(Today's OTDI is different.) And So It Began
On This Day In 2015
Note: Today's OTDI is a "longform" piece. So, for this one, please go grab a drink, pop up some popcorn, and curl up in your comfiest chair. And, of course, you can always finish it up over multiple sessions.
Today marks 9 years since Trump descended his gilded escalator and declared his candidacy for president.
He gave a 46-minute speech outlining the way he wanted Americans to think about him. It was a catalogue of lies and promises which he would then go on to break. Here, today, we annotate a few of them, point-by-point. This speech was highly successful, btw; before giving it he was polling in roughly 10th place among GOP candidates.
A central question facing the electorate now: If this speech bore such little resemblance to the reality of 2015, or of 2024, is it worth considering voting for him now?
DT: Wow. Whoa. That is some group of people. Thousands.
There were not thousands of people there in Trump Tower with him; by some accounts there were fewer than 100 supporters. And it later came out that many of his "supporters" that day were actors whom they paid $50 to cheer and wave "homemade" signs.
DT: It’s great to be in a wonderful city, New York. ...This is beyond anybody’s expectations. There’s been no crowd like this.
He may tell New Yorkers that NYC is wonderful, but he fled the city and moved to Florida just four years later
He's quite the shape-shifter, depending on where he's standing. Just a year after this campaign kickoff he told a rally in Iowa "I love New York, but New York is a disaster." And in 2019 he bragged about his hometown to a crowd in Minnesota: "New York City is a horrible place to live right now."
He may love NYC, but NYC does not love him. Among NYC voters, Trump lost to Hillary Clinton 79-18% in 2016, and lost to Joe Biden 76-23% in 2020.
"There's been no crowd like this." In what way? This was an early example of Trump urging his followers to believe what he tells them, not what they see with their own eyes.
DT: And, I can tell, some of the candidates, they went in. They didn’t know the air-conditioner didn’t work. They sweated like dogs.
We don't know what that means. But we do know that Trump hates dogs, and loves to compare horrible things to dogs. It became a hallmark of his rhetoric as president.
DT: They didn’t know the room was too big, because they didn’t have anybody there. How are they going to beat ISIS? I don’t think it’s gonna happen.
Again, it's hard to know what Trump means here. But, the United States and coalition partners "are going to beat ISIS" by implementing Obama's plan. Kudos to Trump, though, for continuing along that path and finishing up the job once he became president.
DT: Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don’t have them.
The crushing of ISIS, which was completed on Trump's watch, was a clear victory. But his capitulation to the Taliban was a major diplomatic error. And his decision to suddenly evacuate Syria, because he was begged to by a Turkish strongman, was a national humiliation. We did not even "beat" North Korea on his watch, despite Obama's warning they were a big threat. Instead, we humbly cancelled planned sessions with our ally, South Korea, while North Korea went about perfecting their long-range launch capabilities.
DT: When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time.
Unfortunately, Trump's trade war with China and the rest of the world cost the United States and its people trillions of dollars. Moody’s Analytics concluded his trade war had cost the American economy nearly 300,000 jobs and an estimated 0.3% of GDP. Bloomberg estimated the cost to America of Trump's trade war at $316 billion, but that doesn't capture the hit to stock market investments. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York calculated U.S. companies had lost more than $1.7 trillion of stock market value as a result of tariffs imposed on Chinese imports. And the American Farm Bureau stated “farmers have lost the vast majority of what was once a $24 billion market in China” as a result of Trump’s ill-conceived campaign.
We did not "beat" China during Trump's term. And if we did, the victories were fleeting and impermanent. Since his 2015 announcement, China has drastically expanded their global influence in places ranging from the South China Sea to Russia to Africa. As the NYT put it last Thursday, "In China’s Backyard, America Has Become a Humbler Superpower." And China's manufacturing grew more dominant in the key industries of the future, ie green energy and EVs. As The Economist noted this week, "China has become a scientific superpower. From plant biology to superconductor physics the country is at the cutting edge." Doesn't seem like Trump's trade wars were focused on the 21st century.
