During a Reuters’ interview last week president Trump rounded out the final days of his first 100 since the inauguration with perhaps the understatement of the century, saying, “I thought the job would be easier.” The same man as a candidate said: “We are led by very, very stupid people.” But Trump now admits he had no idea that things like healthcare and the threat of nuclear war were tough. There is a lot of difference between giving a few orders to subordinates whom you can fire and getting 535 people in Congress, each with different needs and priorities, to do what you want.
Especially when you have the lowest popularity of any president in his first 100 Days.
President Trump, who repeatedly criticized President Obama for taking an occasional day off to play golf, at one point spent seven weekends in a row away from the white house playing golf at one of his own resorts.
Trump’s first 100 days.
During the campaign candidate Trump never tired of calling the people in Washington “stupid” and “incompetent.” That’s the same man who thinks rising sea levels and extreme weather are a Chinese hoax and Andrew Jackson was alive during the Civil War.
Calling President Obama himself “stupid and incompetent,” near the start of that speech you’ll hear candidate Trump “guarantee” that if he were elected US prisoners held in Iran would be back home even before he took office.
Bear in mind that he recently admitted the job is much harder than he expected and that he says he never stands behind anything he says.
Candidate Trump also said he would repeal and replace Obamacare on day one but with only 8 years to devise a Republican healthcare plan the Trumpcare health plan seems destined for a second defeat in a month and that’s with the Republicans controlling both the Congress and White House.
What Trump has done is nominate and get confirmed a Supreme Court justice.
President Trump also brags that he has a tax plan and released it the other day. Unfortunately, the Trump tax plan looks more like a memo you could write on a napkin - one and one-half pages to fix a tax code that currently fills between 5,500 and 6,000 pages and includes more than one million words.
Even so, it would cause a massive increase in the deficit and save billionaires like Trump upwards of $10-$20 million in taxes.
Other 100 day promises from October:
Impose term limits on congress - no action at all on that.
A hiring freeze on all Federal employees - yes, but so impractical it had to be rescinded almost immediately. In the Obama administration, Federal employment was already the lowest since the 1960’s.
A five-year ban on Federal employees becoming lobbyists - would require Congressional action and that’s not going to happen because most of them want to become lobbyists.
Impose lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government. Trump's top security advisor in the White house was actually lobbying for Turkey and Russia while working for Trump and is still a registered foreign agent.
Ban foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections - hasn’t happened yet.
All of the above on day one and the same day take 7 actions to protect US workers.
Cancel billions of dollars the US pays the UN for environmental projects (it’s actually $10 million, less than 1% of Trump’s claim) and invest in US infrastructure - zero movement on infrastructure yet. Some Democrats say he is too busy not passing a new healthcare plan.
Lift restrictions on coal and natural gas production - Trump made one minor change but since production is already driving prices to below profitability more production would actually hurt the industry by forcing prices lower.
Stop funding sanctuary cities - Trump blocked by courts.
Stop Muslim immigration - Trump blocked by courts several times.
Propose legislation for affordable childcare and eldercare - Trump has done nothing yet.
Trump did approve the Keystone Pipeline with the provision it uses US pipe - unfortunately, all the steel had already been bought elsewhere.
Reduce crime - difficult since, despite Trump's scary speeches, crime is already at a 40 year low and it’s mostly a local and state job anyway not a job for the President.
Trump wants to let veterans choose their own doctors outside the VA hospital programs -.that’s essentially the Veteran’s Choice program enacted three years ago - it didn’t work.
To round off his first 100 days President Trump gave a speech to his followers which The Washington Post described as “the most hate-filled [speech] in modern history.” Half of his speech was spent portraying migrants and refugees as criminals, infiltrators, and terrorists.”
So most of what Trump promised for the first day and first 100 days didn't get done and although Fox News and Trump's spokespeople now way the 100 day mark is arbitrary and meaningless, the media only concentrates on it because candidate Trump kept saying how much he would get done in the first 100 days.
Most of the rest of the speech was devoted to naming calling against democrats and the media. He failed to mention that his favourite media, Fox News, was in the middle of the biggest sex scandal in modern TV history.
President Trump ended by dedicating the lyrics to a hate-filled song implicitly comparing Mexicans to the snake. The dedication was to a deceased border patrol agent Mr Brown whose daughter says he would have been offended by Trump’s use of the song and that it was actually written as a warning about someone like Trump.
Trump’s budget.
The government won’t shut down because a six months’ budget agreement has been reached in the US Senate.
In the new budget, there is no money for the infamous Mexican wall but there was money for both New York City and parts of Florida which are incurring massive bills for overtime police work because of the amount of time the Trump family is away from Washington.
Just two weeks into his presidency Donald Trump took the weekend off to go to his golf resort in Florida at an estimated additional cost of $3.4 million dollars in Secret Service and local police protection every trip. Just boarding Air Force One (any aeroplane of any nature except helicopters when the president is onboard uses the call sign Air Force One) costs taxpayers $200,000 per hour.
President Trump could easily get away from Washington by taking Marine One (his helicopter) to nearby Camp David at very little increase in cost to the taxpayers - in fact, it might even be cheaper since White House protection can be relaxed a bit and Camp David is already a secure military base.
But Camp David has two major drawbacks.
First, it has no golf course. Second, it isn’t a Trump property and so his visit doesn’t earn him any money. Since he became president and started visiting Mar-a-Lago the cost of membership at that golf resort has doubled. Something he probably knows about despite no longer running his business personally.
