The Donald Trump Score Card

When Trump ran in 2016, he said he would reduce the national debt to zero within eight years.

Now he doesn't talk about it.

 

Typical Trump holiday message.


Trump fires off Memorial Day message targeting 'SCUM' who sought to 'DESTROY' the US

 

Federal judges considering forming their own armed security force to protect themselves from Trump as DOJ has vowed loyalty to Trump.


US federal judges consider creating own armed security force as threats mount

excerpt:

"Federal judges are discussing a proposal that would shift the armed security personnel responsible for their safety away from the Department of Justice (DoJ) and under their own control, as fears mount that the Trump administration is failing to protect them from a rising tide of hostility."

 

Private industry in DC area being hit by Trump's cuts.


https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/25/trump-government-consulting-contracts-cuts-00362158

excerpt:

“Everybody’s so desperate for work now,” said a former staffer at a major consulting firm GSA targeted. “So they’re going and they’re basically lowball[ing] their price. … And as long as it’s not ungodly low, they’ll win on price.”

It’s left the contractors in a precarious position: Do they put forward the cheapest bids to secure a deal, unsure if the money they are asking for is enough to fulfill the work, or forgo a contract entirely?

“We’re heading toward an unhealthy dynamic. Would you use low price to choose your heart surgeon?” said Soloway, the former Pentagon procurement official, who now runs Celero Strategies, a federal market consulting firm. “The end result is it ends up costing the taxpayer more. You get a lot less for your money.”

 

Republicans Pass Strictest Medicaid Work Requirement They’ve Ever Put Forward

excerpt:

“The idea they’re going to be able to stand up these fairly complicated systems to implement a work requirement seems unlikely, unless they do it in ways that just basically put all of the burdens on individuals,” said Pamela Herd, a professor of social policy at the University of Michigan, who has co-written a book about how administrative burdens affect participation in government programs. “If they implement it poorly, they’re just going to end up kicking tons of people off the program.”

 

Republicans Pass Strictest Medicaid Work Requirement They’ve Ever Put Forward

excerpt:

Those who support Medicaid work requirements say the policy is about more than money. Some, like House Speaker Mike Johnson, say the requirement will encourage more poor Americans to contribute to society.

“You return the dignity of work to young men who need to be out working instead of playing video games all day,” he told reporters last month. The budget office, however, has said that these policies do not increase employment.

 

Johnson hasn't offered any evidence that millions of young men are at home all day playing video games and living off of Medicaid.


What does the House-passed budget resolution mean?

excerpt:

"Medicaid’s importance in U.S. health care is often underappreciated. In an average month, Medicaid benefits are received by more than 80 million people—including low-income aged, blind, and disabled people (with Medicaid covering almost half of nursing home bills in the country), low-income children (for whom evidence shows that receiving Medicaid benefits boosts their future earnings), and low-income adults.

Medicaid spending could be trimmed by reducing so-called “improper payments,” some of which represent fraud or abuse, but others of which are paperwork errors on payments that are otherwise appropriate; the biggest challenge is that the program is administered in a distributed way by state governments. Medicaid spending also could be trimmed by adding work requirements, but because many beneficiaries are aged, young, or already working, such savings are limited—and some eligible beneficiaries would end up losing benefits due to the complexity of demonstrating compliance with the requirements. The $880 billion target for the committee equals about 10% of projected Medicaid spending for the next decade, and achieving such large savings would require shifting costs to states, reducing access to care, or both."

 

After Trump was duped by Putin for years, people are still writing opinion pieces claiming Trump was right about Putin and Ukraine all along and people didn't listen to him.


Opinion - How many more useless deaths before we admit Trump was always right on Ukraine?

 

Trump starting to admit he was wrong about Putin.

Trump says he's not happy with Putin.


Trump says he's 'not happy' with Putin after massive Ukraine strike

excerpt:

"I'm not happy with what Putin is doing," Trump explained. "He's killing a lot of people, and I don't know what the hell happened to Putin."

"I've known him a long time, always gotten along with him, but he's sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don't like it at all," he added.

 

Sen. Ron Johnson says there's enough opposition in the Senate to hold up Trump's 'big, beautiful' bill

excerpt:

The Wisconsin Republican has criticized the bill’s impact on the deficit, characterizing outsize spending as “mortgaging our children’s future.” The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the bill would add $2.3 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years.

