Monthly Archives: February 2020

At the State of the Union, President Donald Trump appeared to refuse Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's outstretched hand prior to his address. Associated Press

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump used his State of the Union address to make the case for his reelection, claiming success in delivering on promises, especially the economy.

"Unlike so many who came before me, I keep my promises," Trump said at an event marked by partisan acrimony.

The tensionsplayed out live on national television, with Trump refusingto shake House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's hand at the start of his address and her dramatically rippinga copy of his speech into pieces when he was done.

Trump delivered his speechthe nightbefore the Senate is expected to acquit himon Democratic-initiated impeachmentcharges of abuse of power and obstructing Congress. But the partisan hostilities also can be linked to significant policy differences on issues such asborder security, immigration and tax cuts.

Heres are someof Trumps key campaign pledges and his record so far in office:

President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.(Photo: OLIVIER DOULIERY, AFP via Getty Images)

Trumps2016 presidential campaign was just a few minutes old when he made a bold promise.

I will build a great, great wall on our southern border and I will have Mexico pay for that wall, Trump vowed after riding down an escalator into the gilded lobby of Trump Tower, where he formally announced what some considered to be a quixotic campaign for president.

To those doubters in the room and around the country, Trump wrapped his campaign promise in a three-word coda: Mark my words.

Perhaps no other issue animated Trumps campaign as much as immigration. From his proposed impenetrable physical wall on the U.S. border with Mexico to the dramatic changes he proposed to the legal immigration system, Trump hammered away at what he described on the campaign trail as one of the greatest challenges facing our country today.

During a major address on immigration in the summer of 2016, Trump laid out 10 policies he promised to pursue, from building the wall and requiring Mexico to pay for it to ending catch and release to blocking funding for so-called sanctuary cities that decline to cooperate with some requests from the Department of Homeland Security.

Trump has cracked down on illegal immigration and curtailed legal immigration as well but on the specific promises he made during his campaign, the administration has a mixed record. Thats partly because the White House has been unable to make deals with Democrats, has pursued its policies unilaterally and has been repeatedly shut down in court.

Hell claim success but from our point of view the goalposts are quite different, said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a Washington-based group that advocates on behalf of immigrants.

Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, gave the president generally high marks for meeting his promises on immigration. A lot of this is effort, he said. If the courts stopped you, thats not necessarily your fault.

Strong winds gusting across Southern California have toppled several panels of a new barrier being installed along the U.S.-Mexico border. (Jan. 30) AP Domestic

The presidents border wall is among the most illustrative examples.

The administration said this month it had built 100 miles of border wall, for instance, but virtually all of that construction has replaced barriers that previously existed during the Obama administration. That is despite a government shutdown in 2018 over wall funding and an emergency declaration that allowed Trump to free up military funding for the wall. Mexico has not paid for the wall and its government has vowed it will not do so.

Still, the president is aggressively campaigning on the wall this year as well, promising to build 450 miles of barrier by the end of 2020.

Ive always thought of it more as a metaphor and rally change than anything close to being an effective immigration strategy, Sharry said.

Building the wall?: Homeland Security chief marks completion of 100 miles of 'new border wall' with plaque

On other immigration fronts, Trump signed an executive order in 2017 to block sanctuary cities and counties from receiving federal funding, but much of that order has been struck down or is pending in federal courts.

There were nearly 1 million border apprehensions in the 2019 fiscal year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. Thats almost double the year before but still below several peaks in the 2000s, when Border Patrol was routinely catching more than a million people a year. Trump promised to remove immigrants in the country illegally, but the number of deportations under Trump about 267,000 in 2019 remains lower than virtually every year of the Obama presidency.

Trump, meanwhile, approved a plan last year to cap the number of refugees admitted to the United States to 18,000 the lowest level in four decades ago and he recently expanded a travel ban he implemented early in his term to six additional countries.

Trump's travel ban, which the administration re-worked after a series of court losses, suspends the issuance of certain types of visas from countries the administration says does not adequately screen visitors to the U.S. The initial version of the travel ban, which Trump had promised on the campaign trail, led to chaos and protests at U.S. airports and was struck down by federal courts over concerns that it discriminated against Muslims.

