Trumps dismal presidency in a nutshell

Trump immediately started a trade war that actually increased the trade deficit. By the end of 2018, we had lost almost 2,000 American manufacturing plants and about 300,000 jobs as businesses closed or moved overseas. American farmers went bankrupt as Russia supplanted the US as the chief importer of soy into China. The tariffs increased the cost of vital manufacturing components which led to heightened inflation. A carryover effect of that has been that the domestic manufacturers that didn’t close reduced their inventory of such components in hopes that the tariffs would end and their costs would decrease, and this is a contributing factor to the product shortages we have now. That’s one policy.

In the 26 months between Trump’s tax bill and the economy’s peak before the pandemic, economic growth slowed by about two-thirds. Between Obama’s recovery act and the tax bill, the Dow grew at an average of 16.2% annually. After the tax bill that dropped to 5.8%. Before the tax bill, unemployment was dropping by about .75% annually. After the tax bill, about .25% annually. In 2019, the Fed lowered interest rates for the first time since Bush was President to combat the slowing economy, and Trump himself complained that they didn’t commit to do more to prevent a recession. And the Trump recession officially began in February 2020 while Trump was still pretending the pandemic was a Democratic hoax. That’s two.

Starting in 2019, Trump began undermining our operations in Afghanistan. That began with an invitation to the Taliban to a private meeting at Camp David on the anniversary of 9/11. That meeting was changed after outrage from both sides of the aisle. Nevertheless, Trump insisted on meeting with Taliban leaders outside the presence of the legitimate Afghan government, and negotiated with the Taliban rather than Afghan leaders about the future of the country after the American withdrawal. Trump promised and secured the release of 5,000 Taliban terrorists being held prisoner in Afghanistan including more than 150 that had been sentenced to death, 44 who were known to be involved in high profile attacks against US forces, and the mastermind of the deadliest attack of the entire occupation. Then he committed to a withdrawal date about 100 days after he knew he’d be out of office. A few days after he was determined to have lost his re-election bid, he announced that before leaving office he would reduce our troop presence to its lowest of the entire occupation. This drew so much criticism from all sides that Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which in part barred the removal of any troops from Afghanistan prior to Inauguration Day. Trump vetoed this bill, and his veto was easily overridden even as his own party controlled the Senate at the time. Then five days before leaving office, he illegally withdrew the troops anyway in knowing violation of the law. That’s number three.

Of course we can’t skip the pandemic. The Obama administration left a robust pandemic response team in place, but all accounts are that Trump was completely disinterested in understanding the threat posed by a potential viral outbreak, and instead immediately started dismantling the team. In 2017, Trump's budget request called for massive cuts in spending on scientific research, medical research, and disease prevention, cutting $1.2 billion from the CDC, $82 million from the center that works on vaccine-preventable and respiratory diseases, making a 17% cut to CDC’s global health programs that monitor and respond to disease outbreaks around the world, and cutting 10% from the CDC’s office of public health preparedness and response. Former CDC director Tom Frieden described the administration's CDC request as “unsafe at any level of enactment. Would increase illness, death, risks to Americans, and health care costs.” In 2018, Trump fired homeland security adviser on the NSC Tom Bossert, whose job included coordinating the response to global pandemics. Bossert was not replaced. That same year, his biodefense preparedness adviser warned that a flu pandemic was the country’s number one health security threat, and the U.S. was not prepared. Rear Adm. Tim Ziemer, the NSC's senior director for global health security and biodefense, left the council and was not replaced. Luciana Borio resigned as the NSC's director for medical and biodefense preparedness policy and was not replaced. By 2019, an independent study reported that the US was not prepared for a pandemic. Biden responded to the report by criticizing the Trump administration’s dismantling of the pandemic response team. Again, this is months before Covid-19 was even discovered. Trump then spent 23 of the first 69 days of 2020 on vacation, repeatedly downplaying the pandemic before declaring it a national crisis on day 70. Despite that, he refused to develop a national strategy to slow the spread, instead going on the offensive against state and local officials working to protect their communities. As a result, by the end of 2020, hundreds of thousands of businesses had permanently closed, 75% of schools were closed, and unemployment was over 6%. That’s number four.

Trump was by far the most wasteful President in modern history. He grew the deficit every year he was in office—a feat not even GW Bush accomplished. He wasted billions on an idiotic border wall (and shut down the government for the longest time in history because his own party wouldn’t fund it). He wasted millions if not billions rebranding part of the Air Force to look like Star Trek cosplayers. When he should have been investing in making the country safe for commerce during the pandemic, instead he borrowed trillions to prop up the stock market and to pay people to not work. He would become the first President in history to maintain a debt to GDP ratio over 100% for his entire term, added more to the national debt in four years than Bush 41 and Bush 43 added in their twelve years combined, and added more in one year than Reagan added in two full terms. That’s number five.

