Trump's Promises and Claims - One Year Later
A scorecard for hyperbole
One year ago when Trump took office for the second time, I started this post which is updated from the original below the fold. As promised by me, I am reposting here with my latest updates.
First some commentary. This was always a partial list. More importantly it was always an unweighted list. Some of the promises were very significant while others much less so. None were unmeaningful; although, quite a few were crazy on stilts—all too typical of Trump.
For all politicians to one degree or another the things they promise, especially on the campaign trail, are a mixture of constituent bait and aspiration. In Trump’s case this of course gets very much intensified. His supporters enable him with a varying combination of embarrassing credulity and irresponsible absolution.
In case I’m not being clear: His supporters quite often are either gullible fools or fascist enablers. I don’t use any of these terms without careful consideration. From his socialist economics to his childish plans (a forced taking or buying of Greenland didn’t make this list, but many others did) to his cruelty-based policies, the Trump II presidency is a farce within a scam resulting in real human suffering. You may be “using Trump” to get your preferred policies, but so is Stephen Miller, Peter Navarro, RFK, Jr., and all the Trump family among many others. Some are laughing all the way to the bank. Others are laughing all the way to despicable horrors.
As I eluded to in the initial post when saying, “I am not opposed to all of these. Many I support in part (e.g., ending wars) or in whole (e.g., freeing Ross Ulbricht). This is more about tracking rhetoric versus reality.” Some promises I supported, but many others I vehemently opposed. Unfortunately, he at least partially came through on the bad stuff, and the good stuff simply wasn’t that big a deal even when he accomplished it.
If we are applying a lesser-of-evils framework, I’m not sure what wouldn’t have been lesser than this. Come for the improved investment tax deductions and rollback of DEI (good things for sure), but realize you are staying for the biggest tax increase in modern U.S. history and racist police thugs in the streets.
I will keep updating this again this year on a monthly basis. I don’t want any of his supporters’ criticism when he lowers energy bills by 50%, eliminates the national debt, or deports all illegal immigrants. Which is all a backhanded way of saying when he most certainly doesn’t do these things, I’ll be here to say I told you so.1 And when he keeps trying these things, I’ll be here to point out how undesirable are his methods or outcomes or both. I’ll even give credit when it is due.
[Updated January 19, 2026 including the scorecard, I will update this post monthly and likely repost in a year. The original post is here. The previous monthly updated post is here.]
As we start Trump 2.0, I think it is a good idea to track the impactful things Trump himself or his campaign or administration promised in the campaign and have claimed otherwise. I will try hard to limit this to the actual things said rather than other’s interpretation much less mischaracterization of them—I hope to avoid any “very fine people” mistakes/lies. Trump is bad enough on his own without a need to spin his words.
Note that I am not opposed to all of these. Many I support in part (e.g., ending wars) or in whole (e.g., freeing Ross Ulbricht). This is more about tracking rhetoric versus reality.
I expect to both update this with additions and (if necessary) edits as well as repost occasionally with updates on progress. These will be in no particular order other than the obvious groupings. On to the list.
He will . . .
End the war in the Ukraine before he takes office [Arguably he claimed to end it within 24 hours of being elected.] - Status: FAILED TO DO
Lower energy bills by 50% as the method to reduce grocery prices - Status:
FAILED TO MAKE PROGRESSI will count this as fulfilled simply if the CPI level for the category energy is ever below 141.24 (1/2 of the level it was at as of the January 31, 2025 update). Note that this doesn’t necessarily mean energy bills will be 50% lower—they likely would still not be. [Update 10/01/25] I am combining the prior category of failed to make progress into LITTLE TO NO PROGRESS. The original idea was to distinguish between those goals begun and those not yet attempted. It might have made sense originally, but it is now a distinction without a difference.[Stemming from his first campaign] Eliminate the national debt over eight years [It was $20T upon taking office in his first term; since he gave himself 8 years, I’m including it in this list.] - Status:
FAILED TO MAKE PROGRESSDebt was $27.7T at the end of his first term with $3.2T of the addition coming before COVID. It is approaching $36T as he takes office the second time. I will count this as fulfilled if debt is simply below $16T (36T - 20T) by the time he leaves office. [Update 10/01/25] Status: LITTLE TO NO PROGRESSOn Day One
Free Ross Ulbricht - Status: FULFILLED* (*on day two in office)
Delay a ban on TikTok - Status: FULFILLED
End birthright citizenship - Status:
ATTEMPTEDCurrently halted by the courts, I will count this as fulfilled if he prevails. [Update 10/01/25] Status: NOT YET COMPLETED. As with the other category elimination, I will collapse attempted into not yet completed. I was trying to distinguish between wild shots in the dark (attempts) and reasonable goals with a chance of fulfillment (not yet completeds). In retrospect I could see how that was layering in some subjectivity that doesn’t add to the project at hand.Impose 25% tariffs on ALL products coming from Mexico and Canada [These are to stay into place “until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”] - Status: FAILED TO DO He promised instead to being a research process and may install these tariffs by February 1. [Update 03/01/25] The tariffs have been on/off several times as of today. They are currently set to take effect March 4th. Regardless, this one will stay as a failure since he did not accomplish it on day one. [Update 07/27/25] Just to put a bow on this one, yes, his moronic tariff tax increases continue to be two steps on and one step off—significant net increases. So in a sense he continues to achieve this goal in spirit. Regardless, it is a failure in a strict sense, which speaks to the gap between what Trump believes/claims to be able to do and what he can actually accomplish.
