Today Was The Day Donald Trump Finally Became President

Submission 892

Part of a series on Donald Trump. [View Related Entries]

About

Today Was The Day Donald Trump Finally Became President is a copypasta usually ironically posted on Twitter when former President Donald Trump makes a controversial blunder or when something negative happens to him. It has also been used to mock pundits who praise Trump when he appears serious and stately compared to his usual self. The copypasta, popularly repeated by comedian Megan Amram, remained popular through Trump's presidency and his numerous legal troubles post-presidency.

Origin

Following the January 2017 inauguration of Donald Trump, some political pundits wondered if Trump would elevate from his typically erratic temperament into the more stately demeanor usually required from a President.

On February 28th, 2017, Trump addressed a Joint Session of Congress, during which time he honored the widow of a Navy Seal.^[1] In response, CNN pundit Van Jones lauded the gravity with which Trump handled that interaction, saying "He became President of the United States in that moment, period."^[2] The sentiment was widely disagreed with on social media. On April 7th, another CNN pundit, Fareed Zakaria, gave a similar take after Trump bombed Syria.^[3]

The repetition of this take led Twitter users to turn it into a copypasta. On April 17th, Twitter user @HireMeImFunny^[4] sarcastically wrote "Today was the day that Donald Trump became President" after Trump behaved oddly at an Easter event, gaining over 25 retweets and 65 likes in seven years (shown below).

Spread

The person credited with turning the phrase into a meme is Twitter^[5] user and comedian @meganamram, who first tweeted "Today was the day Donald Trump became President" on May 15th, 2017,^[6] gaining over 240 retweets and 1,800 likes (shown below, top). She then tweeted that exact phrase once a day every day for the remainder of Trump's presidency (2019 examples shown below, bottom).

The joke caught on and spread widely on Twitter throughout Trump's presidency and afterward, usually to mock Trump for undignified moments. For example, it was widely tweeted on January 6th, 2021 (example by user @MuskTillDawn^[7] shown below, top). On May 30th, 2024, the day Trump became the first former President convicted of a crime in history, it was widely posted on social media (examples shown below, bottom).