The President Signed Funding Legislation In September 2018 That Increased Funding For School Choice By $42 Million
Mr. Trump, who campaigned in 2016 on eliminating or drastically reducing the size of the Department of Education, tried to slash federal funding for public schools and dramatically increase funding for school choice and voucher programs. Congress overrode him. The $42 million is a small amount compared to the $400 million his administration initially proposed to expand charter schools and vouchers for private and religious schools.
When He Stopped Funding For The Un Population Fund Which Supports Family Planning Across The Globe
In a Trump-led crusade against the health and rights of women and girls globally, the US ended all funding for the United Nations Population Fund in 2017.
The fund supports reproductive and sexual health programmes for vulnerable women in over 150 countries, like Venezuela and Syria.
At the time, Trump cited false claims of programmes requiring coercive abortion.
In response, womens rights activists said he had signed a global death warrant for women.
Trump Passed A Significant Criminal Justice Reform Measure But His Administration Has Worked To Undo It
Standing before hundreds of Black and brown supporters earlier this month, Trump said that America has reached a historic reduction of violent crime during his presidency. We signed a landmark criminal justice reform bill that nobody thought was possible to think about. I did that. I did that. I got that done, he said.
In December 2018, Trump did indeed sign the First Step Act, which made the most substantial changes in a generation to tough on crime laws that increased the federal prison population by 700 percent since 1970.
Since Trump signed the measure into law, more than 3,000 people have been released from federal prison due to the laws good time credits, which provide early release for well-behaved inmates hundreds have beenreleased into the elderly home confinement pilot program, which places older federal inmates in home confinement before the end of their prison term and more than 2,000 people 91 percent of whom are Black received sentencing reductions because the First Step Act retroactively applied the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 , reducing the sentencing disparity between crack and cocaine charges.
While these changes are substantial, many have pointed to the areas where the act fails and why Trump cant take full credit for the initiative.
Proponents of the law have also pointed out that its effects on the size of the federal prison system will ultimately be minimal. Voxs German Lopez reported:
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He Condoned The Beating Of A Black Lives Matter Protester
At a November campaign rally in Alabama, Trump supporters physically attacked an African-American protester after the man began chanting Black lives matter. Video of the incident shows the assailants kicking the man after he has already fallen to the ground.
The following day, Trump implied that the attackers were justified.
Maybe should have been roughed up, he mused. It was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.
A black protester at Trump’s rally today in Alabama was shoved, tackled, punched & kicked:
Jeremy Diamond
Trumps dismissive attitude toward the protester is part of a larger, troubling pattern of instigating violence toward protesters at campaign events that has singled out people of color.
One reason Trump may have exhibited special disdain for that particular demonstrator in November, however, is because he believes the entire Black Lives Matter movement lacks legitimate policy grievances. He alluded to these views in an interview with the New York Times magazine this week when he described Ferguson, Missouri, as one of the most dangerous places in America. The small St. Louis suburb is not even in the top 20 highest-crime municipalities in the country.
‘a Surrender Of Global Leadership’
Laura Belmonte is a history professor and dean of the Virginia Tech College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. She is a foreign relations specialist and author of books on cultural diplomacy.
What’s Trump’s key legacy?
His attempt to surrender global leadership and replace it with a more inward-looking, fortress-like mentality. I don’t think it succeeded, but the question is how profound has the damage to America’s international reputation been – and that remains to be seen.
The moment I found jaw-dropping was the press conference he had with Vladimir Putin in 2018 in Helsinki, where he took Putin’s side over US intelligence in regard to Russian interference in the election.
I can’t think of another episode of a president siding full force with a non-democratic society adversary.
It’s also very emblematic of a larger assault on any number of multilateral institutions and treaties and frameworks that Trump has unleashed, like the withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, the withdrawal of the Iranian nuclear framework.
What else stands out to you?
Trump’s applauding Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, really turning himself inside out to align the US with regimes that are the antithesis of values that the US says it wants to promote. That is something that I think was really quite distinctive.
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When He Refused To Release His Tax Returns
From the very beginning, Trump refused to drop his taxes. Why? We can only guess. But former lawyer Michael Cohen suggested it might be for a very Trumpian reason.
He doesnt report the income he claims, Cohen claimed during an interview to promote his book, Disloyal.
His wealth is not as significant, and I imagine they were probably lenient in how they took deductions.
He also said releasing the tax returns might throw up more problems for Trump.
