One of Trump's campaign promises was that he would "close the border" and end the unrestricted flow of illegal immigration. He says he accomplished that, and by some measures he has achieved his goal. By some measures. You can see by the chart that border apprehensions have dropped precipitously since Trump's re-election. But this isn't the whole story. For starters, although these figures provide a way to make apples-to-apples comparisons, they don't (and can't) include those who evade apprehension. They don't take into account the virtual elimination of asylum claims. Under Biden, asylum seekers could present themselves to any border patrol agent and request asylum. The applicants were then given a court date and "paroled", i.e. allowed to stay in the country while awaiting their court date. Asylum seekers who did not enter at a port of entry are included in "apprehensions". So not only do we have no idea how many people have successfully avoided being caught by the border patrol, but we can assume that anyone who would have applied for asylum outside a port of entry under Biden will take their chances under the Trump regime. Biden's policy undoubtedly added to the backlog in immigration courts, but Trump's likely provided motivation to enter illegally. The numbers support Trump's claim that he solved the border problem, but I don't trust his numbers or his interpretation of them.
Trump's whole immigration policy boils down to "immigrants bad" (at least the non-white ones). In addition to promising to stop illegal immigration, he has made it more difficult for people to immigrate legally. He has reneged on agreements that many immigrants had with the United States government. The Department of Homeland Security has been detaining and deporting people who are legal residents (Green Card holders) and those who had completed all the requirements for citizenship. They have revoked temporary protected status for several groups. They have dismissed court cases for people who had pending asylum cases. People who were here legally.
He campaigned on getting rid of the violent criminals, the worst of the worst. Instead, very few actual criminals or gang members have been deported — that would be too much work and dangerous as well. The simple fact of illegal entry has been defined as "dangerous crime" so that people can be swept up going to work or picking up their children from school.
Unless you agree with Trump that immigrants = bad, his immigration policy is not a success overall, and the claims that the border is "closed" is unverifiable.
Shrinking The Size Of Government
Remember DOGE? (the so-called Department of Government Efficiency) As it was originally promoted, DOGE was supposed to root out corruption, fraud, waste and inefficiency in the federal government. You don't hear too much about it anymore. Elon Musk, the billionaire who practices the "move fast and break things" mode of leadership, was put in charge of DOGE. (he came up with the name) In theory, rooting out corruption, fraud, waste and inefficiency in the federal government is a worthy goal. Process improvement, in theory, is a good thing. I've been involved in some process improvement initiatives in my career. If you can eliminate unnecessary steps in any process without sacrificing the end goal, you have added to a process' efficiency. Efficiency, as most people understand it, is causing what you are doing to be done faster, smoother, maybe even more economically. DOGE set a goal of eliminating $2 trillion from the federal budget as a result of its efforts.
It became clear from the beginning that whatever we all thought DOGE was doing, it wasn't eliminating inefficiency. It certainly wasn't identifying waste, fraud or corruption. In order to accurately identify any of the issues that DOGE claimed to be targeting, it would take a team with at least a passing familiarity with what the various government departments were supposed to be doing, i.e. what they had been, by law, tasked by Congress with doing. Accountants to audit the finances should have been part of the team as well. Maybe experts in organizational theory — at least people who had some experience in this kind of project. What he got was a bunch of inexperienced computer hackers who took joy in breaking things and exerting their authority over veteran government employees.
What DOGE actually did was eliminate any government programs that could be construed as being "liberal". The greatest damage was done to any of the many Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies and programs. Right wingers view Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as reverse discrimination. They're very hot on eliminating what they believe is discrimination against White people. Also targeted were any foreign aid programs and anything that the right wingers categorized as welfare. There was no involvement by Congress. There was no review by senior department officials. The DOGE team was unilaterally firing people, padlocking office building doors, and sending out emails demanding to know what employees had accomplished in the previous week. Whole agencies disappeared overnight.
This was illegal for multiple reasons.
The various departments, bureaus and agencies were created by Congress. The budgets for each of them were allocated by Congress. Despite them being part of the executive branch, the president had no authority to unilaterally eliminate these agencies, nor refuse to spend the funds allocated. Even less so did people who were not government employees and had no security clearance, led by someone who had not been confirmed by the Senate. Many of the fired employees had union protection, yet were fired anyway. In addition to initiatives that could conceivably be classified as "liberal", many science-based tracking and research programs were axed as well.
