Scorecard: The first 4 weeks of Trump II

There hasn’t been such an activist rookie* President since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

I used the * because Donald J. Trump is a rookie in his second term, so he’s different from FDR in that way.

But not in his ambitions. Not in his desire to expand the powers of the Presidency. Not until the U.S. Supreme Court stops him, as it did with some FDR initiatives.

This is a look at Trump’s first month. A review traditionally waits until 100 days have passed, but we could be in a civil war by then.

Just joking. 

Trump is disrupting too much to wait. Nor will this be a comprehensive look at everything he has done. I’m ignoring tariffs, because his ideas change so fast. These are my highlights, hits and misses, as fair and objective as I can make it. The examples mostly come out of one edition of the local newspaper.

The analysis is sure to piss off some Trump worshippers, as well as those with TDS — Trump Derangement Syndrome. 

Roosevelt took the reins in 1933, in the depth of the Great Depression. The American economy was more crippled than the President, who needed crutches and a wheelchair to get around.

Roosevelt was 51. Trump is 78.

Germany had just elected Adolf Hitler as Chancellor, but he hadn’t begun flexing his muscles. FDR could concentrate on domestic issues.

Trump took over with an economy recovering from Covid better than other industrialized nations, but facing important overseas dilemmas in Ukraine and the Middle East. (Not to mention Iran and global terrorism.)

During the campaign, Trump said he could easily fix them, but he focused more on driving inflation down (it just ticked up), and slashing other costs, such as eggs, which just increased.

And for which he is not to blame.

But he’s President and that’s where we pin the tail on the elephant. Not donkey because. . . You get why.

If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know I am not a reflexive Trump hater. I have written more critiques of Democrats than Republicans, because Democrats ruin run my home city of Philadelphia, and they have screwed the pooch more than the neighborhood German shepherd.

I have given Trump praise for things he has gotten right, number one being border enforcement. I have been writing about, and opposing, illegal immigration for 20 years, so I don’t get my ideas about enforcement from him.

I have written several times that the border crisis of the past four years was strictly a result of Joe Biden’s boneheaded pronouncements and (basically) Open Border policies. I cringed, however, when Trump made racist-sounding comments about Mexico, and others, not sending their best, but rapists, murderers and thieves. Yes, there were some criminals in the millions who got here, but most were good people making bad decisions, meaning coming here illegally. Those actions were criticized by every Democratic President in the last 30 years, except  for Joe Biden.

[As my own editor, I am telling myself I am clearing my throat too long, that I need to cut to the chase.

I indulge myself to hopefully forestall the damn fool, knee-jerk ideological comments that I am biased against Trump or Biden.

I am not. 

My north star is “obey the law.” 

If you do that, you have an ally. If you don’t, you have a foe.

After that, my litmus tests are common sense and moderation. Too much rapid change is upsetting and invites harsh pushback.

Throat cleared, let’s go.]

Europe and NATO.

Trump has repeatedly said most NATO members don’t meet the obligation to spend 2% of their Gross National Product (GNP)  on defense. 

Fact One: Two-thirds of them do.

Fact Two: Most did not before Ukraine was invaded, and before Trump threatened to abandon them if they did not cough up. (He recently floated a balloon that the minimum should be raised to 5%. The U.S. will spend 3.5%, or $849.8 billion, in fiscal year 2025.)  

Trump sees NATO as a drain on U.S. wealth, although he has not yet acted to move U.S. forces out of 38 military bases in Europe. On Tuesday he said he has no plans to withdraw. But why not? It costs money, right? Maybe Trump realizes those bases are not just protecting Europe — they are protecting the United States. If war comes, it is to our benefit to fight it there, not here.

Since World War II, while not having a perfect record, NATO has prevented a world war, or even a large-scale war, while permitting smaller conflicts, like Kosovo, and Crimea. Its 32 members create the most powerful defensive force in history. Yes, the lion’s share of the arms they use are American-made, and we like it that way, don’t we? It benefits our munitions industry.

Trump doesn’t just dis NATO. He has a chip on his shoulder for Europe, well, the democracies, anyway. He has odd affection for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban. 

Trump stunned European allies by opening direct peace talks with Russia, which was excommunicated by Europe after its invasion of Ukraine. Russia was kicked out of the important G-8. Trump thinks it should be readmitted, even though it broke the law by invading Ukraine.

He is hard on illegals, but soft on other criminals. I am specifically talking about his Jan. 6 pardons, which are unpopular with 65% of Americans in a recent poll.