His biggest fear is, if that tax return was released, theres a whole slew of accountants and forensic accountants that will rip through it and he will end up with a massive tax bill, penalties, fines, and possibly even tax fraud, Cohen added.
When He Appointed Jeff Sessions Attorney General
Donald Trump might be slamming Jeff Sessions now but when he appointed him his first official attorney general, he seemed like a big fan.
Which was despite large protests against giving Sessions the role, thanks to his past record, which included opposition to LGBTQ rights and protecting voting rights for marginalised groups.
While in office, Sessions immediately began undercutting federal rights for LGBTQ people, especially trans individuals.
Did Trump care, before or after? Absolutely not.
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Trump Has Largely Kept Promise To Reverse Obamas Cuba Policy
The Trump administration made it harder for Americans to visit the island by getting rid of the “people to people” group travel, preventing cruise ships from stopping in Cuba and restricting U.S. airlines and charter flights from flying to any city other than Havana.
Trump’s team also increased financial and banking restrictions against the Cuban regime and increased restrictions regarding shipping to Cuba. The administration refused to name a U.S. ambassador to Cuba. The administration also ordered to close its hotel in Havana by August.
“In overall policy direction, there has been a complete reversal, with the tone changing from engagement to isolation and confrontation. In implementation, there has been a substantial, though not complete, reversal,” said Pedro A. Freyre, chair of the Akerman law firm’s international practice in Miami.
A number of regulatory changes implemented by Obama do remain in place, including that the U.S. still has an embassy in Havana .
There is one issue in which both administrations seem to agree: immigration.
In January 2017, the Obama administration terminated the automatic granting of parole to Cubans, ending a policy of welcoming Cuban refugees in effect since the early 1960s. The Trump administration has not reversed this change, which aligns with its own general immigration policy objectives, said Sebastián A. Arcos, associate director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.
Trump Signed A Law Ending The Gag Orders On Pharmacists That Prevented Them From Sharing Money
True. Mr. Trump tweeted in support of this law and deserves credit for using the bully pulpit of the presidency to demand transparency in drug prices. But Congress deserves most of the credit for the unanimous 2018 passage of this transparency law, which prohibits gag orders that prevent pharmacists from sharing prescription drug prices with customers.
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Fair And Reciprocal Trade
Secured historic trade deals to defend American workers.
Took strong actions to confront unfair trade practices and put America First.
- Imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions worth of Chinese goods to protect American jobs and stop Chinas abuses under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.
- Directed an all-of-government effort to halt and punish efforts by the Communist Party of China to steal and profit from American innovations and intellectual property.
- Imposed tariffs on foreign aluminum and foreign steel to protect our vital industries and support our national security.
- Approved tariffs on $1.8 billion in imports of washing machines and $8.5 billion in imports of solar panels.
- Blocked illegal timber imports from Peru.
- Took action against France for its digital services tax that unfairly targets American technology companies.
- Launched investigations into digital services taxes that have been proposed or adopted by 10 other countries.
Historic support for American farmers.
Early Life And Business Career
Trump was the fourth of five children of Frederick Christ Trump, a successful real estate developer, and Mary MacLeod. Donalds eldest sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, eventually served as a U.S. district court judge and later as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit until her retirement in 2011. His elder brother, Frederick, Jr. , worked briefly for his fathers business before becoming an airline pilot in the 1960s. Freddys alcoholism led to his early death in 1981, at the age of 43.
Donald Trump attended New York Military Academy , a private boarding school Fordham University in the Bronx and the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School of Finance and Commerce , where he graduated with a bachelors degree in economics. In 1968, during the Vietnam War, he secured a diagnosis of bone spurs, which qualified him for a medical exemption from the military draft . Upon his graduation Trump began working full-time for his fathers business, helping to manage its holdings of rental housing, then estimated at between 10,000 and 22,000 units. In 1974 he became president of a conglomeration of Trump-owned corporations and partnerships, which he later named the Trump Organization.
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Reformed Medicare Program To Stop Hospitals From Overcharging Low
Its true that the Trump administration changed the rules for how Medicare pays for prescription drugs through the 340B program, lowering the rate that hospitals are reimbursed for drugs, which in some cases lowers co-payments for seniors, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. It is not clear how much seniors have saved through this change.