By the way, let's not skip over the "I beat China all the time" line. Before he entered politics, Trump tried to do major deals in China: for skyscrapers, for golf courses, and a luxury residential and commercial complex in Beijing. But he failed to actually get many of them built. He did host the Miss Universe pageant there one year. And yes the Trump Family did obtain several valuable trademark rights from China...but China gave many of those to the Trump Family only after Donald was elected. For the most part, his business in China consisted of using their manufacturing facilities to produce some Trump-branded neckties and other merch. All this from a man who publicly criticized others for not producing their goods in America anymore.
Speaking of doing deals with China: One of Trump's more damaging choices as president came when he removed sanctions from a large Chinese firm. They had spent years purposefully evading U.S. laws so that they could send valuable technology to two of our biggest enemies, Iran and North Korea. Why would Trump help them? Well, it may have been as simple as...China paid him off. As implausible as that may sound, the details are awfully suspicious.
DT: When did we beat Japan at anything? They send their cars over by the millions, and what do we do? When was the last time you saw a Chevrolet in Tokyo?...They beat us all the time.
They beat us all the time? This is a stunningly ignorant statement from a man who seldom bothers to read. In 1995, the U.S. economy was 41% larger than Japan's. By the time of his speech in 2015, ours was 412% larger. No those numbers are not typos. With all due respect to The Motor City, there's more to the success of a nation than just Chevrolets.
DT: When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically.
Yes, the number of "Apprehensions and expulsions registered by the United States Border Patrol" has skyrocketed in recent years under Biden. But that trend started under President Trump. In 2018, under Trump's watch, that number grew 30%. In 2019, once Trump had been in office for several years, it more than doubled; it rose 113% that year alone. After the Covid year of 2020, that figure resumed its Trumpian trajectory in 2021 and 2022. But once Biden had been in office for several years, the levels fell 7% in 2023.
Immigration isn't just about the numbers. Trump's cruel strategy was to split apart families by "separating" children from their parents. "We need to take away children, no matter how young," said a Justice Dept. official. Trump's administration then sent some of those kids into the American heartland; they were unable to reunite them with their parents because they hadn't bothered keeping good paperwork.
Economically: As president, Trump cast aside the tri-partite trade agreement we had with Mexico and China, NAFTA, and proposed a new one. Nancy Pelosi said about the resulting new USMCA ""There is no question, of course, that this trade agreement is much better than NAFTA, but in terms of our work here, it is infinitely better than what was initially proposed by the administration," Pelosi said. "It's a victory for America's workers, it's one that we take great pride in advancing." Three years after its passage, Brookings analyzed the impact thus far. They concluded that despite a range of issues that still need to be rectified, "USMCA is off to a strong start bolstering prosperity across North America."
DT: When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you...They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.
One common observation of Trump is that he likes to "project" his own sins onto others. So it's only natural that Trump, who has bragged about sexually assaulting women, been found liable for rape (in common parlance, as the judge noted), and been fined nearly $100 million for his related shenanigans, would make such inflammatory accusations.
We'll leave the analysis of the inherent racism in his words to others. But we will note that he's simply wrong in his overall understanding of how immigration -- legal and otherwise -- impacts the United States and our economy. Studies show that immigrants tend to be more entrepreneurial and start more businesses, per capita, than others. They often are employed in jobs that native-borns don't want and won't take, such as agricultural jobs. So even "the vast majority (96.7%) of Mexican undocumented workers are contributing to the economy and are vital to critical American industries," notes NAE.
There's much hand-wringing on the right about the costs associated with new illegal immigrants. Indeed, one study found that federal, state, and local governments spent $457 billion on immigrants from 2005 to 2019. However, those immigrants contributed $581 billion, so on balance immigrants provided a net positive $124 billion to government budgets during that time.
Some even argue that our country needs to double its immigration levels to remain competitive against global competitors.
A study published earlier this year shows the impact at a local level. 70% of undocumented immigrants in New York state are essential workers, they are unemployed at a lower rate than the state average.
