Donald Trump ‘can’t fix it’ when it comes to his campaign promises - opinion

‘I alone can fix it,” Donald Trump likes to boast. He does that a lot and, incredibly, some people even believe him. It’s really a dodge, not a promise. Many veteran Trump watchers say that’s because he never really intended to fix anything, doesn’t care or maybe just can’t deliver, as long as people believe it.

Like most politicians, he is long on promises and short on delivery, although Trump does seem to reach record levels. His pledges are actually more topic sentences than substantive proposals.

He likes to boast that he alone abolished Roe v Wade, but when his followers demanded a national abortion ban and Democrats seized that as a winning issue for them, he quickly pivoted and declared it was out of his hands and up to the states.

Now MAGA hardliners want new restrictions on contraception, and he’s resorted to a familiar dodge. He’s working on a “smart” and “interesting” new policy that will be unveiled in a couple of weeks. Be patient. Very patient.

That’s a favorite tactic when he really has no policy. Remember his imminent plan to repeal and replace Obamacare? Or the recurring but never fulfilled “infrastructure week?” (President Joe Biden did enact an infrastructure bill, which most Republicans voted against, and then took credit for it once the money was being spent in their districts.) 

He still delivered on promises regarding Israel

The transactional Trump can deliver when it’s in his interest. He did move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, as he promised mega donor Sheldon Adelson in 2016. Lately, he’s been wooing the casino mogul’s widow, and she’s reportedly offering $100 million for a promise to back Israeli annexation of the West Bank. No word on whether she wants Gaza also, as some of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s partners are demanding. 

That’s the kind of real estate deal that should appeal to Trump: use other people’s money and claim all the credit. Maybe even put his name on it. That may explain why he’s softened some of his attacks on the Israeli prime minister, who is an Adelson favorite and beneficiary. Trump was peeved that Netanyahu allegedly reneged on cooperating on the assassination of a top Iranian general and later congratulated Biden on his 2020 victory. 

The Adelson deal is small compared to the big one he reportedly offered oil and gas executives who visited him at Mar-a-Lago. In furtherance of his “drill, baby, drill” energy policy, he offered to reverse Biden’s “green” environmental policies if they would donate $1 billion to his campaign, several media outlets have reported.

The Art of the Deal author promised to tear up president Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, insisting he could do better. He never even tried.

His solution to the border problem was to “build a great wall” “very inexpensively” and “Mexico will pay for it.” He never finished that job either, as costs overran his estimates and Mexico sent not a peso.

Not to worry. His latest solution calls for closing the borders, rounding up all the illegals, and mounting the “largest domestic deportation operation” in history. Those left behind will go to internment camps. He’ll also end birthright citizenship and reinstate a tougher version of his Muslim ban.

Those draconian immigration and deportation schemes could create problems for another of his “fixes” – ending inflation and lowering prices. In fact, it likely would have the opposite effect by exacerbating the present labor shortage, driving up the cost of wages and thus prices. 

Have you noticed restaurants and other service businesses cutting back hours of operation for lack of staff? Don’t buy this blather about immigrants taking jobs from Americans; just look at all the help-wanted signs, especially for low-paying jobs that draw new immigrants.

SOME OF Trump’s failed fixes are good news. Like when he called for “termination” of parts of the Constitution to reverse his loss of the 2020 election by nearly 8 million votes. Or to “open up our libel laws” to punish the media for criticizing him (Vladimir Putin has such a law).

Other broken promises are just laughable, like releasing his tax returns, working so hard he’d never have time for a vacation or playing golf, and “we’re going to win so much you may even get tired of winning.”

He says he will end the war in Ukraine in “no longer than one day.” That very likely means cutting off all funding, as his loyalists in the Congress have been demanding.

He’s still threatening to withdraw from NATO if members don’t meet expected defense spending levels, and to tell Putin and Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” in Europe. He won’t feel bound by the collective defense clause in the NATO treaty either; something certain to undermine confidence in US foreign policy.

He plans to “fix” the judicial system, not only by weaponizing the Justice Department but by appointing more judges “in the mold of” Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. Could Aileen Cannon be on his shortlist for the Supreme Court? She’s doing a bang-up job of protecting him in the stolen documents case.

Trump makes no secret of planning to do what he falsely accuses Biden of doing – weaponizing the Justice Department. “I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after” Biden and his family. He told the Dr. Phil TV show that such revenge “can be justified.”

Sean Hannity, the Fox host and Trump confidant notorious for pitching softball questions, tried but failed to get his pal to deny “that you want retribution, that you will use the system of justice to go after your political enemies.” The disgraced former president countered, “I would have every right to go after them.”

The presumptive GOP candidate who wants to be dictator for a day has said he would pardon or release the January 6 violent offenders and insurrectionists, calling them “hostages” and “warriors” who had merely been “peacefully and patriotically” “protesting a rigged election.” In their place, he wants to indict members of the House Select Committee who investigated the Trump-inspired attack on the Capitol.

The man who can fix everything was just convicted of 34 felonies largely on the testimony of his one-time fixer. This week, he meets with a New York state probation officer for a pre-sentencing interview that will help Judge Juan Merchan decide Trump’s punishment. 

Among things defense attorneys and prosecutors say the interviewer and the judge will be looking for is whether the defendant accepts responsibility for his offenses and shows remorse. 

Merchan, who Trump has so bitterly, persistently, and personally attacked, is the one who will hear the defendant’s plea for leniency. He alone can fix it.

The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and former American Israel Public Affairs Committee legislative director.