Travel ban: Trump expands controversial travel ban restrictions to six new countries

Trump promised annual economic growth of at least 3% on a sustained basis but dangled the possibility of 4, 5, and maybe even 6%.

That hasnt happened.

Unemployment is at a 50-year low, and the economy has expanded an average 2.5% during the first three years of his term, somewhat faster than the 2.2% post-recession average before he took office. The federal tax cuts he spearheaded, along with government spending increases, juiced growth to 2.9% in 2018 but gains slowed to 2.3% in 2019 and are expected to throttle back to slightly less than 2% this year and in 2021.

An aging population and weak productivity growth are restraining the U.S. and global economy over the long term.

Still, Trumps economic record has been very solid, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a nonprofitgroup that promotescenter-right policies.

Trumps rollback of federal regulations that stymied business growth has been stunningly large and impactful, Holtz-Eakin said. And many of the corporate reforms included in the tax cuts and jobs package passed in late 2017 will benefit businesses for years, he said.

Trump vowed the $1.5 trillion in sweeping tax cuts he spearheaded in 2017 wouldnt increase the federal deficit because they would pay for themselves through faster economic growth that swells government revenue.

But the tax law is projected to add $1.8 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal budget. While faster economic growth is forecast to generate about $570 billion in additional revenue, that will be offset by higher interest payments on a bigger national debt, the committee says.

Trump also said the tax cuts would spark a wave of business investment as a result of both lower rates and changes allowing businesses to deduct capital spending more rapidly. A study by the International Monetary Fund found the legislation did boost investment but by 3.5 percentage points, but that was below the average 5.3 percentage point increase that was forecast. About 80% of the tax savings was channeled into stock buybacks, dividends and other similar activities while just 20% went to capital spending or research and development.

President Donald Trump and China President Xi Jinping in 2017.(Photo: FRED DUFOUR, AFP/Getty Images)

Trump kept his promise to withdraw the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade deal negotiated by his predecessor, Barack Obama. On his third day in office, Trump signed an executive order pulling the U.S. out of the agreement, which he had once called a rape of our country.

Trump also lived up to a pledge to negotiate a new trade agreement with Mexico and Canada. Just last week, Trump signed into law the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a revised trade pact that puts in place rules for moving products among the three countries and replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, a quarter-century-old trade pact that Trump had mocked as the worst trade deal ever.

On the campaign trail, Trump promised to "cut a better deal with China that helps American businesses and workers compete."

After months of on-again, off-again negotiations and a trade war in which the two countries slapped billions of dollars in tariffs on each others products, Trump signed a limited "Phase One" trade dealwith China in January. The agreement calls for China to buy an additional $200 billion worth of U.S. goods and services over the next two years, including$32 billionin agriculture products. Trump said negotiations would begin soon on a broader agreement that he said could be completed after the 2020 election.

China trade: What's in Trump's 'Phase One' trade deal between the U.S. and China?

Regardless, Trump gets a B-minus on trade policy from Daniel Griswold, a trade expert at The Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Part of the reason, Griswold said, is the new trade deal with Mexico and Canada looks a lot like NAFTA, which Trump had disparaged. At the same time, many parts of the new trade pact were lifted directly from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the deal Trump abandoned after taking office.

Whats more, Griswold said, the nations trade deficit has risen by 25 percent under Trump when compared to Obamas last year in office despite Trumps campaign promise that, under his administration, the trade deficit would drop like youve never seen before.

U.S. duties on $360 billion in Chinese imports and Chinas counter-tariffs on U.S. exports to that country lowered economic growth by three-tenths of a percentage point last year and are expected to cut growth by a tenth of a point in 2020, said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist for Oxford Economics. And Trumps trade fights have shaved U.S. employment by 340,000 jobs, said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moodys Analytics.

On the positive side, the Phase One trade deal requires China to buy an additional $200 billion in agricultural and other goods from the U.S. over the next two years, more than doubling current exports. Daco said its questionable whether China has the desire and drive to boost shipments that much. In any case, he said it doesnt appear the U.S. has the capacity to produce that much more without shifting its exports to China from other countries, leaving economic growth unchanged.