DT: I will tell you this, and I said it very strongly...I said, “Don’t hit Iraq,” because you’re going to totally destabilize the Middle East.
Many would agree that the Iraq war wasn't our nation's finest moment. But that's especially easy to see now with 21 years of hindsight. You know who was NOT speaking out against it in 2003 before it started? Donald Trump. It's an easy talking point now, but he was simply lying when he claimed he was loudly opposed to it before it started. How can he get away with that? Well, when he was introducing himself to the world OTDI 2015, it simply didn't occur to voters that somebody could lie about their own previous statements with such Orwellian impunity.
DT: We lost thousands of lives, thousands in Iraq. We have wounded soldiers, who I love, I love — they’re great — all over the place, thousands and thousands of wounded soldiers.
No, Donald Trump does not love wounded soldiers. In fact, just the opposite. He makes fun of them. He mocks their stupidity and questions their bravery and heroism. And he often refuses to be in the same room with them lest somebody snap his picture with a "sucker" who got injured. In his own words, he didn't want to pay his respects at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France because “Why should I?... It’s filled with losers.”
DT: Last week, I read 2,300 Humvees— these are big vehicles— were left behind for the enemy (in Iraq) ...They ran, and the enemy took them...They always keep our equipment. We’re always losing this gorgeous brand-new stuff.
It turns out, Mr. Trump, that evacuations aren't quite as easy as you make them sound. Under Trump's watch, the U.S. quickly evacuated part of Syria because Erdogan asked him to. Trump had our troops move out so quickly that they left boxes of Kellogg's cereal and Krispy Kreme donuts sitting there on the kitchen counter. They also, not surprisingly, left behind quite a bit of weaponry throughout the country.
DT: "(The United States) is a nation (whose government) truly has no clue. They don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know what they’re doing.”
The number of times President Trump made it clear he didn't know what he's doing are legion. Here's one, from former Ambassador Brett McGurk, who explained that Trump "doesn't know what he's doing or talking about" with regards to his Syria evacuation. "The decision-making...by the Commander in Chief with no thought, with no consideration of consequence...is totally incoherent."
DT: Last quarter, it was just announced our gross domestic product...was below zero. Whoever heard of this? It’s never below zero.
That was simply not true, neither in syntax nor in concept. We'll let PolitiFact explain this one.
DT: Our labor participation rate was the worst since 1978. And our real unemployment is anywhere from 18 to 20 percent. That’s right. A lot of people...can’t get jobs, because there are no jobs, because China has our jobs and Mexico has our jobs.
There's some truth to that. However, there's a lot that's not so black-and-white. It's probably due to changing demographics (aging workforce) and other cyclical factors. But actually, our economy -- then and now -- has more jobs available than people who want to fill them.
DT: The real number, the real number is anywhere from 18 to 19 and maybe even 21 percent, and nobody talks about it, because it’s a statistic that’s full of nonsense.
Trump has a habit of saying that good unemployment data during Obama and Biden's presidencies are "lies," perhaps made up by the "deep state." And it just so happens that bad news during his presidency was also jiggered by those same bad actors.
This would be a good moment to point out that Trump's economy was, by some honest measures -- such as growth -- the worst of any president's since Herbert Hoover. Even before Covid further decimated his economy.
DT: Even our nuclear arsenal doesn’t work. It came out recently they have equipment that is 30 years old. They don’t know if it worked.
Sometimes you don't need nine years of hindsight to know that what Trump said then was an exaggeration. We'll leave this one to PolitiFact, which judged Trump's talking points here to be "false."
DT: We have a disaster called the big lie: Obamacare. Obamacare...It’s virtually useless. It is a disaster. It is going to be amazingly destructive...We have to repeal Obamacare, and it can be replaced with something much better for everybody...And we can do it.
At the time of Trump's speech, national support for Obamacare was reported to be at 39%. So the Trump-led GOP made dozens of efforts to repeal it, all of which failed. Since then, as more Americans have enjoyed its benefits, support has steadily grown; today, polls show 62% of adults support the program, and even the GOPers have generally muted their criticism.
