The Donald Trump Score Card

Opinion | The one piece of good news Trump won’t claim credit for

excerpt:

"Now that Donald Trump is about to become president again, there’s plenty of good news for which he can take undeserved credit. Unemployment is low, inflation is down, gas is cheap and getting cheaper, the stock market is booming, and before long Trump will say it was all his doing. But there’s one positive development that he is unlikely to claim responsibility for or even admit is happening: Crime, especially homicide, is down dramatically from the spike that occurred during the worst of the pandemic in 2020.

The reasons Trump won’t tout declining crime have to do with the way he uses fear and sets Americans from different kinds of places against one another. But while it may be understandable for his critics to throw up their hands in frustration, it would be a shame if they let Trump get away with fooling the public on this score. Trump can be a successful propagandist, mostly because of his audacity and persistence — but not always, and not nearly to the extent he’d like us to believe."

 

Even with all those good numbers, people voted Trump back into office because they think he will lower grocery prices with new tariff wars and mass deportations of low-wage farm workers.

 

Chief Justice Roberts rails against politicians issuing threats of impeachment and other threats to judges in recent years after decisions didn't go their way.


https://www.axios.com/2025/01/01/supreme-court-chief-justice-roberts-year-end-report-2024

excerpt:

"Within the past year we also have seen the need for state and federal bar associations to come to the defense of a federal district judge whose decisions in a high-profile case prompted an elected official to call for her impeachment," he wrote.

 

Musk reportedly staying at a $2,000 per day suite at Mar-a-Lago while he coaches Trump on how to run the country.


Elon Musk camps out in $2,000 suite at Mar-a-Lago while advising Trump: report
By Diana Glebova
Published Dec. 31, 2024, 12:25 p.m. ET

Elon Musk camps out in $2,000 suite at Mar-a-Lago while advising Trump: report

 

Trump blamed McCain for supposedly hurting people's affordable healthcare by not voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) while he never produced a meaningful alternative healthcare plan himself.


https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/20/trump-mccain-funeral-1230483

excerpt:

“He went thumbs down, badly hurting the Republican Party, badly hurting our nation and hurting many sick people who desperately wanted good, affordable health care,” Trump said, adding: “McCain didn’t get the job done for our great vets in the VA.”

 

PM Trudeau has announced his resignation.

His finance minister resigned right after he visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago.


https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/canada-justin-trudeau-resignation-01-06-25/index.html

Canada's finance minister quits over Trump tariff dispute with Trudeau

 

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/20/trump-mccain-funeral-1230483

excerpt:

“I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted – which, as president, I had to approve,” Trump said. “I don’t care about this, but I didn’t get a thank you. That is OK. We sent him on the way, but I wasn’t a fan of John McCain.”

“I have to be honest, I’ve never liked him much,” Trump also said of the former senator in extended vent session that received a cool reception in the room. “Hasn’t been for me.”

 

Trump complains that flags will be half-staff to honor Jimmy Carter on Inauguration Day

excerpt:

"Memorably, Trump has taken issue with flags flying at half-staff to honor a late politician in the past. In 2018, just two days after Sen. John McCain’s death, Trump had the White House flag raised to full-staff, prompting fierce criticism from Republicans, Democrats and veteran groups. Trump, whose relationship with McCain was infamously strained, eventually relented and ordered the flag to be lowered again."

 

Trump complains that flags will be half-staff to honor Jimmy Carter on Inauguration Day

excerpt:

“Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it. Let’s see how it plays out,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Friday, and baselessly accused Democrats of being “giddy” that flags will be at half-staff during his inauguration.

 

Tactics Trump could use to dismantle voting rights.


Fears grow for voting rights as Trump plots to reshape US justice department

 

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/04/poli...on-birthright-citizenship-abortion/index.html

excerpt:

"Still, his allies are considering directing the State Department to deny passports to children with undocumented parents and tighten requirements for tourist visas to crack down on “birth tourism,” sources familiar with the planning told CNN in December. Denying passports to people born in the United States would trigger immediate lawsuits.

Trump last year described long-held protections for people born in the country as being “based on a historical myth, and a willful misinterpretation of the law.”

But legal experts on both ends of the political spectrum believe history would work against Trump."

 

Judge finds Giuliani in contempt.


Judge finds Rudy Giuliani in contempt of court in defamation case

excerpt:

"The defendant has attempted to run the clock by stalling," he said.

"Discovery is not supposed to be a shell game where the hidden ball is moved around and around," he added.

He said he'd rule on "appropriate sanctions" against Giuliani later.

 

Really ? I hate that dude. Yuck.

 

Trump issues ultimatum that hostages be released before he starts his term.


https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveb...ges-have-to-get-out-they-have-to-get-out-now/

 

Trump doesn't have to stop there.

He can issue an ultimatum to Panama, Greenland, and Canada to turn over their land to him by the time he takes office.

 

Donald Trump's tweets predicted bursts of violence during January 6 Capitol riot, study finds

excerpt:

"A recent study published in the Journal of The Royal Society Interface sheds light on the connection between social media activity and the escalation of violence during the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. By analyzing thousands of live video recordings, tweets from former President Donald Trump, #StopTheSteal tweets, and rally speeches, scientists identified a strong statistical relationship between Trump’s online rhetoric and the severity and duration of violent acts during the insurrection. The study illustrates how an authority figure’s online behavior can incite violent actions among followers, demonstrating the real-world consequences of digital communication during a politically charged event."

 

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/04/poli...on-birthright-citizenship-abortion/index.html

excerpt:

"The incoming president has said he intends to use an obscure 1798 law with a sordid backstory to speed deportations and has hinted at the possibility of invoking a separate law with roots in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 to deploy the military on American soil.

Immigration isn’t the only policy in play: Some of his allies, including Vice President-elect JD Vance, have advocated for enforcing an 1873 chastity law that could bar sending abortion drugs through the mail."

 

Trump Sees the U.S. as a ‘Disaster.’ The Numbers Tell a Different Story.

excerpt:

At the same time, with unemployment, crime, border crossings and even inflation already pretty low, it may be difficult for Mr. Trump to improve on them significantly. Mr. Trump obliquely seemed to acknowledge as much when he noted in a post-election interview with Time magazine that he may not be able to live up to his campaign pledge to lower grocery prices. “It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up,” he said. “You know, it’s very hard.”

 

Trump is someone who can take a successful inherited situation that he has convinced the public to be a disaster and turn it into a disaster that he will convince the public to see as a success.

 

The numbers don't agree with Trump's disaster narratives.


Trump Sees the U.S. as a ‘Disaster.’ The Numbers Tell a Different Story.

excerpt:

"For the first time since that transition 24 years ago, there will be no American troops at war overseas on Inauguration Day. New data reported in the past few days indicate that murders are way down, illegal immigration at the southern border has fallen even below where it was when Mr. Trump left office and roaring stock markets finished their best two years in a quarter-century.

Jobs are up, wages are rising and the economy is growing as fast as it did during Mr. Trump’s presidency. Unemployment is as low as it was just before the Covid-19 pandemic and near its historic best. Domestic energy production is higher than it has ever been."