President Donald Trump’s first two years in office have been nothing short of a failure, according to a new report card compiled by the Bloomberg editorial staff this week.
Earlier this week, Trump bragged that he has accomplished more than any other president in the history of the United States in a widely mocked and fact-checked Twitter post.
After all that I have done for the Military, our great Veterans, Judges (99), Justices (2), Tax & Regulation Cuts, the Economy, Energy, Trade & MUCH MORE, does anybody really think I won’t build the WALL? Done more in first two years than any President! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 28, 2019
But the fact is that Trump is all talk and the statistics just don’t back up his claims.
Bloomberg assembled their editorial staff this week to put together a report on Trump’s first two years in office, and found that Trump really is all talk and no walk in several areas.
The report began with Trump’s dismal approval ratings, which are among the worst ever.
Trump’s first year was a public opinion disaster — he was almost always the lowest-ranked president, sometimes even moving up a bit higher as we reached a point in their presidencies where one of his predecessors had slumped. His second year was better. He rallied into the low 40s for most of the year, sometimes even moving up a bit higher as we reached a point in their presidencies where one of Trump’s predecessors had slumped.
However, the shutdown and other bad news ends Trump’s second year back at or below 40 percent. And his disapproval ratings, which has been the worst of any president all along except for a single day, has moved back over 55 percent.
Trump received a generous C- from Bloomberg on the stock market, which declined 5.6 percent because of his trade wars and tax cuts for the wealthy, marking its worst performance since the Great Recession in 2008, not to mention the worst December since the Great Depression.
Speaking of Trump’s tax cuts, they also caused record deficits and a first for Trump.
“Trump has the dubious distinction of being the first leader among the Group of Seven (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, U.K., U.S.) to see the deficit widen on his watch as a percentage of gross domestic product during a synchronized global expansion,” Bloomberg wrote, going on to warn that Trump faces becoming “the first president to preside over perennial deficits exceeding $1 trillion.”
In addition, the trade deficit also rose despite Trump’s tariffs against China, Mexico, Canada, and the European Union, reaching a ten-year high. In short, Trump’s trade wars backfired and have hurt many American businesses, including Harley-Davidson, which posted zero profits in the fourth quarter of 2018.
Despite some manufacturing jobs growth, Trump has still not delivered on promises made to states that flipped red for him in 2016.
Trump promised an economic turnaround in the four Rust Belt states that flipped red in 2016 — Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It hasn’t materialized. The unemployment rate in all four states was already low; it has since fallen somewhat, just as it has for the country as a whole. Yet there are still no signs of a pickup in the labor force, with the combined labor force in all four states only up slightly over the past two years.
In fact, Trump-supporting business owners in Michigan are considering moving production overseas because of Trump’s tariffs and Wisconsin is watching Trump’s Foxconn deal go up in smoke, making it likely that these states will flip blue in 2020.
Bloomberg admits that wages rose modestly since Trump took office, but it’s likely part of the continuation of former President Obama’s economic recovery, and it won’t last long since “Trump has ramped up his trade wars and forced a lengthy government shutdown — delaying paychecks — while the corporate bond market has begun to look shaky. So even those modest gains may now be in danger.”
The Bloomberg report card also undermines Trump’s claim that there’s an immigrant invasion at the southern border, pointing out that the number of border crossings are at historic lows and that “the era of mass illegal immigration across the southern border appears to be over.”
And this doesn’t even count Trump multiple foreign policy blunders that put our national security at risk such as his withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal that may force the Iranians to pursue a nuclear bomb, his refusal to do anything to stop Russian cyber attacks against our country, his refusal to admit that ISIS has not been defeated in Syria, and his pretending that North Korea is denuclearizing. Trump’s own intelligence chiefs contradicted him on all of these issues.
Clearly, Trump’s presidency is not the best in history as he would have us all believe. He’s either delusional or a liar. Or both. But it doesn’t really matter which it is, the bottom line is that Trump’s presidency is a failure, and no Twitter tantrum will change that.
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