Repeal Biden’s tailpipe emissions rule, which effectively mandates that the majority of new cars sold in America by 2032 will have to be electric vehicles [Originally a Day One imitative, but he admitted it could take two days.] - Status: FULFILLED at least in part through executive orders signed within the first two days in office.
Get the federal government out of education including ending the Department of Education - Status:
NOT YET COMPLETEDI am upgrading this given the recent progress. For this to end fulfilled both the department will have to formally be closed (I will accept a de facto closing) and the federal government will need to have ended the programs the DoEd was doing—not simply transfer them to another area of the federal government. [Update 10/01/25] I am downgrading the status to SLIGHT PROGRESS given how this has stalled.End taxes on tips and overtime and Social Security [To be fair he may have only said seniors should not pay tax on SS. Update: He reiterated this at a rally in Las Vegas on 01/25/25.] - Status: SLIGHT PROGRESS This is where it stands as of early March in that the initial house budget plan includes an opening for negotiations on taxes. [Update 06/01/2025] His “Big Beautiful Bill” does contain no tax on tips or overtime as well as a senior tax exclusion—I will update as this develops, but still holding at slight progress. [Update 07/02/2025] OBBBA has passed the Senate with these provisions in tact. Still it remains to be seen if they survive reconciliation. I’m upgrading it to NOT YET COMPLETED. [Update 07/27/25] With qualifications, he did indeed get taxes on tips removed and some tax on overtime removed. The OBBB does include a new deduction for Social Security, but it did not eliminate taxation on it as promised. To capture all of this fairly, I am separating it into three parts (tips, overtime, and SS) and finalizing them as FULFILLED, FULFILLED, and FAILED TO DO.
Put a temporary cap on consumer credit card interest rates at 10% - Status:
LITTLE TO NO PROGRESSAlthough talk of this continues, it is not yet close to reality. [Update 01/19/2026] I am going to be generous to his effort and upgrade this to SLIGHT PROGRESS. I’ll add with appropriate snark that if he pulls this one off, he’ll probably pull off the lowering of energy bills by 50% . . . be careful what you ask for.Impose at least a 60% tariff on all Chinese imports - Status: FULFILLED He has imposed a 10% across-the-board tariff and is threatening another 10% (I’m assuming this is an addition to make the tariff 20%). [Update 3/30/2025] Based on SupplyChainDive we are still at a 20% added tariff with China. [Update 05/02/2025] Whether they remain in place or not, I do think he has fulfilled this promise as the tariff rate today stands at 145%. [Update 06/01/2025] While I am keeping this at fulfilled, I do see this as a very generous rating since Trump quickly walked back the Chinese tariff with it likely not being above 60% for any meaningful period.
Deport all illegal immigrants [Update: He reiterated during his inauguration speech, “All illegal entry will be immediately halted and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places they came.”] - Status: SLIGHT PROGRESS He has had some sensational photo ops, highly-publicized one-offs, and other ugly moments, but it seems the deportation volume is fairly low at this point. [Update 3/30/2025] Tom Cartwright’s X account and the NYTimes are good sources for tracking this one. [Update 05/02/2025] Deportations continue but at a pace that cannot live up to the promise. [Update 06/01/2025] As I have documented, the deportations tragically continue including many legal immigrants, which wouldn’t count toward this promise. However, the pace is well below any possible fulfillment rate. [Update 09/26/2025] This WSJ report notes how far below any target the administration is including the goal of deporting one million people in Trump’s first year in office. In fact deportations appear to be well behind the volume during Biden’s administration. [Update 01/19/2026] If the administration can be believed, they have deported over 600,000 illegal immigrants. Being generous, we could add in their claimed 1.9 million self-deported illegals to arrive at 2.5 million. Even if these numbers are roughly true, this is still just slight progress against the likely 8-10 million illegal immigrants in the country at the start of Trump’s second term and much less than the 30-50 million the administration has claimed.
Appoint a libertarian to his cabinet and many libertarians to senior posts - Status: FAILED TO DO For this to be completed, the appointee must have libertarian credentials as judged by me. The only two that I can find are Elon Musk (arguably) at DOGE and Jay Bhattacharya as NIH Director. Neither are cabinet level.