Despite the chaos, DOGE never came close to achieving it's nebulous mission. The $2 trillion goal was revised down to $1 trillion (the entire budget is less than $7 trillion) DOGE's website initially claimed $214 billion in savings, or 10.7% of the original goal. By August of 2025 they were claiming $54 billion, 2.7% of the original goal. Even that number appears inflated. Politico puts the actual savings at around 1% of their claims, ($540 billion) due to fuzzy, or even dishonest, math.
Despite all the chaos, all the illegality, despite arguably critical programs being eliminated, DOGE achieved 0.027% of it's savings goal. Did it find even one corrupt official? One example of fraud? Not a one. You know if they had, the Trump regime would have made sure we knew about it. They only achieved what puny numbers they did by redefining waste and inefficiency as "liberal programs and DEI.
Failure.
The Economy
Presidents are usually blamed for a bad economy. Biden certainly was blamed for the high inflation in the middle of his term. It's part of why Trump was re-elected. But by any measure, the economy was bouncing back by the time the 2024 election rolled around. Trump could have done nothing and taken credit for the economic recovery that was almost guaranteed to take place — that he was taking credit for, even before he was inaugurated. He could have suggested modest, realistic plans to get things back on track and benefitted from doing nothing. Instead he made wild, hyperbolic promises to eliminate inflation, roll back prices, and cut energy prices — most of it by "Day One". Those of us not mesmerized by Trump knew that very little a president did would affect prices. Biden didn't cause inflation and Trump had no ability to reverse it. It didn't take long after Inauguration Day for Trump to backpedal and admit there wasn't much he could do to roll back prices. Even after inflation started to creep up due to his insane tariff policy and gas process skyrocketed as a result of his unnecessary Iran War, he and his supporters pivoted to blaming Biden. The narrative changed from miracle working Trump to "Biden wrecked the economy" and it took time to fix it.
One thing that a president can do, is impose tariffs.
I wrote about tariffs last year. Tariffs are sometimes good policy. Another nation subsidizing a product to such an extent that it's impossible to compete, or to protect a new, growing industry. In general, tariffs are a bad idea. This article make the case that tariffs are, except for rare cases, never optimal. One of the main reasons is retaliation, which negates whatever theoretical advantage may have accrued. Trump's tariff actions, which I hesitate to call something as rational as a policy, seems to be based on his belief that other countries (every country?) are "treating us unfairly". This springs from his lack of understanding of what a trade deficit is. All that the existence of a trade deficit means is that we as a nation are buying more from foreign companies than we are selling. Trump believes that it means that we are losing money to foreign companies and governments. His across the board tariffs, rather than targeting specific industries, made everything more expensive. In many cases there weren't domestic alternatives. If there were domestic alternatives, the increased demand would cause their prices to rise as well. Inflation remains high, if not as high as the midpoint of Biden's term.
There's no question that tariffs are being paid by consumers. As of January the government has collected around $3 billion in tariff revenue, around three times the usual amount. How about the reason for these tariffs? Here's a few reasons that Trump has given:
- To stop the flow of fentanyl into the country from Canada
- France recognized a Palestinian state
- Brazil is prosecuting a former president for various crimes
- To stop illegal immigration
- To balance the budget
- It's fair
- National security
- To make child care more affordable (really)
- He doesn't like China
- I've written extensively on his authoritarian/dictatorial mode of governing — use the search function to find articles where I discuss this
- Corruption: I haven't written too much about this administration's corruption, but the recent "settlement" where the Trump family has been given implicit permission to cheat on their taxes and his supporters who had contact with the judicial system can benefit financially is only the most recent example. I'll be covering it in a separate article soon.
- White Christian Nationalism is taking over the military's leadership
- Spurred by Trump, Republicans are engaged in unprecedented mid-decade redistricting in an attempt to gerrymander their way to a House majority in this November's elections.
- Trump himself appears to be well along the dementia timeline, not to mention falling asleep in meetings — with cameras running!
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