 

The 30-year Treasury yield above 5% signals that investors see the U.S. as riskier proposition

excerpt:

And right now, Jones said investors see the U.S. as an increasingly risky bet in the long-term.

“So anybody who's willing to buy, they want to get more yield to compensate them for the added risk,” said Jones.

“The reason is a lack of confidence in the U.S.,” said Campbell Harvey, a professor of finance at Duke University.

The downgrade of the country’s credit rating by Moody’s last week hurt that confidence. So has all the uncertainty with President Donald Trump’s trade policy. And then there’s the ballooning federal debt.

 

The 30-year Treasury yield above 5% signals that investors see the U.S. as riskier proposition

excerpt:

"Already, the U.S. has more than $36 trillion in debt. Add to that the tax and spending bill passed along party lines by the GOP House, and “it looks like the deficit will go up even more, leading to even higher debt,” said Harvey.

Which would mean the federal government needs to woo even more investors to buy even more Treasury bonds."

 

Trump wants the power of the purse of Congress and wants to be his own judicial system.

He wants to be a monarch.

 

Republicans who believe Trump is going too far is in the 20% range.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...chunk-republicans-say-trump-is-going-too-far/

excerpt:

"From there, the question is what, specifically, Trump is doing in his second term that is “going too far,” even for those on his side.

Among the most significant ones in the Post-ABC-Ipsos poll: closing federal agencies (23 percent of Republican-leaning voters say he’s going too far), taking actions against his political opponents (22 percent), laying off government workers (22 percent) and deporting undocumented immigrants (15 percent)."

 

Opinion | Republicans’ big bill scared bond markets. That’s bad news for your wallet.

excerpt:

"Where does the Treasury get this money? It borrows it in the bond market, meaning it sells IOUs to creditors who lend money to U.S. government. They don’t do this because they’re patriots who want to make sure the government can meet its obligations. They do it for a) the yield on the loan, i.e., the interest rate that the bond pays out, and b) the safety of investing in U.S. Treasurys. Such investments have historically been the least risky investments you could make. The U.S. government has always been safely counted on to pay its debts. Default risk has been zero."

 

Trump wants low interest rates and low inflation, yet he wants to be carefree and sign budgets that promote runaway debt which works counter to low interest rates and inflation.

He's also promoting stagnation of the economy with his trade wars and his mindless disruption of the federal government (with the help of Musk) which reduces confidence in the bond market, which tends to increase interest rates to attract more lenders, which means higher interest payments on the national debt, which further reduces confidence in the bond market. Investors want to see a economy that is expected to grow, not shrink. The U.S. economy shrank in the first quarter of 2025, partly due to people rushing to buy foreign made goods to try to mitigate the effect of Trump's tariffs.

Trump doesn't understand it. He thinks he can make the economy rosy by threatening and name-calling people, such the chairman of the federal reserve, and coercing countries with tariffs.

 

Trump doesn't understand the national debt. During his first term he suggested that the U.S. negotiate and not pay back some of its debt. That's money people in the U.S. and elsewhere invested in the government. Who would want to invest further in the U.S. with Trump making statements that they won't get their interest and also won't even get back part of the principle they invested. It was a jackass statement by Trump.

He's used to not paying back his loans to banks and thinks that the federal government should use the same approach. This is the problem with a real estate person like Trump (who doesn't pay back his loans) trying to run the government. His supporters initially said that his real estate experience was an asset that supposedly would give him the expertise to run the government better, like a business.

It's obvious how he is using his real estate experience to enrich himself by mixing it with international politics and the power of the White House, particularly his recent visits to the three wealthiest countries in the Mideast to start luxury Trump golf resorts. He's gone as far as saying he wants to deport all of the Palestianians out of Gaza and turn it into another Trump resort.

 

Kremlin calls Trump 'emotional' after US president says Putin is 'crazy'

excerpt:

The Kremlin claimed Donald Trump was showing signs of "emotional overload" after he called Vladimir Putin "absolutely crazy" following Moscow's largest aerial assault on Ukraine.

 

The Kremlin should have told Trump that he's afflicted with Putin Derangement Syndrome.

In other words, Trump is just overreacting to Putin's violence on Ukraine.

 

Trump wishes a happy Memorial Day to the 'scum trying to destroy our country.'


https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5318571-trump-memorial-day-message-biden-administration/