Elevate Trump, by Tara Carreon

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Trump’s 40 Biggest Broken Promises Revealed
by Robert Reich
Aug 25, 2020



1. He said coronavirus would “go away without a vaccine.”

You bought it. But it didn’t. While other countries got the pandemic under control and avoided large numbers of fatalities, the virus has killed more than 130,000 Americans*, and that number is still climbing.

2. He said he won’t have time to play golf if elected president.

But he has made more than 250 visits to his golf clubs since he took office – a record for any president – including more trips during the pandemic than meetings with Dr. Fauci. The total financial cost to America? More than $136 million.

3. He said he would repeal the Affordable Care Act, and replace it with something “beautiful.”

It didn’t happen. Instead, 7 million Americans have lost their health insurance since he took office. He has asked the Supreme Court to strike down the law in the middle of a global pandemic with no plan to replace it.

4. He said he’d cut your taxes, and that the super-rich like him would pay more.

He did the opposite. By 2027, the richest 1 percent will have received 83 percent of the Trump tax cut and the richest 0.1 percent, 60 percent of it. But more than half of all Americans will pay more in taxes.

5. He said corporations would use their tax cuts to invest in American workers.

They didn’t. Corporations spent more of their tax savings buying back shares of their own stock than increasing workers wages.

6. He said he would boost economic growth by 4 percent a year.

Nope. The economy stalled, and unemployment has soared to the highest levels since the Great Depression. Just over half of working-age Americans are employed – the worst ratio in 70 years.

7. He said he wouldn’t “cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid.”

His latest budget includes billions in cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

8. He promised to be “the voice” of American workers.

He hasn’t. His administration has stripped workers of their rights, repealed overtime protections, rolled back workplace safety rules, and turned a blind eye to employers who steal their workers’ wages.

9. He promised that the average American family would see a $4,000 pay raise because of his tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

But nothing trickled down. Wages for most Americans have barely kept up with inflation.

10. He promised that anyone who wants a test for Covid will get one.

But countless Americans still can’t get a test.

11. He said hydroxychloroquine protects against coronavirus.

No way. The FDA revoked its emergency authorization due to the drug’s potentially lethal side effects.

12. He promised to eliminate the federal deficit.

He has increased the federal deficit by more than 60 percent.

13. He said he would hire “only the best people.”

He has fired a record number of his own cabinet and White House picks, and then called them “whackos,” “dumb as a rock,“ and "not mentally qualified.” 6 of them have been charged with crimes.

14. He promised to bring down the price of prescription drugs and said drug companies are “getting away with murder.”

They still are. Drug prices have soared, and a company that got federal funds to develop a drug to treat coronavirus is charging $3,000 a pop.=

15. He promised to revive the struggling coal industry and bring back lost coal mining jobs.

The coal industry has continued to lose jobs as clean energy becomes cheaper.

16. He promised to help American workers during the pandemic.

But 80% of the tax benefits in the coronavirus stimulus package have gone to millionaires and billionaires. And at least 21 million Americans have lost extra unemployment benefits, with no new stimulus check to fall back on.

17. He said he’d drain the swamp.

Instead, he’s brought into his administration more billionaires, CEOs, and Wall Street moguls than in any administration in history, and he’s filled departments and agencies with former lobbyists, lawyers and consultants who are crafting new policies for the same industries they used to work for.

18. He promised to protect Americans with pre-existing conditions.

His Justice Department is trying to repeal the entire Affordable Care Act, including protections for people with preexisting conditions.

19. He said Mexico would pay for his border wall.

The wall is estimated to cost American taxpayers an estimated $11 billion.

20. He promised to bring peace to the Middle East.

Instead, tensions have increased and his so-called “peace plan” was dead on arrival.

21. He promised to lock up Hillary Clinton for using a private email server.

He didn’t. Funny enough, Trump uses his personal cell-phone for official business, and several members of his own administration, including Jared Kushner and Ivanka, have used private email in the White House.

22. He promised to use his business experience to whip the federal government into shape.

He hasn’t. His White House is in permanent chaos. He caused the longest government shutdown in our nation’s history when he didn’t get funding for his wall.

23. He promised to end DACA.

The Supreme Court ruled that his plan to deport 700,000 young immigrants was unconstitutional, and DACA still stands.