It's well-regarded because it's so widely used. In 2010, 17.8% of Americans were uninsured; by 2023, that figured had dropped to an all-time low of 7.2%. ACA provisions regarding coverage of pre-existing conditions, and certain caps on charges, have been particularly popular.
Btw: Interesting use of the "big lie" here. That term would go on to apply to Trump's claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
DT: Yesterday, it came out that costs are going for people up 29, 39, 49, and even 55 percent, and deductibles are through the roof. You have to be hit by a tractor, literally, a tractor, to use it, because the deductibles are so high, it’s virtually useless.
As CNN noted in 2019, "It’s possible to get plans with lower deductibles, and more than half of Americans receive federal subsidies that reduce their burden when it comes to paying deductibles and out-of-pocket costs."
Although Trump, as president, was unable to overturn Obamacare, he tried to make it worse where he could, including driving up the costs to taxpayers. "The Trump administration is also playing a role in boosting how much people have to pay for care...The 2019 cap was 7% higher than the year before, the largest increase since the law took effect in 2014...And Trump officials want to change the methodology for 2020, which would increase the out-of-pocket limit by 2.5% more than it would have otherwise..."
DT: Remember the $5 billion website (for Obamacare)? $5 billion we spent on a website, and to this day it doesn’t work. ... I have so many websites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a website. It costs me $3.
This set of claims previewed the insidious torrent of truth-ignoring which would later overwhelm the United States. And it also demonstrates how very little experience Trump had in running a large operation. He paid random people $3 to create tiny sites for his fairly tiny companies; but if he really thought he could continue to do that with a website helping to improve significant chunks of the American economy, he was deeply unaware of the road ahead of him.
Also, btw, in 2020, Donald Trump had to take down his $3 campaign website for a bit after it got defaced by hackers. And it has crashed on multiple occasions. Well, you get what you pay for.
Well, at least the master builder fixed up the government's sites once he took power, right? Um, no. The ACA's also crashed under Trump.
The SBA's system also crashed under the Trump Adminstration's watch
Also, among other examples: On Tax Day 2018, Americans were thwarted trying to pay taxes when the IRS website told them to try again...after Dec. 31, 9999.
And let's not ignore the central lie to Trump's whole premise: The cost of the website was only $50 million, not $5 billion. But, hey, what's a $4,950,000,000 lie among friends? The Communist Soviet leaders were famous for their philosophy that an enormous lie is easier to pull off than a small one. Again we see Trump projecting his sins onto others: Trump likes to argue the Democrats are Communist, but it's Trump who seems to follow their playbook so closely.
DT: Obama is going to be out playing golf. He might be on one of my courses. I would invite him, I actually would say. I have the best courses in the world...
Serving as a pitchman for his own golf courses was one of the things Trump did best as president. Trump spent time at one of his own properties roughly 1 out of every 3 days he served as our president. This was despite relentlessly mocking Obama for golfing too often, and despite claiming he himself would be to busy to play once in office. Trump's golf habit cost taxpayers $144 million.
DT: (Other politicians are) controlled fully by the lobbyists, by the donors, and by the special interests, fully...Hey, I have lobbyists...They’re great. But you know what? it won’t happen. It won’t happen. (Lobbyists won't interfere with my work.) Because...it’s destroying our country. We have to stop, and it has to stop now.
Hmmm. Halfway into his term, a ProPublica analysis "found a “staggering” 281 lobbyists who’ve worked in the Trump Administration. That’s one lobbyist for every 14 political appointees, and four times more than Obama had appointed six years into office."
As an aside: What do you think those actors who were paid to cheer this speech would have thought if they'd known what Trump was actually going to do on this front once he took office?
DT: We need a leader that wrote “The Art of the Deal.”
That means Tony Schwartz should be president. As The Week noted; "Trump's ghostwriter for The Art of the Deal, Tony Schwartz, speculated that Trump has never read a single book in his adult life, not even a book about him or "by" him, of which there are 17. Trump pretends to have written more books than he pretends to have read."