Pardon at least some of the January 6 rioters - Status: FULFILLED
[Updated following inauguration to add]
Make public the remaining classified documents pertaining to the assignations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, Jr. - Status:
NOT YET COMPLETEDHis EO directs the Director of National Intelligence (Tulsi Gabbard) and Attorney General (Pam Bondi) to present a plan within 15 days for JFK and 45 days for RFK & MLK, Jr. for public release. Highly redacted documents will not qualify for fulfillment. The JFK portion is in progress it seems. [Update 3/19/2025] The administration released about 2,200 files pertaining to JFK. It is unclear if anything remains classified, but I will count this portion as fulfilled with the other two still pending. [Update 05/02/2025] After releasing about 10,000 RFK documents, about 50,000 more classified ones were discovered. At least 14,000 appear to have not yet been released. The MLK, Jr. files seem to remain classified as of now. [Update 06/01/2025] It seems that all RFK files have been released? But that the MLK, Jr. files remain classified as they are tied up from release opposition by the King family. It is likely that this will eventually have a fulfilled status. [Update 07/27/25] With the release of the MLK, Jr. files on July 21 (with interesting political timing), this one is now FULFILLED.
[Updated after first address to Congress to add]
“[W]e’re going to find out where that money is going, and it’s not going to be pretty, by slashing all of the fraud, waste and theft. And theft we can find. We will defeat inflation, bring down mortgage rates, lower car payments and grocery prices, protect our seniors and put more money in the pockets of American families.” [This was at the end of him describing the supposed fraud discovered by DOGE whereby millions of people marked as aged 100-360 are still collecting SS payments. Hard to score this one as it is so vague and so unclearly related to those ostensible goals. And since it is very likely not what he says it is, he is bound to fail at this. I’ll count it as fulfilled if there is in aggregate over $1 billion of fraudulent SS payments made annually connected with these ~20.5 million records.] - Status:
NOT YET COMPLETED[Update 07/02/2025] This status should have been LITTLE TO NO PROGRESS.“And in the near future I want to do what has not been done in 24 years — balance the federal budget, we’re gonna balance it.” [I’ll give him all four years to do it even once.] - Status:
FAILED TO MAKE PROGRESSsince through the end of March spending is tracking higher than the prior year. [Update 10/01/25] Status: LITTLE TO NO PROGRESSThroughout his campaign and during the lead up to the inauguration, he has promised, threatened, and claimed more or less that a trade war would be pursued. While he hasn’t come through on the tariff items listed above, I feel compelled to give him some credit for having actually done as much as he has done on a trade war vis-a-vis tariffs. - Status: FULFILLED
The Trump Gold Card: “We are going to be doing something else that’s going to be very good. We’re going to be selling a gold card. You have a green card; this is a gold card. We’re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million and that’s going to give you green card privileges plus it’s going to be a route to citizenship and wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card. They will be wealthy, they will be successful and they will be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people and we think it’s going to be extremely successful. Never been done before, anything like this, but it’s something that we’re going to be putting out over the next, would you say, two weeks?” - Status:
SLIGHT PROGRESSI’m being generous on this at the moment since it is still in the works. It has not passed Congress as of the end of March, and I do not want to hold Commerce Secretary Lutnick to his claim (or give credit yet) that he has sold 1,000 such cards. [Update 05/02/2025] I don’t yet see progress on this including it being made legal. [Update 06/26/2025] The waiting list is supposedly approaching 70,000 indicating interest but still without legal substation. [Update 12/01/2025] Trump issued an EO in September giving federal agencies 90 days to establish application procedures. The program is not yet operational or clearly legal. [Update 01/02/2026] This is now FULFILLED having come into effect in December with perhaps 1,000 units sold according to reports. It is still unclear how these applicants will fare in terms of permanent legal status being that it was an EO rather than an act of Congress. Regardless, he gets the “We-did-it W” here.
[Updated to add 08/31/2025]
Epstein List: This one is hard to capture as it has been such a circus. Trump has gone from stoking every angle of conspiracy theories during his campaign to his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, claiming to have the client list to then saying there is no client list and there is no there there. The point of view I’m taking is to look at any of the various claims made that support Epstein conspiracy. - Status: FAILED TO DO. This could be changed if we were to get what almost certainly doesn’t exist like a client list or some other development that substantiates in any meaningful way the various things Trump, et al. initially claimed.
[Updated to add 10/10/2025]
Crime in Washington, D.C. was down 100% following his deployment of National Guard troops, which would mean the occupation completely eliminated crime in the city. This single item will be a stand in for the many, many ridiculous things he and his administration officials say ranging from plausible lies like inflation is down ~60% to nonsensical claims like the price of eggs are down 400%. It’s obviously not just inflation numbers where these crazy lies are uttered. Basically in every press conference for every issue we see it. For more along these lines, see Radley Balko’s roundup of one month of authoritarianism, but come prepared to be very depressed after working through the list. - Status: FAILED TO DO.
Will he come through? We shall see . . .
To be sure I hope he does not deport all illegal immigrants. I just am sure he isn’t going to because of the logistical difficulty inherent in the task—but not for lack of trying. He probably can lower energy bills by 50% by crashing the economy and eliminate the debt through massive inflation or outright default. So who knows? Give a puncher a fighting chance already.