He didn't solve a massive economic crisis — like Obama or FDR — he was actually the beneficiary of Obama's growing economy then he created a crisis of his own with the Pandemic taking unemployment up to 14.7% in April of 2020.
Trump constantly claims that he had the “lowest African-American unemployment rate” and that was when it reached 5.4% in August of 2019, it then went back up to 6% just before the Covid recession. As of April 2023, the African-American unemployment rate was 4.7% which is even lower than Trump’s best rate. Trump’s best unemployment rate for Latinos was 4.0% in September 2019, while the lowest rate for Latinos since then has been 3.9% in September 2022. The latest numbers as of August 2023 are 5.3% for African Americans and 4.9% for Latinos.
Trump promised that he would “balance the budget” but he failed to handle the federal budget well at all. On his watch, after Obama had brought the deficit down by $900 Billion, Trump put in a massive tax cut for corporations and the rich which increased it by another $600 Billon, then when the pandemic hit it increased by yet another $2.1 Trillion on top of that leaving it more than twice as high as during the Great Recession of 2008. In Biden’s first year it dropped by about $380 Billion and this year it should go down another $1.7 Trillion.
Rather than having a “Great Economy” Trump never had GDP rate above 2.9% while the GDP rate during Biden’s first year vaulted to over 5.6%. The one-year change for GDP between 2020 — which had descended to -3.5% was a 9.08% increase.
Trump had claimed that his $2 Trillion tax cut for the rich would increase GDP to an average of 6%. He was wrong.
NEW YORK—Donald Trump boasted Monday that his newly unveiled tax plan could supercharge the U.S. economy, pushing annual economic growth as high as 6%, as he upped the ante with Republican presidential rivals over the growth benefits from their competing proposals.
Asked about the economic growth he expected his plan to generate, Mr. Trump responded: "We are looking at a 3% but we think it could be 5 [percent] or even 6 [percent]. We are going to have growth that will be tremendous."
Other Republicans running for president—including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie—predict their tax proposals and related regulatory rollbacks could generate 4% in annual economic growth.
Trump’s average GDP for his entire term was only 1.7%, which was the weakest period of growth since Herbert Hoover. Obama’s average GDP was 2.3% while Biden’s average GDP — so far — has been over 4%. Trump didn't produce 5-6% GDP, but - again - during his first year Biden produced a GDP of 5.6% while implementing bills that raised taxes on the richest Americans.
He failed at implementing testing to prevent the Pandemic from spreading in order to screw over "Democrat" States.
Trusting his vaunted political instincts, President Trump had been downplaying concerns about the virus and spreading misinformation about it—efforts that were soon amplified by Republican elected officials and right-wing media figures. Worried about the stock market and his reelection prospects, Trump also feared that more testing would only lead to higher case counts and more bad publicity. Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, was reportedly sharing models with senior staff that optimistically—and erroneously, it would turn out—predicted the virus would soon fade away.
Against that background, the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the White House’s official coronavirus task force.
Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.
That logic may have swayed Kushner. “It was very clear that Jared was ultimately the decision maker as to what [plan] was going to come out,” the expert said.
This decision alone cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
And yes, I can hear you now shouting — or maybe mumbling under your breath — “But Trump created the Covid vaccine with Operation: Warp Speed.” Yeah, ok, sure — but the first company to actually deliver a vaccine, Pfizer, didn’t receive any Warp Speed funding. Pfizer’s funding came from Germany. He created this plan to accelerate vaccine production and his little race was won by a company that wasn't part of his plan. Awesome.
It’s said that success has many authors, and the encouraging data from Pfizer Inc.’s experimental Covid-19 vaccine had plenty of people in Washington lining up to take credit.
Vice President Mike Pence was among Trump administration officials saying support from the government’s Operation Warp Speed program helped accelerate the development of the vaccine, which was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing symptomatic Covid-19 infections in an interim analysis.
The truth is that Pfizer didn’t receive any funding from Operation Warp Speed for the development, clinical trial and manufacturing of the vaccine. Rather, its partner, BioNTech SE, has received money -- from the German government.
Getting the vaccine out fast was a great accomplishment, it just wasn't something that Trump actually did. Pfizer did it all on their own. They did get some Warp Speed funds, later — but the ramp-up was all on them. Also, when Trump left office — he didn’t provide any plan for vaccine distribution.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There was no distribution plan for the coronavirus vaccine set up by the Trump administration as the virus raged in its last months in office, new President Joe Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, said on Sunday.
“The process to distribute the vaccine, particularly outside of nursing homes and hospitals out into the community as a whole, did not really exist when we came into the White House,” Klain said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Having a vaccine without any plan to distribute it — is not really having a vaccine available to the people, where it was needed.
Trump and his people tried to falsify a Homeland Security report which stated that violence from White Supremacy was growing, and instead downplayed Russian election interference and falsely claimed that Antifa and terrorists crossing the border were becoming more dangerous.
A written complaint by Brian Murphy, who was a top Department of Homeland Security intelligence analyst, accuses top DHS officials of blocking analysis of Russian election interference, watering down intelligence reports about corruption and violence fueling a refugee flow from Central America, and "modify(ing) assessments to ensure they matched up with the public comments by President Trump on the subject of ANTIFA and 'anarchist' groups."
