President Donald Trump, unlike his predecessor in office Joe Biden, talks with reporters quite frequently. In those press conferences and other interactions, Trump makes some misstatements of fact. To an extent it makes sense to cut him some slack regarding misstatements in extemporaneous and impromptu communication. But, Trump making clear misstatements of fact in his annual State of the Union speech is another matter. That is just what we saw when Trump presented the annual speech Tuesday evening.
Tag: Donald Trump
Donald Trump’s presidential administration has been a big disappointment in several major areas, including the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) prospect of reducing government spending and the America First prospect of the United States government pursuing a foreign policy much less interventionist than before. On both counts, the Turmp administration has led the government in the opposite direction than what was promoted in Trump’s presidential campaign. Spending and the national debt have grown. At the same time, the Trump administration has continued the Biden administration’s Ukraine, Israel, and other wars, while stirring up new wars in Venezuela, Iran, and beyond.
Donald Trump, who started his second term as United States president a little over a year ago, likes to talk about how he is making America great again. But, for foreigners planning their trips abroad, it appears Trump has played a significant role in reducing their perception that America is great — at least as a travel destination.
Last week, I wrote about the United States House of Representatives approving funding for the Department of Education for fiscal year 2026 at about the same level as each of the previous two years. This action, I suggested, was at odds with President Donald Trump, who is from the same party as the House and Senate majorities, having promoted during his 2024 presidential campaign and since his desire to drastically reduce and even eliminate this Cabinet department.
President Donald Trump is not a small government guy. But, he has declared during his 2024 presidential campaign and since his intention to drastically reduce or even eliminate a Cabinet department — the Department of Education.
Publicly denouncing war and liberals was a regular part of Donald Trump’s communication in his 2024 presidential campaign. Yet, as president, Trump has been relying on the responsibility to protect idea associated with liberals he would normally ridicule as a basis for the US engaging in wars abroad.
President Trump’s Cross of Iron
On Wednesday, United States President Donald Trump declared in a post at Truth Social that he has determined the military budget for the next fiscal year should be hiked to 1.5 trillion dollars.
On Saturday, United States President Donald Trump held a press conference to boast about his sending the US military hours earlier to bring destruction in Venezuela and drag off the leader of the nation’s government to America for incarceration and prosecution. It was all done in the name of fighting the war on drugs, though few people give much credit to the Trump administration’s repeated assertion that Venezuela President Nicolás Madura was a drug kingpin responsible for a major share of fentanyl or cocaine shipments into America.
Tiring from its overuse, we have heard many times the accusation that this or that person has expressed an “antisemitic trope that Jews control” fill in the blank — Hollywood, the government, whatever.
President Trump’s Drug War Bad Math
You may have heard President Donald Trump declare once or more his often repeated claim that the United States government has saved the lives of 25,000 Americans each time its military has blown up a purported drug trafficking boat over the last few months in the Caribbean and Pacific. That sounds impressive. But, as Jacob Sullum explained in a Tuesday Reason article, Trump’s numbers don’t make sense.