DT: We can bring back our military, can take care of our vets. Our vets have been abandoned.
Here's how CAP described Trump's efforts to "take care of" vets in his first year in office: "Despite vowing to support America’s veterans, President Donald Trump and congressional Republican leaders have put forth budget proposals that are poised to do great damage to the economic security of veterans and their families—all to pay for tax cuts for millionaires and corporations. In fact, for every $2 of the cuts Trump wants to make to services and benefits for veterans, which will total more than $154 billion over the next decade, Trump plans to give more than $3 to the adult children of millionaires and billionaires."
DT: "We also need a cheerleader....President Obama...wasn’t a cheerleader. He’s actually...been a negative force. He wasn’t a cheerleader; he was the opposite."
Actually, it was Trump who was "just the opposite." As noted in our OTDI from 3 days, Trump frequently tried to actively crush great American companies if he personally didn't like them or their products. Who does that?
DT: Right now, think of this: We owe China $1.3 trillion. We owe Japan more than that. So they come in, they take our jobs, they take our money, and then they loan us back the money, and we pay them in interest, and then the dollar goes up so their deal’s even better. How stupid are our leaders? How stupid are these politicians to allow this to happen? How stupid are they?
In 2013, China held $1.3T of US Treasuries. By the time Obama left office in 2017, that figure was down to $1.05T. During Trump's term, China's holdings remained relatively constant. But once Biden defeated Trump, they resumed their plunge. In 2023, they fell 17% in just that one year. Now, in 2024, the level is down to $700b+, the lowest it's been in decades. So...who exactly is the "stupid leader?"
DT: Our president doesn’t have a clue. He’s a bad negotiator...
One of the Trump Administration's biggest disasters came when his team negotiated with the Taliban. It was a secretive negotiation, done without the input of the rest of the U.S. government. So it was Trump's team who capitulated to the Taliban and freed them to overrun Afghanistan.
DT: Take a look at the deal he’s making with Iran. He makes that deal, Israel maybe won’t exist very long. It’s a disaster, and we have to protect Israel.
"Take a look at" Trump's abandonment of the Iran Nuclear Deal. Trump gave Iran free rein to resume developing nuclear weapons. It was, in the words of many, "one of the dumbest moves of his presidency."
Abrogating our contractual obligations to Iran has hardly kept Israel safe. Notice that Iran has tried to pummel Israel in multiple ways since Trump abandoned Obama's deal. Iran launched 300+ missiles at Israel in April; fortunately, Joe Biden was there to help save Israel and help repel the invasion. Iran supported Hamas, enabling them to start a war with Israel on October 7th; and they provide financial and weapons support to Hezbollah, Houthis, and other proxies who continuously attack Israel and, increasingly, the United States military.
DT: I’m a free trader. But the problem with free trade is you need really talented people to negotiate for you. If you don’t have talented people, if you don’t have great leadership...it’s just not going to work....We could turn off that spigot by charging them tax until they behave properly.
Trump did indeed charge China a "tax" (a tariff) on trade. But as shown above, most studies of their impacts conclude Trump's tariffs have cost the United States trillions of dollars.
And on the subject of "talented people," Trump shocked long-time Washingtonians by appointing people to cabinet posts who had no business being there. Rather than pick true experts in their fields, he picked highly unqualified, often incapable, and overly sycophantic people.
DT: In my opinion, the new China, believe it or not, in terms of trade, is Mexico. (Manufacturers are currently moving) to build in Mexico. They’re going to take away thousands of jobs. It’s very bad for us. So under President Trump, here’s what would happen: (Manufacturers will call me up and say) “Mr. President, we’ve decided to move the plant back to the United States, and we’re not going to build it in Mexico.” That’s it. They have no choice. They have no choice. There are hundreds of things like that."
