote was shared in January 2024 on social media platforms including X (formerly known as Twitter), Facebook and TikTok. We also found the quote shared in previous years, such as on Imgur in 2023 and TikTok in 2020.

We previously wrote about the quote, in 2015 and 2020. People previously confirmed to FactCheck.org that it had no record of having published any such interview or exchange with Trump:

People looked into this exhaustively when it first surfaced back in Oct. [2015]. We combed through every Trump story in our archive. We couldn’t find anything remotely like this quote -- and no interview at all in 1998.

In 1998, People covered Trump mostly for his relationships with his first and second wives, Ivana Trump and Marla Maples. While there is evidence Trump was interested in politics during the late ’90s, nothing we found proved he ever said anything about "dumb Republicans" to any reputable publication.

We’ve continued to cover the former U.S. president during the 2024 GOP presidential primaries, including whether he said fellow Republican contender Nikki Haley was "in charge of security" during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Sources:

Doherty, Erin. “Trump Wins New Hampshire Republican Primary, AP Projects.” Axios, Axios, 23 Jan. 2024, https://www.axios.com/2024/01/24/trump-new-hampshire-primary-win-results-2024-election.

Emery, David. “Did Trump Say Nikki Haley Was ‘in Charge of Security’ on Jan. 6?” Snopes, 20 Jan. 2024, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-nikki-haley-security-january-6/.

Farley, Robert. “Bogus Meme Targets Trump.” FactCheck.Org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 25 Nov. 2015, https://www.factcheck.org/2015/11/bogus-meme-targets-trump/.

Farrell, Mary H.J. “The Trumps Head for Divorce Court.” People, https://people.com/archive/cover-story-the-trumps-head-for-divorce-court-vol-33-no-8/. Accessed 25 Jan. 2024.

LaCapria, Kim. “Did Trump Say Republicans Are the Dumbest Group of Voters?” Snopes, 16 Oct. 2015, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/republicans-dumbest-group-of-voters/.

Schneider, Karen. “The Donald Ducks Out.” People, https://people.com/archive/cover-story-the-donald-ducks-out-vol-47-no-19/. Accessed 25 Jan. 2024.

Staff, Snopes. “Fact Check: Trump Did Not Call Republicans ‘The Dumbest Group of Voters.’” Snopes, 28 May 2020, https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/05/28/trump-republicans-dumbest-group-of-voters/.

Transcript: Donald Trump Announces Plans to Form Presidential Exploratory Committee - October 8, 1999. https://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/10/08/trump.transcript/. Accessed 24 Jan. 2024.