The complaint also says DHS gave false information to Congress last year about the numbers of suspected terrorists crossing the southern border. That allegation mirrors the findings of an NBC News report in January 2019, which determined that the Trump administration was misrepresenting the data on suspected terrorists crossing the southern border, claiming thousands when in fact there were almost none.
Continued.
Among the most serious allegations are that acting Secretary Chad Wolf earlier this year instructed Murphy “to cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference in the United States, and instead start reporting on interference activities by China and Iran.” [...] The complaint accused Cuccinelli specifically of instructing Murphy to modify an assessment on White supremacy in order make “the threat appear less severe, as well as include information on the prominence of violent ‘left-wing’ groups.”
Trump didn't really secure the border, migrants kept coming in. Lots of them.
Single Adult Encounters by Sector |
Sector |
FY19 |
FY20 |
% Change FY19 to FY20 |
Big Bend |
5,927 |
7,720 |
30% |
Del Rio |
20,813 |
30,440 |
46% |
El Centro |
24,577 |
24,828 |
1% |
El Paso |
33,075 |
39,006 |
18% |
Laredo |
34,688 |
46,893 |
35% |
Rio Grande |
92,981 |
68,282 |
-27% |
San Diego |
38,540 |
46,422 |
20% |
Tucson |
42,186 |
49,096 |
16% |
Yuma |
9,019 |
5,177 |
-43% |
USBP Southwest Border Total |
301,806 |
317,864 |
5% |
Single Adult Encounters by Country |
Country |
FY16 |
FY17 |
FY18 |
FY19 |
FY20 |
El Salvador |
27,222 |
16,495 |
12,751 |
20,893 |
9,960 |
Guatemala |
32,621 |
26,387 |
42,994 |
48,606 |
27,948 |
Honduras |
22,258 |
17,110 |
26,161 |
44,981 |
25,152 |
Mexico |
175,353 |
116,790 |
139,860 |
149,967 |
228,842 |
Now, under Title 8 and Title 42 many of these people were expelled from the country — just as they are now by the Biden administration — but it’s not like they weren’t showing up at the border. They were. He didn't build his fence, he just replaced some of the old fence using money he stole from the vets, then it blew over in a stiff breeze and can now be cut through with tools from Walmart.
Purely out of spite and vindictiveness he viciously and illegally separated 5,000 migrant children from their parents and didn't bother to keep track of whose kids came from which adult - then he deported the adults, so for hundreds of them that separation is now permanent. Many of the people he tried to keep out with Title 42 are the ones trying to get back into the country now at the border are vastly increasing the arrest figures.
The United States has long guaranteed the right to seek asylum to individuals who arrive at our southern border and ask for protection. But since March 20, 2020, that fundamental right has been largely suspended. Beginning on that date, both migrants seeking a better life in the United States and those wanting to apply for asylum have been turned away and “expelled” back to Mexico or their home countries. These border expulsions are carried out under a little-known provision of U.S. health law—section 265 of Title 42—which the former Trump administration invoked to achieve its long-desired goal of shutting the border to asylum seekers. Over 1.8 million expulsions under Title 42 have been carried out since the pandemic began. However, nearly half of those expulsions were of the same people being apprehended and expelled back to Mexico multiple times. This is because Title 42 has led to a significant increase in repeat crossings at the border. Half of all single adults from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador who have been expelled to Mexico under Title 42 have been apprehended crossing the border again. As a result, Title 42 has significantly increased overall border crossings. In fact, 1 in 3 apprehensions since Title 42 expulsions began have been of a person on at least their second attempt to cross the border.
Trump claimed he would bring back lost jobs from overseas but his attempts to use tariffs to punish China backfired and he lost another 250,000 jobs.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war with China has caused a peak loss of 245,000 U.S. jobs, but a gradual scaling back of tariffs on both sides would boost growth and lead to an additional 145,000 jobs by 2025, a study commissioned by the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC) shows..
He didn’t get a Foxxconn plant built in Wisconsin — even without the “suicide nets” for the workers. And Harley Davidson is still moving their production overseas.
He didn't get a nuclear nonproliferation deal with North Korea — obviously, even though he now has some nice “Love Letters” — and he also ruined the deal we already had in place with Iran, then he sanctioned their oil production which lowered the global supply.
He pulled us out of the Paris Climate Accords which set us back years while the world grows closer to the net 2.0° celsius threshold.
A 1.5°C increase will have a substantial impact on the climate. If we let that rise hit 2°C, the impact will be much greater, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Droughts are already devastating large parts of the world, but if we allow for a 2°C increase, close to three times as many people would be regularly exposed to extreme heat than in a 1.5°C scenario.
At 2°C, the projected rise in sea levels by 2100 increases by 0.06 meters over and above a 1.5°C rise. We would also lose twice as many plants and vertebrate species and three times as many insects.
He repeatedly undermined NATO and would have likely pulled us out of the organization, which would have been an amazing boon to Russia and Putin’s “Make the Soviet Union Great Again” project.
WASHINGTON — There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years.
Last year, President Trump suggested a move tantamount to destroying NATO: the withdrawal of the United States.
Senior administration officials told The New York Times that several times over the course of 2018, Mr. Trump privately said he wanted to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Current and former officials who support the alliance said they feared Mr. Trump could return to his threat as allied military spending continued to lag behind the goals the president had set.
If we’re not part of NATO we have no reason to protect NATO countries — or those countries bordering NATO such as Ukraine. Putin would just love that.