It's a nice sentiment, but it's at totally unfilled promise. (As Trump noted, "there are hundreds of things like that.") For example, as the IndyStar reported in 2020: "President Donald Trump made the Carrier furnace plant in Indianapolis a focal point of the 2016 presidential campaign. At rallies and in tweets, he blasted the company's plan to send 1,400 jobs to Mexico. Shortly after winning, he returned to the factory to announce a deal to save hundreds of jobs, punctuating a campaign pledge to end offshoring and save American manufacturing. "These companies aren't going to be leaving anymore," he said. "They're not going to be taking people's hearts out." But, in reality..."In Indiana alone, more than 20 manufacturers have moved production to foreign countries since Trump took office, resulting in at least 3,000 job losses, according to trade adjustment assistance filings with the labor department. That's about four times as many jobs as Trump saved at Carrier. And while the president has kept pledges to reduce regulations, cut corporate taxes and renegotiate trade agreements, those steps have not resulted in the manufacturing resurgence he promised. Instead, jobs in that sector grew at a tepid rate of about 1.2% annually before the coronavirus pandemic, a pace roughly equivalent to growth during the Obama/Biden administration after the low point of the Great Recession in 2010.
As the WaPo noted, "Throughout his presidency, Trump has had little success with his highly personalized attempts to bend corporate decision-making to his will and reverse a generation-long decline in U.S. factory jobs. He has publicly assailed companies such as General Motors and Harley-Davidson for moving manufacturing abroad without causing them to unwind their plans. And he has claimed credit for investments that failed to live up to advance billing, including Foxconn’s $10 billion plan to create 13,000 jobs at a new electronics factory in Wisconsin."
DT: We need a leader that can bring back our jobs, can bring back our manufacturing
The Austin American-Statesman assessed the pre-Covid impacts of President Trump's policies: "In awarding Trump a Promise Broken for his pledge to bring back manufacturing, we also noted that another metric, gross manufacturing output by quarter, found nothing special on Trump’s watch. Manufacturing output rose during the first year and a half of Trump's presidency, but at a rate not much faster than during most of Obama's presidency. And after that, output stagnated or even declined slightly."
DT: Saudi Arabia, they make $1 billion a day....I love the Saudis. Many are in (renting space here in) this building, (Trump Tower).
Trump shielded the Saudi government after they murdered, dismembered, and boiled in acid a WaPo journalist who lived in the United States. Maybe Trump did so because he wanted his Tower to retain its leases?
DT: So the reporter said to me the other day, “But, Mr. Trump, you’re not a nice person. How can you get people to vote for you?”... I said, “I think that number one, I am a nice person. I give a lot of money away to charities and other things.”
Trump often claimed to have given huge sums to charities over the years. And sometimes he made public promises that he would do so. To a large degree, though, those were simply lies, and he often failed to follow-through on his pledges.
The Trump Foundation was created as a charity, but ended up shutting down after the state of New York filed suit against it for being a criminal enterprise.
Trump is known for being so tight-fisted that he simply ignored bills from hundreds of people who did work for him over the years, ranging from construction craftsmen to Rudy Giuliani. So it's hard to believe he'd just give money away to charities for nothing...and, it turns out, he didn't.
If Trump says his charity is the "number one" reason to vote for him, and his charity was a fraud, um...um...
DT: This is going to be an election that’s based on competence
The problem we face, though, is that "America Isn’t Finished Paying for Trump’s Incompetence," as Trumpologist Timothy L. O'Brien put it.
DT: And they’re tired of spending more money on education than any nation in the world per capita, than any nation in the world, and we are 26th in the world, 25 countries are better than us in education.
It may not shock anyone to learn he's falsely quoting data. Several countries spend more per capita, such as Norway and Luxembourg. But since the US' GDP is so much higher than most countries', it stands to reason that government expenditures are also higher than elsewhere. However, when adjusted for GDP, our spending is basically in line with other similar countries'. The U.S. does spend more on post-graduate education, but that's in part because the U.S. is a magnet for the best-and-brightest of the world's post-grad students.
Re 26th in the world: According to some measures, our students perform around that level on global standardized tests. But according to other measures, the U.S. has the world's best educational system.