President Donald Trump smiles as he walks with his daughter Ivanka Trump across the South Lawn of the White House in Washington.(Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP)

Everybody is getting a tax cut, especially the middle class, Trump promised when he was a candidate.

Not everyone got a tax cut. But many Americans did.

An analysis by PolitiFact found that, under the tax cut and jobs package that passed Congress at the end of 2017, every income group would pay less taxes in 2019, but that the benefits would flow disproportionately to wealthier taxpayers.

By 2027 every income group below $75,000 would see a tax increase, while only those income ranges above $75,000 would still see a cut, PolitiFact found. The primary reason is some of the individual tax cuts phase out after 2025.

Trump also embraced daughter Ivanka Trumps push for paid family leave when he was running for office. At a campaign stop in Pennsylvania, Trump called for six weeks of paid maternity leave as part of a package of childcare initiatives.

That idea went nowhere in Congress. But some 2.1 million civilian federal workers will be eligible for 12 weeks of paid leave after the birth of a child, adoption or the start of foster care under a deal struck last year.

The paid leave policy was included in a compromise defense package. Congressional Democrats signed off on money for Trumps Space Force program while Republicans agreed to demands on parental and family leave.

Paid family leave for everyone is not going to happen this year, Holtz-Eakin said. Thats something hes going to have to promise in a second term.

Speech drama: He snubbed her handshake, she tore up his speech. Drama between Trump and Pelosi was on full display at the State of the Union address.

Vice President Mike Pence claps as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appears to rip up a copy of President Donald Trumps's speech after the State of the Union address at the Capitol in Washington.(Photo: MANDEL NGAN, AFP via Getty Images)

Candidate Trump promised Americans he would repeal the Affordable Care Act, the landmark health care reform law enacted under Obama.

Real change begins with immediately repealing and replacing Obamacare. What a mess, Trump told a crowd at a political rally in Toledo on Oct. 27, 2016.

But three years after Trump took office, Obamacare is still in effect.

The big promise was the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act, Holtz-Eakin said. That hasnt happened. Republicans in general had a fairly spectacular unsuccessful run at that.

They have, however, managed to dilute parts of the law.

In their 2017 tax package, the GOP eliminated the penalty on people who can afford health insurance but choose not to buy it. The change wiped out one of the most unpopular provisions of Obamacare, but the law itself still stands.

Even so, Obamacares fate remains uncertain.

A federal judge ruled in Texas ruled in 2018 that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional, finding that the mandate that everyone buy insurance or pay a fine is so central to the law that it cannot stand now that Congress has rolled back the penalty. A three-judge appeals court panel has sent the case back to the Texas judge to decide which portions of the law can stand.

Repeal and replace?: 3 promises Trump made about health care that repeal plans haven't kept

Trump may be hard pressed to articulate any major foreign policy accomplishments, since many of his initiatives have yet to bear fruit. His push to oust Venezuelas president, Nicholas Maduro, has stalled. His negotiations with North Koreas Kim Jong Un have fizzled. His push for a peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan remains out of reach.What's more, Trumps recently unveiled Middle East peace plan years in the making was dismissed by regional experts as a nonstarter.

Trump has unquestionably made good on his promise to take a hard line on Iran. But while he yanked the U.S. out of the 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed severe economic sanctions on Iran, he has not been able to persuade Tehrans leaders to negotiate a new agreement with him.

Instead, Iran has begun to abandon its commitments under the 2105 deal and appears to be inching toward acquiring a nuclear weapon. And while Trump has touted his decision to authorize a deadly strike killing Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the powerful Iranian military leader, it is not clear if that will make Americans safer.

Shortly after the Soleimani strike, Iran responded by launching ballistic missiles at an Iraqi air base in an attack that left more than 60 U.S. service members with traumatic brain injury. And while tensions have eased since Soleimanis death, many experts believe Iran will continue to look for less overt, but still lethal, ways to retaliate against the U.S. for his killing.

