As of the close of the day on May 1, my positive/negative score on the Trump administration stands at -585.
It's been a busy couple of days, with the score sinking 19 points.
1 May 2025
-1: Executive Order: Establishment of the Religious Liberty Commission
-1: Fallout from Signal chat fiasco: Mike Waltz removed as national security advisor
-1: Trump removes mention of Native Americans from the celebration of Columbus Day
-1: Trump outright says he decided to ignore part of the constitution (separation of church and state) [196]
-1: Senior advisor Stephen Miller misses the point on who pays for tariffs, and how [197]
-1: Stephen Miller proposes an indoctrinarion approach to funding schools [198]
-1: Headline: McDonald’s sales drop as diners face ‘uncertainty’ (BBC)
-1: Headline: Trump shut down program to end human waste backing into Alabama homes, calling it ‘illegal DEI’ (NBC)
References
196. Trump on his faith advisors: “They work right out of the White House. That’s never been done before. No other president allowed that. They say ‘separation between church and state.’ I said, alright, let’s forget about that for one time.”
197. Reporters: The US Chamber of Commerce says tariff relief is necessary in order to save small businesses and stave off a recession. Is the administration considering small business tariff relief?
Miller: The relief for small businesses is gonna come in the form of the largest tax cut in history (that will be funded by those businesses paying tariffs!)
198. Stephen Miller: “Children will be taught to love America. Children will be taught to be patriots. Children will be taught civic values for schools that want federal taxpayer funding. So as we close the Dept of Education and provide funding to states, we’re going to make sure these funds are not being used to promote communist ideology.”
30 April 2025
-1: Trump posts an epic 315 word rant about Paramount and 60 Minutes [188]
-1: Trump scolds a reporter for telling the truth [189]
-1: Trump uses scaremongering when asked if he’ll use the Insurrection Act to send troops to the border [190]
-1. Trump makes a rambling and rather incoherent comment on the air traffic control system [191]
-1. Trump: “If you take out all of the negative numbers, GDP is up.”
-1. US Secretary of State Rubio says the US is looking for other countries to where they can deport people [192]
-1. In a poorly worded quote, Pam Bondi takes credit for saving the lives of one-third of all living Americans. [193]
-1. And outdoing herself, credits Trump with saving 258 million lives [194]
-1. Howard Lutnick again says something stupid about Americans working in factories, ignoring wage differences [195]
-1: Headline: US economy backtracked in first quarter as Trump tariffs loomed (economy shrank by 0.3%) (The Hill)
-1: Headline: Trump’s Cuts to Science Funding Could Hurt U.S. Economy, Study Shows (New York Times)
References
188. Trump: “The case we have against 60 Minutes, CBS, and Paramount is a true WINNER. They cheated and defrauded the American People at levels never seen before in the Political Arena. Kamala Harris, during Early Voting and, immediately before Election Day, was asked a question, and gave an answer, that was so bad and incompetent that it would have cost her many of the Votes that she ended up getting. It was a disastrous answer! 60 Minutes and its corporate parents, in order that this not have a negative impact on her, removed and deleted Kamala’s entire answer, every word of it, and replaced it with a response that she gave later on to an entirely different question. The new answer was not good, but it didn’t show Gross Incompetence like the one that was removed by 60 Minutes. In other words, 60 Minutes perpetrated a Giant FRAUD against the American People, the Federal Elections Commission, and the Federal Communications System. Despite all of the above, and Paramount’s/CBS/60 Minutes’ admittance to this crime and, with other similar corrupt removals of answers to questions, the Failing New York Times, which is Fake News both in writing and polling, claims that “people” said that the case is baseless. They don’t mean that, they just have a non curable case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, possibly to the point where the Times’ interjection makes them liable for tortious interference, including in Elections, which we are intently studying. The bottom line is that what 60 Minutes and its corporate owners have committed is one of the most egregious illegalities in Broadcast History. Nothing like this, the illegal creation of an answer for a Presidential Candidate, has ever been done before, they have to pay a price for it, and the Times should also be on the hook for their likely unlawful behavior. It is vital to hold these Liars and Fraudsters accountable!”
189. Trump: He had MS-13 on his knuckles, tattooed!
Moran: That was photoshopped.
Trump: Terry, they’re giving you the big break of a lifetime. I picked you. But you’re not being very nice.
190. Trump: “We have a country that is under siege. We have a country that really is under attack. In many ways worse than under attack because there are no uniforms. You don’t know who the attacker is.”
190. Trump: “They did old equipment in new equipment, and you can’t hook in old equipment in new equipment because it’s a different -- some are satellite and some is ground. The satellite doesn’t work.”
192. Rubio: “We are actively searching for other countries to take people from third countries. Not just El Salvador. We are working with other countries to say, ‘We want to send some of the most despicable to your countries. Will you do that as a favor to us?’ And the further from the US the better.”
193. Bondi: “Today is Fentanyl Awareness day. In President Trump’s first 100 days we’ve seized over 22 million fentanyl laced pills, saving over 119 Million lives.”
194. Bondi: “Are you ready for this, media?” -- Bondi turns to the press and credits Trump for saving “258 million lives” (She’s up to 377 million Americans; quite a toll, considering the population of the USA is only ~347 million.)
195. Lutnick: “We invent the iPhone, which is awesome. Why do we let everyone else build it? Why can’t we build it here? ... we need hundreds of thousands of Americans who work in those factories.”