DT: (At the start of my real estate career), after four or five years in Brooklyn, I ventured into Manhattan and did a lot of great deals— the Grand Hyatt Hotel.
The Grand Hyatt was indeed Trump's first Manhattan project. But, perhaps it won't surprise you to learn that he was only able to get it done by falsifying paperwork and promoting a series of lies to the press and to the City of New York. The deal cost the city $160 million.
DT: I was responsible for the convention center on the west side.
That's a massive overstatement. Trump sold an option he had on the site to the state of New York, essentially receiving a broker's commission for $1 million. He did bid to become the contractor at the site...but his bid was rejected.
DT: So a large accounting firm and my accountants have been working for months, because it’s big and complex, and they’ve put together a...financial statement, just a summary...(to be) filed eventually with the government...
Trump was later found to have massively lied on various filings by more than $2 billion.
DT: I started off in a small office with my father in Brooklyn and Queens
How did Donald jump to the next level from this "small office?" He and his family stole $504 million (in 2024 dollars). That's a pretty good jump start, right?
DT: I’m a private company, so nobody knows what I’m worth....I’m proud of my net worth. ...I have assets— big accounting firm...9 billion 240 million dollars.
Trump has been lying about his net worth for forty years, including here in this speech. Being successful is central to his image. But it's mirrors and lies..and multiple bankruptcies.
By some measures, Trump has been literally the biggest financial loser in the country.
Just a few of those lies may have caught up with him this year, as he was ordered to pay nearly half a billion dollars in fees and penalties related to a few of his efforts to fraudulently declare his net worth.
DT: (I own) the greatest assets— Trump Tower, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, Bank of America building in San Francisco, 40 Wall Street...
Trump doesn't bother clarifying that his firm owns only 30% of the Bank of America building and only 30% of 1290 Avenue of the Americas. Or that they don't own 40 Wall Street, they lease it. And he probably didn't imagine that his presidency would bring bad tidings to Trump Tower; its retail was decimated, and the value of its condos plummeted.
DT: We’re at $8 trillion now (of national debt)...According to the economists...$24 trillion, that’s the point of no return...That’s when we become Greece. That’s when we become a country that’s unsalvageable.
The U.S. debt did surpass $24 trillion. That happened in 2020. Under his watch.
The national debt rose 39% during his four years.
DT: I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively, I will build a great, great wall on our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.
He later tried to pretend he hadn't said Mexico would pay for it. Regardless, by the end, Trump protected a grand total of 47 miles of previously-unfenced border. Literally, only 47 miles. And people climbed over his walls. And tunnelled under them. And cut through them with ordinary power tools. And Mexico paid not a dime. And costs spiraled to over $20 billion. About 1/3 of that was authorized by Congress; Trump needed to override a Congressional veto to divert funds away from military projects around the world to help cover the rest.
A charming aside: Trump's close advisor Steve Bannon was arrested and indicted for running a bogus scheme to supposedly raise funds for the wall from private donors. Trump, of course, promptly pardoned Bannon for his sins. Oddly, though, Trump didn't foreshadow any of that in this campaign speech.
DT: I will stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
What happened? Just the opposite. In what we believe is the biggest mistake of his presidency -- and probably one of the biggest unforced errors in the history of the United States -- Trump exited the U.S. from the one agreement which was successfully keeping Iran's nuclear progress under wraps. After Trump broke the agreement, Iran developed better nuclear technologies, resumed enriching uranium, increased its stockpile at least eightfold, and cut the amount of time it would need to build a nuclear weapon; it's believed Iran's mullahs could now do so in a matter of days when they choose to.
DT: And we won’t be using a man like Secretary Kerry... (who) goes into a bicycle race at 72 years old, and falls and breaks his leg....I promise I will never be in a bicycle race. That I can tell you.
Indeed, a Trumpian promise kept. (Although it took the speech 41 minutes to get here)
DT: I will immediately terminate President Obama’s illegal executive order on immigration, immediately.