President Trump meets with Kim Jong Un and is first U.S. President to step onto North Korean soil(Photo: Getty)

Trump has met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un twice since last years State of the Union address in Hanoi last February and at the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea over the summer. The president has said his bold new diplomacy could result in tremendous things for U.S.-North Korea relations.

But Trumps unconventional strategy of engagement focusing on personal diplomacy at the highest level has yet to produce any concessions that would put North Korea on the path to denuclearization.

Kim has not tested long-range ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons during the negotiations, but he has continued to test short-range missiles and other weapons. And the region is on a knifes edge, after Kim promised to unveil a new strategic weapon and as Trumps next move remains unclear.

In the meantime, experts say North Korea continues to improve its ballistic missile program and expand its nuclear arsenal with ongoing fissile material production.

Trump promised in last years State of the Union address that he would reduce Americas military presence in the Middle East repeating his oft-cited campaign pledge.

Our brave troops have now been fighting in the Middle East for almost 19 years, he said. Great nations do not fight endless wars.

But Trump has deployed more American troops to the region, particularly in recent months amid escalating tensions with Iran.

After Trump authorized a deadly striking killing Irans Soleimani, the president sent an additional 3,000 troops to Kuwait amid increased threat levels in the region. According to the Associated Press, 14,000 U.S. troops have been deployed to the Middle East since May.

The president has successfully reduced U.S. troop levels in Syria after a successful military campaign against the Islamic State terrorist group.

But Trump was forced to back off his call for a complete withdrawal from Syria amid an uproar over what many saw as a betrayal of Americas Kurdish allies in Syria, who helped U.S. troops rout ISIS. He also endured withering bipartisan criticism for his decision to withdraw about 50 American troops from the Syria-Turkey border, a decision that paved the way for Turkey to invade Syria and attack the Kurds.

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Build the wall? Travel ban? Tax cuts? After Trump's State of the Union, here's where he stands on promises - USA TODAY

Everything is falling into place.

Its great to be Donald J. Trump this morning right now is about as good as its ever been since he became president three years ago.

The latest impeachment hoax will be over this afternoon, his approval ratings are at an all-time high, the State of the Union address is in the can and most importantly, his Democrat opponents are so desperate that theyre reduced to stealing their own intramural elections from one another.

Joe Biden has fallen and he cant get up. It didnt matter that they killed the final poll before the caucuses, because he was already in free fall. The national Democrats made it even worse for him when they arranged the schedule of the impeachment trial in the Senate so that Biden was the only major candidate in the Hawkeye State for days before the Monday night caucuses.

The more Biden had Iowa to himself, the faster he fell in the polls. Every night was a gaffe-a-palooza on TV. On Super Bowl weekend, they flew in reinforcements, including Rep. Steve Lynch, D-South Boston.

No matter what they did, though, the hacks couldnt pull it out for Uncle Joe, who like the original Uncle Joe in Petticoat Junction, is movin kinda slow at the junction. Lets go to the video.

Joe is stumbling around the stage in Cedar Rapids as we join the meltdown in progress:

I been doing this, I hate to acknowledge it how you doin man?

He has spotted someone, or something Lynch perhaps? Or maybe just a hallucination?

Great to see ya This is one-a the leaders in Mass legis, a really really really really fine man .

He just cant think of whats-his-names name. But does he get extra credit for remembering what state Lynch hails from?

Anyway. Oh thanks for bein here.

Wherever here is. In whatever century Biden thinks hes in at this particular moment.

Speakin of loyalty, speakin of loyalty God love ya thank you but any rate uh the fact is that uh um I forgot what the hell I was gonna say Excuse my language.

So the Iowa Dems finally released some caucus results late Tuesday afternoon, showing Mayor Pete Buttigieg clinging to a slight lead. That becomes the lead story on the news, at least for an hour or two, until the State of the Union address, and then this afternoon, the acquittal of President Trump in the Senate.

When the other 38% of the Iowa results trickle in, maybe, lets say probably, Bernie wins. But by then itll be too late. The news cycle will have moved on.