Trump consistently undermined our national security by siding with hostile dictators against our own intelligence agencies, by holding private meetings with Putin, by tweeting classified photos, by ordering the assassination of an Iranian general in violation of international treaties, by sabotaging our operations in Afghanistan (as described previously) and by diverting money from national defense to fund his idiotic wall. That’s number six.

Does attempting to subvert our elections count as a “policy” or is that just a crime? What about spending a century of Presidential salaries on golf trips? How about appointing racists, criminals, unqualified campaign donors and his own children to positions in his administration? How about pathologically lying every time he opened his mouth? Are any of those “policies”? Because those were all harmful to our democracy. And if you notice, I didn’t even need to bring up the mean tweets.

So in short, Trump was a complete disaster for the US in every way imaginable. The best way for America’s enemies to try to hurt the country would have been to help Trump gain power. And obviously Putin was smart enough to realize that early on. It’s too bad that so many Republicans still haven’t figured it out themselves.

Agreed. An utter disaster in every way. You didn’t even have to mention the total demolition of American integrity and morality.

... FOUR MORE YEARS! ....

#### Salty

Ok OP, so who wrote that? Link?

And to YR, if Trump was a disaster, I'd take his disaster any day over that lying, bought off, cheating person you call our president now.

Oh ya, I forgot he's also a puppet and mentally ill.

Oh ya, I forgot he's also a puppet and mentally ill. Originally Posted by buzzlghtyr401

How do you know he is mentally ill? Are you his psychiatrist?

How do you know he is mentally ill? Are you his psychiatrist? Originally Posted by Lucas McCain

No, but it's pretty obvious that he's not all there.

if it quacks its likely a duck

Oh ya, I forgot he's also a puppet and mentally ill. Originally Posted by buzzlghtyr401

How do you know he is mentally ill? Are you his psychiatrist? Originally Posted by Lucas McCain

No, but it's pretty obvious that he's not all there. Originally Posted by buzzlghtyr401

Does this mean he won't carry Oklahoma again?

What was the subject of this thread again?

LOLLING!

Trump immediately started a trade war that actually increased the trade deficit. By the end of 2018, we had lost almost 2,000 American manufacturing plants and about 300,000 jobs as businesses closed or moved overseas. American farmers went bankrupt as Russia supplanted the US as the chief importer of soy into China. The tariffs increased the cost of vital manufacturing components which led to heightened inflation. A carryover effect of that has been that the domestic manufacturers that didn’t close reduced their inventory of such components in hopes that the tariffs would end and their costs would decrease, and this is a contributing factor to the product shortages we have now. That’s one policy.

In the 26 months between Trump’s tax bill and the economy’s peak before the pandemic, economic growth slowed by about two-thirds. Between Obama’s recovery act and the tax bill, the Dow grew at an average of 16.2% annually. After the tax bill that dropped to 5.8%. Before the tax bill, unemployment was dropping by about .75% annually. After the tax bill, about .25% annually. In 2019, the Fed lowered interest rates for the first time since Bush was President to combat the slowing economy, and Trump himself complained that they didn’t commit to do more to prevent a recession. And the Trump recession officially began in February 2020 while Trump was still pretending the pandemic was a Democratic hoax. That’s two.

Starting in 2019, Trump began undermining our operations in Afghanistan. That began with an invitation to the Taliban to a private meeting at Camp David on the anniversary of 9/11. That meeting was changed after outrage from both sides of the aisle. Nevertheless, Trump insisted on meeting with Taliban leaders outside the presence of the legitimate Afghan government, and negotiated with the Taliban rather than Afghan leaders about the future of the country after the American withdrawal. Trump promised and secured the release of 5,000 Taliban terrorists being held prisoner in Afghanistan including more than 150 that had been sentenced to death, 44 who were known to be involved in high profile attacks against US forces, and the mastermind of the deadliest attack of the entire occupation. Then he committed to a withdrawal date about 100 days after he knew he’d be out of office. A few days after he was determined to have lost his re-election bid, he announced that before leaving office he would reduce our troop presence to its lowest of the entire occupation. This drew so much criticism from all sides that Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which in part barred the removal of any troops from Afghanistan prior to Inauguration Day. Trump vetoed this bill, and his veto was easily overridden even as his own party controlled the Senate at the time. Then five days before leaving office, he illegally withdrew the troops anyway in knowing violation of the law. That’s number three.