Ironic. Trump did of course issue an executive order on immigration upon taking office...which caused such havoc that airplanes in the sky were forced to turn back around. It was quickly ruled illegal by the federal courts. So he amended his order...and it was again found to still be illegal.
DT: Fully support and back up the Second Amendment.
The Trump administration often worked to block simple gun control methods. And GOPers seemed to increasingly publicize their love of gun culture. So, perhaps not surprisingly, gun deaths in the United States soared nearly 30% during Trump's term in DC.
One effort Trump admirably undertook to reduce gun violence was to ban "bump stocks," after they had been used to increase the lethality of weapons in a mass slaying in Las Vegas. However, by then Trump had already seeded the criminal justice system with so many fiercely-conservative judges that some of his own appointees in the lower courts helped overturn Trump's ban. And on Friday, Trump's three handpicked Supreme Court justices, in a landmark decision, all ruled that Trump's bump stock restrictions are illegal.
DT: End Common Core...it is a disaster
Studies evaluating the efficacy of Common Core have reached mixed conclusions. Many GOP states have left the program. Trump's Secretary of Education came from the for-profit world, and seemingly took steps to downgrade the federal government's ability to help public schools nationally. Trump's budgets called for sharp cuts to government spending on several educational programs, many of which even fellow GOPers in Congress wouldn't vote to approve. When Joe Biden became president, he reversed this downward trajectory: his first budget called for a 20% increase in educational spending.
DT: Rebuild the country’s infrastructure. Nobody can do that like me. Believe me. It will be done on time, on budget, way below cost, way below what anyone ever thought.
The Trump administration's failed efforts to focus on an "Infrastructure Week" became one of DC's longest-running jokes. Trump's team left Washington having done nothing substantial in their four years to improve America's crumbling infrastructure. Joe Biden worked with Congress to get their bipartisan bill done in just his first ten months, opening the floodgates to over $1 trillion in investment.
DT: You know, we’re building on Pennsylvania Avenue, the Old Post Office, we’re converting it into one of the world’s great hotels....We got it from the General Services Administration in Washington.
It may be a nice hotel, but it was also, according to many, the scene of a daily constitutional breach. Government ethicists argued that the spending by foreign governments there violated the emoluments clause; also there was potential for self-dealing since Trump controlled both the hotel and the GSA. These legal issues had yet to finish working their way through the courts by the time Trump fled DC.
DT: You come into La Guardia Airport, it’s like we’re in a third world country. You look at the patches and the 40-year-old floor.
Some may recall that Vice President Biden used these exact same words -- "like a third world country" -- to critique LGA in 2014. And that Biden's evaluation helped spur the recent highly-successful LGA re-build. Apparently, to his credit, Trump did use those words first.
DT: Save Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security without cuts. Have to do it.
Once he took power, Trump tried to slash Medicaid spending by $1.5 trillion.
Once he took power, Trump tried to slash Medicare spending by $800 billion.
Once he took power, Trump tried every year to slash Social Security spending.
George HW Bush basically lost his re-election bid because it was perceived that he had gone back a bit on his no-new-taxes pledge. Why should the American voter forgive Trump's $2 trillion broken promise?
DT: Get rid of the fraud. Get rid of the waste and abuse, but save it.
Trump's Cabinet ministers were driven from office at unprecedented rates, many amidst accusations of corruption, waste, and abuse of their governmental offices. Rather than Drain the Swamp, Trump funnelled it right into the White House, and often into the pockets of himself, The Trump Family, and those he installed in high offices.
DT: We have artificially low interest rates.
Trump, as president, complained when the Fed raised rates, claiming they were doing so to hurt him personally.
DT: We have a stock market that, frankly, has been good to me, but I still hate to see what’s happening. We have a stock market that is so bloated.
As president, Trump tried to take credit for the market's continuing climb and blame others when it fell.
The market has risen dramatically under Biden. Trump has recently started to take credit for that too.
DT: Now, our country needs— our country needs a truly great leader, and we need a truly great leader now.
Agreed! And that leader is not Donald Trump.