Either way, win or lose, Bernie gets no mo going into the New Hampshire primary next week.

Mission accomplished!

Thats the way the national Democrat party looks at it, I guess. They want to stop the Brooklyn Bolshevik Bernie, at any cost, including the ridicule and anger their stunt engendered yesterday.

But to what end? Is Mayor Pete the answer? Last night in Laconia, in his second Eastern time zone victory speech, he was mimicking the speech patterns of Obama I kept expecting him to say his election would mean an end to the rising of the sea levels, or If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.

Blacks dont care much for Mayor Pete. We know the Bernie Bros hate him. Great, lets all get on the Buttigieg bandwagon. More likely, the bosses are just trying to buy themselves some time, until they can figure out their next step to Stop Bernie.

The other thing they had to accomplish with the caucuses was to keep Biden above 15%, so he can get a few delegates and thus continue to at least appear to be a viable candidate.

The over-under to get delegates was 15% and in the first count, Biden had 15.6%. Think of it this way: the party bosses took the over, and they just made it at least until the remainder of the results trickle in.

Theres an old saying: Id rather be lucky than good. Do you think Donald Trumps ever heard that one?

Bernie or Buttigieg or Biden or the fake Indian can any of these people defeat Trump? Theres another old saying: You cant beat somebody with nobody.

Everything is falling into place.

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Its good to be Donald Trump today - Boston Herald

In Gallup's latest poll released Tuesday morning, 49% approve of the job Trump is doing in office while 50% disapprove. Trump's previous high was in April 2019 when he got to 46% approval in Gallup. The first poll Gallup conducted when Trump became president in January 2017 showed him at 45% approval.

Trump's current 49% approval puts him ahead of where his predecessor -- Barack Obama -- was at this same time in his first term. (Obama was at 46% approval.) Which is absolutely remarkable, given the first 3+ years of Trump's presidency and the fact that he became just the third president in American history to be impeached by the House last month.

The Democratic-led impeachment effort likely contributed to Trump's strengthening numbers. You see it most clearly in the fact that 94% of self-identified Republicans in the poll said they approve of the job Trump is doing -- up 6 points from those who said the same thing in Gallup's poll last month. And that 94% approval is Trump's highest rating -- by 3 points -- ever among Republicans.

It's hard not to see the impeachment investigation in the House and subsequent trial in the Senate as the prime driver of the near-total fealty that Republicans are now exhibiting toward Trump. Trump, as well as his allies in the House and Senate, from the start have portrayed the impeachment proceedings as a purely partisan effort led by Democrats who just can't accept that Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Tribalism was already at work in our politics -- you can trace its current nasty iteration back 20 years to the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton -- but what Trump has done is supercharge it. And if possible, the attempt to impeach him has amped up the tribalism even more. The best evidence? While 94% of Republicans approve of the job Trump is doing, just 7% of Democrats feel the same; that 87-point gap is the largest ever measured in Gallup polling. Ever.

But it's not just among Republicans where Trump's numbers have improved. His approval among independents in this latest Gallup poll is 42% -- up 5 points from where he was among this group in January and tied for his highest mark ever among unaffiliateds.

Those gains likely have less to do with impeachment -- although it's worth noting that 52% of all respondents in Gallup think Trump should be acquitted in the Senate trial -- than they do with the continued strength of the economy. More than 6 in 10 people now approve of the job Trump is doing with the economy, which is both the best Trump has ever done on that question and the highest mark for any president on it since George W. Bush in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. (Bush overall approval numbers shot to 90% following the attacks.)

Combine Republicans rallying even more closely to Trump during impeachment and independents started to come around on Trump due to the perceived strength of the economy and you see how Trump has reached new polling heights. And while these numbers obviously don't factor in the utter mess of the Iowa caucuses that played out on national TV Monday night, it's hard not see how that chaos doesn't help Trump too.

In short: it's been a very good 24 hours for Trump. And the next 24 look pretty good too, as he is all-but-certain to be acquitted by the Senate on the articles of impeachment.

See the rest here:

Donald Trump just got the best polling news of his presidency - CNN