7 controversial Donald Trump moments this year

Ever since his inauguration on January 20, President Trump has been spinning from controversy to controversy, unable to stop himself from being a laughingstock to the world for most of it.

Here are seven controversies Trump has entertained the world with (and sometimes filled it with dread):

1. 3 million illegal voters claim

Even though Trump won the 2016 election and became the US president as a result, he had less popular votes than his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Despite scoring 62,984,825 votes, almost 3 million less than Clinton's 65,853,516, Trump won the election through the electoral college system.

Rather than take his victory and run with it, Trump wasn't content with not a victory that wasn't flawless.

To explain the reason for his popular votes loss to Clinton, the president started peddling claims that more than three million people had illegally voted for his closest challenger.

Despite the dismissal of the claim by electoral experts, Trump spent a good chunk of his first month in office repeating the claim on his Twitter account and during his public rallies.

2. Obama wire "tapp"

Before his inauguration as president and after he was sworn in, Trump's Twitter account has been a platform for most of his wildest controversial moments.

In a series of tweets early in March, the president accused his predecessor, Barack Obama, of illegally wiretapping Trump Tower ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Despite the Senate Intelligence Committee, House Intelligence Committee, and then-FBI director James Comey discrediting the claim, President Trump never apologised for his comments.

3. Comey firing

Since before his January inauguration, Trump has been bedevilled with allegations of collusion with the Russian government of Vladimir Putin to win the election.

At the helm of the investigation into those allegations was the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under the leadership of James Comey.

When Trump suddenly fired Comey in May, it kicked up a furore because it was considered to be a deliberate act by the president to slow down or kill the investigation and obstruct justice in the process

Even though Trump initially claimed that the firing was as a result of a recommendation by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, he later admitted that he had already decided to fire Comey because of his handling of the Russia investigations.

The heat on Trump intensified after Comey revealed that the president had asked him to "let go" of potential charges against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn who is a key player in the Russia investigations.

4. Muslim Travel Ban

President Trump undoubtedly rode to the White House partly on a wave of his very public anti-immigration stance.

Mexicans and other immigrants were frequent targets of his outrageous remarks during the campaign for the seat.

This is why it didn't come as a shock when the president signed an executive order in January immediately barring entry into the US for the citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

An emergency injunction against the ban by a federal judge in New York set into motion months of amendments and further injunctions against the ban.

Even though a third amendment of the bill was recently passed by the US Supreme Court, scenes of protesters at airports across the country in January remain one of the high points of 2017.

5. Shutting down DACA

In what was considered to be a continuation of his aggressive anti-immigrant stance and contempt for Obama-era policies, Trump stirred, even more, controversy when he put an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in September.

The policy shielded nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants who entered the country as minors, and had either entered or remained in the country illegally, to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and to be eligible for a work permit.

Even though the full implementation of the rescission was delayed till March 2018 to give Congress time to negotiate a policy solution, over a hundred recipients lose their status each day and can no longer legally work in the U.S.

Democrats and some Republicans, including Senator John McCain and Senator Jeff Flake, criticised the decision and hundreds of recipients marched in protest.

6. Rocket Man

Donald Trump is no stranger to addressing people he considers his political rivals by nicknames that he somewhat coins for them.

With gems like Lying Ted (Ted Cruz), Pocahontas (Elizabeth Warren), Crazy Bernie (Bernie Sanders), Al Frankenstien (Al Franken), Little Marco (Marco Rubio), Cryin' Chuck (Chuck Schumer) and, of course, Crooked Hillary (Hillary Clinton), Trump has never been shy to tag others with ridiculous names.

However, when the US President got on the podium to address world leaders at the 2017 United Nations General Assembly, he still managed to shock many people.

While speaking about the ongoing nuclear standoff with North Korean President Kim Jong Un, Trump referred to his adversary as "Rocket Man" in what was considered a provocative act by the often unhinged leader of the free world.

He never shied away from it and has been using the nickname ever since in what the White House has described as a "President Trump original".

7. Jerusalem decision

With the disputed status of Jerusalem between Israelis and Palestinians having spanned over decades, the United States had positioned itself as the primary mediator between both parties.

By moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognising it as the Israeli capital in December, Trump appears to have broken with that traditional neutrality and showed support for Israel's position.

Trump's decision has been cited by many as a dangerous move that'll lead to violence in the Arab world or an end to the peace process.

The decision triggered a wave of protests that led to the death of two Palestinians near the Gaza border after they were shot by Israeli soldiers.