Of course we can’t skip the pandemic. The Obama administration left a robust pandemic response team in place, but all accounts are that Trump was completely disinterested in understanding the threat posed by a potential viral outbreak, and instead immediately started dismantling the team. In 2017, Trump's budget request called for massive cuts in spending on scientific research, medical research, and disease prevention, cutting $1.2 billion from the CDC, $82 million from the center that works on vaccine-preventable and respiratory diseases, making a 17% cut to CDC’s global health programs that monitor and respond to disease outbreaks around the world, and cutting 10% from the CDC’s office of public health preparedness and response. Former CDC director Tom Frieden described the administration's CDC request as “unsafe at any level of enactment. Would increase illness, death, risks to Americans, and health care costs.” In 2018, Trump fired homeland security adviser on the NSC Tom Bossert, whose job included coordinating the response to global pandemics. Bossert was not replaced. That same year, his biodefense preparedness adviser warned that a flu pandemic was the country’s number one health security threat, and the U.S. was not prepared. Rear Adm. Tim Ziemer, the NSC's senior director for global health security and biodefense, left the council and was not replaced. Luciana Borio resigned as the NSC's director for medical and biodefense preparedness policy and was not replaced. By 2019, an independent study reported that the US was not prepared for a pandemic. Biden responded to the report by criticizing the Trump administration’s dismantling of the pandemic response team. Again, this is months before Covid-19 was even discovered. Trump then spent 23 of the first 69 days of 2020 on vacation, repeatedly downplaying the pandemic before declaring it a national crisis on day 70. Despite that, he refused to develop a national strategy to slow the spread, instead going on the offensive against state and local officials working to protect their communities. As a result, by the end of 2020, hundreds of thousands of businesses had permanently closed, 75% of schools were closed, and unemployment was over 6%. That’s number four.

Trump was by far the most wasteful President in modern history. He grew the deficit every year he was in office—a feat not even GW Bush accomplished. He wasted billions on an idiotic border wall (and shut down the government for the longest time in history because his own party wouldn’t fund it). He wasted millions if not billions rebranding part of the Air Force to look like Star Trek cosplayers. When he should have been investing in making the country safe for commerce during the pandemic, instead he borrowed trillions to prop up the stock market and to pay people to not work. He would become the first President in history to maintain a debt to GDP ratio over 100% for his entire term, added more to the national debt in four years than Bush 41 and Bush 43 added in their twelve years combined, and added more in one year than Reagan added in two full terms. That’s number five.

Trump consistently undermined our national security by siding with hostile dictators against our own intelligence agencies, by holding private meetings with Putin, by tweeting classified photos, by ordering the assassination of an Iranian general in violation of international treaties, by sabotaging our operations in Afghanistan (as described previously) and by diverting money from national defense to fund his idiotic wall. That’s number six.

Does attempting to subvert our elections count as a “policy” or is that just a crime? What about spending a century of Presidential salaries on golf trips? How about appointing racists, criminals, unqualified campaign donors and his own children to positions in his administration? How about pathologically lying every time he opened his mouth? Are any of those “policies”? Because those were all harmful to our democracy. And if you notice, I didn’t even need to bring up the mean tweets.

So in short, Trump was a complete disaster for the US in every way imaginable. The best way for America’s enemies to try to hurt the country would have been to help Trump gain power. And obviously Putin was smart enough to realize that early on. It’s too bad that so many Republicans still haven’t figured it out themselves. Originally Posted by royamcr

Is this lib fantasy porn?
This article is plum nuts

Ok OP, so who wrote that? Link?

And to YR, if Trump was a disaster, I'd take his disaster any day over that lying, bought off, cheating person you call our president now. Originally Posted by buzzlghtyr401

It was a post on Quora that I found, an interesting recap with little known or forgotten details of each situation.

Is this lib fantasy porn?
This article is plum nuts Originally Posted by winn dixie

Trump is nuts yes, refute what is in the post, just saying it is nuts and lib bs says nothing. Funny thing is I left off the first paragraph where he said he is a Republican. Of course trumptards will just claim RINO.... There are still Republicans that can critically think, and back up with real data and timelines. Trumptards just blame Fauci cause that is what they are told to do by Tucker.

brandon REAL critical thinker...if you don't vote for me you ain't black??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBQ4PAT1hTg

If that's not identity politics nothing is!!
Selecting word salad herass as VP...because she is a "black woman"...with absolutely no idea of what is going on America or the world the world for that matter. Real critical thinking there!!
You're an uncle Tom if you're a black conservative...yeah REAL critical thinking. Hmm a black thinking for themselves...can't have that.
The left knows nothing about real critical thinking. but then you never know what you're talking about anyway.

You always like to talk about FACT ol' roy boy...
Take about the economy in a freefall!!
This is just a little comparision between Trump and Turnip head...






BEA produces some of the most closely watched economic statistics that influence decisions of government officials, business people, and individuals. These statistics provide a comprehensive, up-to-date picture of the U.S. economy. The data on this page are drawn from featured BEA economic accounts.
National Economic Accounts

Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)



Q2 2022 (Adv)
-0.9%
Q1 2022 (3rd)
-1.6%
Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 0.9 percent in the second quarter of 2022, following a decrease of 1.6 percent in the first quarter. The smaller decrease in the second quarter primarily reflected an upturn in exports and a smaller decrease in federal government spending.












