Selina Meyer's Worst Moments As POTUS

Julia Louis-Dreyfus may be pitch perfect every moment she's portraying Vice President-turned-President Selina Meyer on Veep , but Meyer herself isn't quite as good at her job. Don't get me wrong — I love her anyway and believe she may very well be one of the best female characters on TV, but it's gotta be said... Meyer isn't always the best president. For instance: the worst moments from Selina Meyer's presidency on Veep consist of her lying to the American public, extortion, and seriously illegal lobbying... so, you know, her presidency hasn't been flawless. While the show's introduction of increased stakes and its deeply cynical portrayal of D.C. have made this season a series-best, its safe to say that Selina Meyer is no Josiah Bartlet.

Initially after President Hughes stepped down at the end of last season, Meyer's poll numbers were soaring — she was kicking butt and getting votes left and right. Even after a series of relatively minor embarrassments and setbacks in the first few days of her new position (squeaky shoes at her inauguration speech, having to swear in as president twice because it wasn't done correctly the first time), Meyer was still relatively popular with the public for a while. However, this didn't remain the case: After her staff completely messed up her first State of the Union speech, it was all downhill from there. Within weeks, President Meyer was ankle deep dealing with illegal campaigning, controversial changes in her staff, and a new vice president who was trying to distance himself from the administration.

Of course, all of this is what we love about the show, but who knew Meyer's tenure as president would be such a bumpy road? As we all brace for Sunday's season finale, let's look back at this amazing season and remember the worst moments from President Meyer's time in office.

When She And Her Staff Seriously Ruined Her State Of The Union Address

After her staff uploads the wrong draft of her speech to the teleprompter, Meyer is forced to wing it. While she does an admirable job of not losing her cool on television, she ends up promising $10 billion to the military instead of funding a bill that would help poverty-stricken mothers. As Meyer herself put it:

"Whole cities of children were going to be saved from poverty. Instead, that money is going to fund obsolete metal, giant dildos.”

#futurewhatever

When She Outed An HIV-Positive Child In Alabama

While campaigning for her Families First bill, Meyer tells an anecdote about a little girl who contracted HIV from her mother's breast milk. Unfortunately, Reddit figures out who the girl is and publishes her identity — Jennifer Graham — to the web; even worse, it's then revealed that the anecdote came from illegally curated medical records.

When The Jennifer Graham Controversy Turned Out To Be Even Worse Than Previously Imagined

If only the controversy had stopped there... but, of course, it didn't. Upon further investigation, the Meyer staff learns that a recent campaign mailer (ironically named the "I Care" mailer) also used illegal medical records. Only, this time, they used it to target parents who had recently lost a child. While the public doesn't know about the infraction, it's still really bad and really illegal.

When Amy, Her Campaign Manager, Lost Her Mind And Bailed

After committing a federal crime of outstanding illegality, Meyer continues campaigning. Unfortunately, she has a nasty habit of completely ignoring every word that comes out of her campaign manager Amy's mouth. Fed up with the lies and incompetency tainting the administration, Amy quits in a maniacal fit of rage, totally burning Meyer hard in the process:

"You have achieved nothing, apart from one thing: The fact that you are a woman means we will have no more women presidents because we tried one, and she fucking sucked. Good-bye, ma'am."

When They Implicate Their New Vice Presidential Candidate Tom James In Their Crimes

After Meyer's first vice president announces he will not be joining her in her bid for re-election, the Meyer team recruits Senator Tom James, an unbelievably likable and honest politician who immediately does wonders for her campaign. Of course, nothing attached to her administration remains pure forever, and within months he becomes just as responsible for the data breaches as anyone else on the team. When he finds out, he loses it on the team. There goes a united front...

When Her Administration Illegally/Secretly Lobbies Against The Wildly Unpopular Families First Bill

Despite the fact she worked over the course of the past two seasons to get the bill passed, Meyer ended up having to defeat the bill in order to maintain her poll numbers — all without it looking like she fought against the bill. That just to happens to involve using lobbyists and secret deals, both of which are their own type of illegal.

When Her Entire Staff — Present And Past — Got Depositioned

Let's just say, it doesn't go well. In the penultimate episode of this season, many secrets are let of the bag, and everything pretty much turns disastrous. Meyer does political backflips to remain untouched by the controversy, but a congressional committee probes so deeply into the web of deceit and crimes that it looks like no one is safe. By the end of the deposition, they've all managed to scapegoat Team-Meyer political strategist Bill Erickson — but we have yet to find out if the scapegoating was enough to fool the American public to vote her back into office.

'Till Sunday's season finale...

Images: HBO, Giphy (6)