24. He promised “six weeks of paid maternity leave to any mother with a newborn child whose employer does not provide the benefit.”

He hasn’t delivered.

25. He promised to bring an end to Kim Jong-Un’s nuclear program.

Kim is expanding North Korea’s nuclear program.

26. He said he would distance himself from his businesses while in office.

He continues to make money from his properties and maintain his grip on his real estate empire.

27. He said he’d force companies to keep jobs in America, and that there would be consequences for companies that shipped jobs abroad.

Since he took office, companies like GE, Carrier, Ford, and Harley Davidson have continued to outsource thousands of jobs while still receiving massive tax breaks. And offshoring by federal contractors has increased.

28. He promised to end the opioid crisis.

Americans are now more likely to die from an opioid overdose than a car accident.

29. He said he’d release his tax returns.

It’s been nearly 4 years. He hasn’t released his tax returns.

30. He promised to tear up the Iran nuclear deal and renegotiate a better deal.

Negotiations have gone nowhere, and he brought us to the brink of war.

31. He promised to enact term limits for all members of Congress.

He has not even tried to enact term limits.

32. He promised that China would pay for tariffs on imported goods.

His trade war has cost U.S. consumers $34 billion a year, eliminated 300,000 American jobs, and cost American taxpayers $22 billion in subsidies for farmers hurt by the tariffs.

33. He promised to “push colleges to cut the skyrocketing cost of tuition.”

Instead, he’s made it easier for for-profit colleges to defraud students, and tuition is still rising.

34. He promised to protect American steel jobs.

The steel industry continues to lose jobs.

35. He promised tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations would spur economic growth and pay for themselves.

His tax cuts will add $2 trillion to the federal deficit.

36. After pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord, he said he’d negotiate a better deal on the environment.

He hasn’t attempted to negotiate any deal.

37. He promised that the many women who accused him of sexual misconduct “will be sued after the election is over.”

He hasn’t sued them, presumably because he doesn’t want the truth to come out.

38. He promised to bring back all troops from Afghanistan.

He now says: "We’ll always have somebody there.”

39. He pledged to put America first.

Instead, he’s deferred to dictators and authoritarians at America’s expense, and ostracized our allies — who now laugh at us behind our back.

40. He promised to be the voice of the common people.

He’s made his rich friends richer, increased the political power of big corporations and the wealthy, and harmed working Americans.Don’t let the liar-in-chief break any more promises. Vote him out in November.

[admin]

Donald Trump was for the Clintons before he was against them
by Nick Gass 12/29/2015 03:48 PM EST
Politico
12/29/2015 03:48 PM EST

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Rudolph W. Giuliani, Donald Trump and Bill Clinton play golf at at Trump National Golf Club in 2008. | Getty

Hillary Clinton took a seat in the front pew at the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida, one of 450 guests on the balmy Saturday night in January 2005 when Donald Trump tied the knot with Melania Knauss, his third (and current) wife. At the reception that followed, Bill Clinton joined his wife, the former first lady who was then serving Trump's home state of New York in the Senate.

Trump now says Clinton had "no choice" but to attend his wedding because he donated money to her campaign. And he's viciously attacking his potential rival for the White House as a liar and a criminal, while dredging up old stories about her husband's zipper problem. But his record of praising both Clintons is voluminous, and seems to go far beyond an attempt to further his business interests.

For instance, the Donald Trump of 2015 says that Bill Clinton has "demonstrated a penchant for sexism" and has a "terrible record of women abuse." Over the years, however, he repeatedly downplayed the importance of the former president's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

In August 1998, the same month Clinton testified that he had had an "improper physical relationship" with Lewinsky, Trump pondered how issues with women might befall him as president.

"Can you imagine how controversial I'd be? You think about him with the women — how about me with the women? Can you imagine?" he wondered aloud in a CNBC interview. "I really like this guy, but you really have to say, 'Where does it stop?" Trump asked, remarking that Clinton "had such bad advice" in handling the scandal.

There was the September 1999 interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, in which Trump remarked that Clinton would have gone down in history "as a great president" if not for the Lewinsky scandal, which admittedly had been handled "disgracefully."