Repeal Of The Aca Individual Mandate
President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law in December 2017, which included the repeal of the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act . This removed the requirement that all persons purchase health insurance or pay a penalty. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that up to 13 million fewer persons would be covered by health insurance by 2027 relative to prior law and insurance premiums on the exchanges would increase by about 10 percentage points. This is because removing the mandate encourages younger and typically healthier persons to opt out of health insurance on the ACA exchanges, increasing premiums for the remainder. The non-group insurance market would continue to be stable . CBO estimated this would reduce government spending for healthcare subsidies to lower income persons by up to $338 billion in total during the 2018â2027 period compared to the prior law baseline. Trump stated in an interview with The New York Times in December 2017: “I believe we can do health care in a bipartisan way, because we’ve essentially gutted and ended Obamacare.”
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Give The Public A Song And Dance
In 2016 Mr Trump distinguished himself not just in how he talked but also in what he said. Like all Republicans since Ronald Reagan he was in favour of tax cuts, deregulation, conservative judges, safer streets, stronger armed forces and lower government debt he was against Obamacare and open borders.
But on many issues he stood out as unorthodox, extreme or bothand in so doing captured voters imaginations in a way that his rivals did not. He pledged to deport all 11m undocumented immigrants in the country and build a wall on the border with Mexico. He derided the partys foreign-policy and free-trade orthodoxies as failures, and held that trade deficits were purely a sign of weakness and poor negotiatingwhich, as the master of the deal, he could set right. He bashed Wall Street and was against making Social Security and Medicare, the pension and health-insurance programmes for the elderly, less generous. He mocked and disparaged not just his opponents, but also revered Republicans such as the late Senator John McCain .
In some areas losing rules was beneficial in few was it fundamental. In finance, for example, though some rules were streamlined, Dodd-Frank, the sweeping law passed after the Great Recession to rein in banks, was not thrown out . The exception was environmental regulation, which has been thoroughly savaged.
He Trashed Native Americans Too
In 1993, when Trump wanted to open a casino in Bridgeport, Connecticut, that would compete with one owned by the Mashantucket Pequot Nation, a local Native American tribe, he told the House subcommittee on Native American Affairs that they dont look like Indians to me… They dont look like Indians to Indians.
Trump then elaborated on those remarks, which were unearthed last year in the Hartford Courant, by saying the mafia had infiltrated Indian casinos.
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Accomplishment: Defeating Isis’s Caliphate And Killing Abu Bakr Al
ISIS shocked the world in 2014 when it took over a large swath of territory across Iraq and Syria and declared a caliphate.
The terrorist group’s territorial holdings were the basis for its so-called caliphate, and provided it will a major base of operations to conduct attacks across the world.
After a five-year effort led by the US, ISIS’s caliphate was finally defeated in March 2019.
Trump at times falsely claimed that ISIS is totally defeated, embellishing the extent of the US military’s success against the terrorist organization during his presidency. Though the terrorist group has lost its territory its so-called caliphate it’s still estimated to have up to 18,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria.
In late October, a US raid led to the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Baghdadi was the world’s most wanted terrorist up to that point and his death represented a major blow to the terrorist group.
“Last night, the United States brought the world’s No. 1 terrorist leader to justice,” Trump said at the time. “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead.”
“Capturing or killing him has been the top national security priority of my administration,” he added.
He Refused To Condemn The White Supremacists Who Are Campaigning For Him
Three times in a row on Feb. 28, Trump sidestepped opportunities to renounce white nationalist and former KKK leader David Duke, who told his radio audience last week that voting for any candidate other than Trump is really treason to your heritage.
When asked by CNNs Jake Tapper if he would condemn Duke and say he didnt want a vote from him or any other white supremacists, Trump claimed that he didnt know anything about white supremacists or about Duke himself. When Tapper pressed him twice more, Trump said he couldnt condemn a group he hadnt yet researched.
By Feb. 29, Trump was saying that in fact he does disavow Duke, and that the only reason he didnt do so on CNN was because of a lousy earpiece. Video of the exchange, however, shows Trump responding quickly to Tappers questions with no apparent difficulty in hearing.
Its preposterous to think that Trump doesnt know about white supremacist groups or their sometimes violent support of him. Reports of neo-Nazi groups rallying around Trump go back as far as August.
A leader of the Virginia KKK who is backing Trump told a local TV reporter earlier this month, The reason a lot of Klan members like Donald Trump is because a lot of what he believes, we believe in.
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Nato Allies Increased Their Defense Spending Because Of His Pressure Campaign
True. Although NATO countries were already modestly increasing their military spending before Mr. Trump took office, there is evidence that his public complaints led to a deal that allowed the United States to decrease its own spending, while some other countries increased their share each year that he has been in office.