For balance, because you know how I roll,  in another poll, 58% of Americans disapproved of Joe’s pardon of Hunter.

Back to Russia. Yes, there is something to the idea that you must talk to enemies. You can invite them to your table, but you don’t have to let them hump your wife.

Russia was ostracized for its brutal invasion of Ukraine. It broke international law. And Trump broke with Europe.

Trump sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio to prepare the ground for peace talks with Russian envoys, including the foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, who is on the U.S. sanctions list.

Rubio didn’t make a citizens arrest.

They met at the royal residence of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, who belongs on the sanctions list for his “alleged” involvement in the murder of Saudi dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

In real political terms, we need the Saudis as allies in the Middle East, as they need us as paid protection against Iran. We are the prince’s muscle. And we like it that way.

In response to being frozen out of the talks, European nations huddled to form a  united front against Russia (and the U.S.) Can we blame them when they see the U.S. suiting up in the other team’s uniform?

So let’s talk about Europe.

Much of Western Europe, OK, especially France, has had a long tradition of looking down their noses at the brash upstarts in the New World.

It’s also true that in the 20th Century, the “civilized” Europeans managed to ignite two world wars that were extinguished by American lives, might and money. 

Europe knows it, and resents it, but not so much that they won’t mooch off of us. Trump has a point there. Not as much as he claims, as he was born to exaggerate, but he has a point.

If the Euros feel we are abandoning them, they’ll have to get out of their short pants and start being responsible for themselves. Might be a good thing, although any crack in the Atlantic alliance is a bad thing.

I’m OK with America First. I am not so keen on America Alone.

Last word on the foreign entanglements that George Washington warned about:

I think Trump is preparing the gelding knife for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

I fear Trump will side with Putin against Ukraine, just as he stood with Putin against the FBI in a memorable and disgraceful press conference in Helsinki. Putin denied election interference and Trump said he believed him.

Trump has issues with the FBI. Rather than resolve them with a scalpel, he reaches for an axe.

Is he imagining something like a Deep State? Not entirely. Remember the two FBI officials enjoying an affair who exchanged anti-Trump text messages? I do.

The axe charge has some justification in the massive layoffs of federal employees. But. . . 

As I understand what happened, most were newer employees, many still on probation.

The policy of last hired, first fired is standard business practice, and is written into many, if not most, union contracts. It protects seniority, a primary pillar of unionism.

Would it be better to fire the least productive? Of course, but that takes time and Trump is following the move fast and break things dictum. He probably will overplay his hand.

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that Elon Musk can fire people and view government data.

That brings us to the huge domestic issue of DOGE, the invented Department of Government Efficiency, led by fecund Presidential appointee Musk (say it together) the world’s richest man (on the autism spectrum. The billionaire shares Asperger’s syndrome with Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg.)

DOGE is basically a Presidential task force, nothing new there, led by an appointee, nothing new there either.

So the complaint that he was not elected is totally irrelevant. Only the President and Vice President are elected, while many high-ranking officials must be approved by the Senate, while Musk was not. True enough, but . . .

I see no court challenges to Musk being in the job, while there are several court challenges to his actions.

In the government, the reins checking (or increasing) power are not just laws. There are also rules, regulations, and customs. I don’t know all of them, but the courts do. 

Here I pause to state my belief that Trump’s strategy is to flood the zone, and play to get his plans before the U.S. Supreme Court, thinking it will be an uncontested layup.

My opinion is that he will be disappointed more often than not because the conservatives on the court are “textualists,” meaning they believe in the text of the Constitution, as written.

They are, pardon the pun, people of the book, and the fact that they were nominated by Trump will not divert them from conservative principles, which demand parity among the three branches of government. They will reject a Presidency with royal powers.

Even before that, more than a handful of officials have resigned, as they should have, rather than cooperate with Trump or Musk. This includes seven officials at the Department of Justice, the head of Social Security, a high-ranking prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office, and others.

As to the privacy concerns that DOGE snoops will be reading my IRS, Social Security and other “sensitive” information, the government has been doing that for most of my life, so why should I be worried now? 

Because Musk will sell my info to the Columbia Record Club? (If you remember that, you are on Social Security.)

In appointing Musk, Trump has been unusually strategic. Musk gets to be called the butcher, rather than Trump.

DOGE has published some savings, mostly low-hanging fruit. It promises to detail $55 billion in savings “soon.”

So that’s the first four weeks, without even mentioning the comical distractions of renaming the Gulf of Mexico, trying to buy Greenland, and annexing Canada.

Just 204 weeks to go.