Clinton, Trump averred, would have found a "more forgiving" public "if he'd had an affair with a really beautiful woman of sophistication." "Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe were on a different level. Now Clinton can't get into golf clubs in Westchester. A former president begging to get in a golf club. It's unthinkable," he remarked.

In a January 2000 appearance with then-Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, Trump even attacked Linda Tripp, the Pentagon employee who taped her private conversations with Lewinsky in which they discussed her sexual encounters with Clinton, as "the personification of evil."

In an October 2008 interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Trump tore into President George W. Bush for getting the U.S. into war "with lies," remarking that by comparison, his predecessor "got into with something that was totally unimportant." He added: "And they tried to impeach him, which was nonsense."

Trump has been equally generous, if not altogether fawning, in his praise of Hillary Clinton.

In a CNN interview in 2007, he said that Clinton, then running for president for the first time, was a "terrific" person who "would do a good job" cutting a nuclear deal with Iran because she "always surrounded herself with very good people."

On Tuesday, BuzzFeed reported on an archived web page of a blog post on TrumpUniversity.com in March 2008 in which Trump wrote that Clinton would "make a great president or vice-president." “Hillary Clinton said she’d consider naming Barack Obama as her vice-president when she gets the nomination, but she’s nowhere near a shoo-in,” he wrote on March 13, at a time when Sen. Obama held a slim lead over Clinton in terms of estimated pledged delegates. "For his part, Obama said he’s just focused on winning the nomination, although at least one member of his team said Clinton would make a good vice-president. (I know Hillary and I think she’d make a great president or vice-president.)"

After declining to enter the presidential race in 2012, Trump told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren that Clinton had done a great job as secretary of state.

"Hillary Clinton I think is a terrific woman," he said. "I am biased because I have known her for years. I live in New York. She lives in New York. I really like her and her husband both a lot. I think she really works hard. And I think, again, she's given an agenda, it is not all of her, but I think she really works hard and I think she does a good job. I like her."

Asked whether he would support her in the case of a presidential run, Trump said that he did not "want to get into this because I will get myself into trouble."

"I just like her," Trump remarked, adding the same of the former president. "I like her husband. Her husband made a speech on Monday and was very well received. He is — he is a really good guy, and she's a really good person and woman."

Trump sounded a similar note in an October 2013 interview with Larry King, who asked Trump if he thought the former secretary of state would run for the White House a second time, pointing out that she is a "fellow New Yorker."

“Yeah, and I know her very well. They’re members of my club, and I like both of them very much, and he was with you one time and he said he likes me," Trump said, adding, "and I do like him."

While mentioning that there was still "a long time to go" until the election, Trump commented that Clinton's health could be a concern with a potential bid, but that a subsequent run the nomination would be more of a leisurely stroll.

“You have a big health question. Will she be healthy? I hope she’s healthy now. I think she is. But you know that’s a long time. You have to wait till the ’14 [election] is over, and then you have to go out and really do it," Trump said. “You always have to think about health. I think that subject to that or some crazy thing happening — and lots of crazy things can happen —she has the nomination practically wrapped up, it would seem to me.”

As 2015 drew to a close, Trump appeared less concerned with Clinton's physical health and more with her campaign's strategy to, as he said, play "the women's card" against him. Asked to respond specifically to his tweet citing the former president's "abuse" of women, Trump offered to send a list to the office of NBC's "Today."

"Of course, we could name many of them. I can get you a list, and I’ll have it sent to your office in two seconds but there was certainly a lot of abuse of women," Trump told show co-host Savannah Guthrie on Tuesday morning. "You look at whether it's Monica Lewinsky or Paula Jones or many of them, and that certainly will be fair game. Certainly if they play the woman’s card with respect to me, that will be fair game."

Asked to account for his change in tone, Trump explained that it was his "obligation" to get along with everyone when he was on the other side of political transactions.

"I got along with everybody. I got along with the Clintons, I got along with the Republicans, the Democrats, the liberals, the conservatives. That was my obligation. As a businessman, I had to get along with everybody, and I’ll get along and do that as president," he continued, remarking, "when I needed approvals, when I needed something from Washington, I always got what I wanted, and that’s because I was able to get along with everybody."