Quick Guide: GDP Releases

• Current release: July 28, 2022
• Next release: August 25, 2022

Personal Income and Outlays, May 2022



May 2022
+0.5%
April 2022
+0.5%
Personal income increased $113.4 billion, or 0.5 percent at a monthly rate, while consumer spending increased $32.7 billion, or 0.2 percent, in May. The increase in personal income primarily reflected an increase in compensation. The personal saving rate (that is, personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income) was 5.4 percent in May, compared with 5.2 percent in April.












Quick Guide: Personal Income and Outlays Releases

• Current release: June 30, 2022
• Next release: July 29, 2022

Industry Economic Accounts



International Economic Accounts

U.S. International Transactions, First Quarter 2022 and Annual Update



Q1 2022
-$291.4B
Q4 2021
-$224.8B
The U.S. current-account deficit widened by $66.6 billion, or 29.6 percent, to $291.4 billion in the first quarter of 2022, according to statistics released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The revised fourth-quarter deficit was $224.8 billion. The first-quarter deficit was 4.8 percent of current-dollar gross domestic product, up from 3.7 percent in the fourth quarter.

• Current Release: June 23, 2022
• Next Release: September 22, 2022

U.S. International Investment Position, First Quarter 2022 and Annual Update



End of 1st quarter 2022:
-$17.75 trillion
End of 4th quarter 2021:
-$18.12 trillion
The U.S. net international investment position (IIP), the difference between U.S. residents’ foreign financial assets and liabilities, was -$17.75 trillion at the end of the first quarter of 2022, according to statistics released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Assets totaled $34.00 trillion, and liabilities were $51.75 trillion. At the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, the net investment position was -$18.12 trillion.

• Current Release: June 28, 2022
• Next Release: September 28, 2022

U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services, May 2022



May 2022
-$85.5B
April 2022
-$86.7B
The U.S. monthly international trade deficit decreased in May 2022 according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the U.S. Census Bureau. The deficit decreased from $86.7 billion in April (revised) to $85.5 billion in May, as exports increased more than imports. The previously published April deficit was $87.1 billion. The goods deficit decreased $2.9 billion in May to $105.0 billion. The services surplus decreased $1.7 billion in May to $19.4 billion.

• Current Release: July 7, 2022
• Next release: August 4, 2022

New Foreign Direct Investment in the United States, 2021



New Investment by Foreign Direct Investors:
$333.6 billion (preliminary)
Expenditures by foreign direct investors to acquire, establish, or expand U.S. businesses totaled $333.6 billion (preliminary) in 2021.

• Current release: July 6, 2022
• Next release: July 2023

Regional Economic Accounts

Gross Domestic Product by State, 1st Quarter 2022



Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased in 46 states and the District of Columbia in the first quarter of 2022, as real GDP for the nation decreased at an annual rate of 1.6 percent. The percent change in real GDP in the first quarter ranged from 1.2 percent in New Hampshire to –9.7 percent in Wyoming.

• Current Release: June 30, 2022
• Next Release: September 30, 2022

Personal Income by State, 1st Quarter 2022



State personal income increased 4.8 percent at an annual rate in the first quarter of 2022 after increasing 3.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021. The percent change in personal income across all states ranged from 8.5 percent in South Dakota to 1.3 percent in Hawaii.












Note on Per Capita Personal Income

• Current Release: June 22, 2022
• Next Release: September 30, 2022

Personal Income by County and Metropolitan Area, 2020



In 2020, personal income increased in 3,040 counties, decreased in 69, and was unchanged in 3. Personal income increased 6.4 percent in the metropolitan portion of the United States and increased 7.6 percent in the nonmetropolitan portion. Personal income estimates were impacted by the response to the spread of COVID-19, as governments issued and lifted “stay-at-home” orders. The full economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be quantified in the local area personal income estimates, because the impacts are generally embedded in source data and cannot be separately identified.












Note on Per Capita Personal Income

• Current Release: November 16, 2021
• Next Release: November 16, 2022

Personal Consumption Expenditures by State, 2020



US PCE growth
-2.6%
State personal consumption expenditures (PCE) decreased 2.6 percent in 2020 after increasing 3.7 percent in 2019. The percent change in PCE across all 50 states and the District of Columbia ranged from 1.2 percent in Idaho and Utah to –5.8 percent in the District of Columbia.












Note on Per Capita Personal Consumption Expenditures

• Current Release: October 8, 2021
• Next release: October 6, 2022

The fed disagrees as they just upped the rates again.

As usual you are way off topic. Very little in the post said anything about the economy except for Trump's dismal GDP unbalance.