Better in their words…

I do not agree everything Donald Trump does or tries to do is great, or even good, or that they will turn out for good or the betterment of America. And, yes, Trump says some stupid things, and says things in a distasteful way. But like every human, Trump is a package; you can’t pick and choose. You take the whole package or you leave it. I choose to take the package, because the alternative(s) are so much worse. The alternatives are terrible. In that light, here is a list of some “accomplishments” for Trump 2.0. Some of these are only in-process. Some may be undone in the future. We shall see. Nevertheless, Trump is not letting grass grow under his feet. And the fact that he is approaching his ‘job’ quite differently than any prior president just might be a very good thing for the United States.

To this day I still think one of Trump’s biggest mistakes: On his first day in office he should have stopped one more dollar going to Ukraine, ‘gifted’ Ukraine and Zelenskyy to the Europeans, and extracted the US from that disaster. mrossol

1. He made the border a real border again.

In a matter of months, Trump reduced illegal border crossings to their lowest level in half a century. The Administration reduced releases into the country by an incredible 99.9 percent.

2. He reversed mass migration.

America recorded negative net migration in 2025 for the first time in at least half a century. So far, nearly 3 million illegal aliens have left the country, whether voluntarily or involuntarily: more than 675,000 forcibly deported and the rest “self-deported.” Many of those self-deportations were facilitated by the President’s innovative program to offer plane tickets and cash bonuses for illegals to leave, not only incentivizing good behavior but significantly reducing the cost of deportations. Citizenship and the law actually mean something again.

3. He signed the Laken Riley Act — and required detention of criminal illegal aliens.

Named for an innocent girl murdered by an illegal alien, the Laken Riley Act requires federal authorities to detain illegals arrested for theft, burglary, shoplifting, assaulting police, or any crime causing death or serious injury. It also lets states sue officials who refuse to enforce it. 

Laken Riley should still be alive. This law should help prevent tragedies like hers.

4. History’s biggest drop in violent crime, lowest rate in 126 years.

According to FBI data, violent crime in America dropped an incredible 9.7 percent in 2025 — the largest one-year decline in history. Murder fell 18.1 percent, robbery fell 18.5 percent. And America’s violent crime rate is its lowest since 1900.

5. He made the 2017 tax cuts permanent…and better.

The One Big Beautiful Bill locked in the largest tax cut in modern history, including the doubled standard deduction, the expanded Child Tax Credit, and 100 percent expensing for factories and equipment. It also delivered No Tax on Tips, No Tax on Overtime, an abolition of most taxes on Social Security benefits, and major relief for seniors. 

6. He repealed 129 regulations for every new one.

In fiscal 2025, federal agencies finalized 646 deregulatory actions and just five regulatory actions: 129-to-1, and in nearly every case, the “one” was to repeal the others! OIRA says the savings exceeded those of Trump’s entire first term. That is more freedom, lower costs, and less bureaucratic sabotage.

7. He secured $18 trillion in announced investment commitments.

That’s nearly two-thirds the size of the entire American economy, building American factories, chip plants, data centers, energy projects, steel mills, shipyards, and supply chains employing American workers, including companies like Apple, Meta, NVIDIA, Micron, Hyundai, U.S. Steel, Ford, Taiwan Semiconductor.

8. He made “reshoring” and “reindustrialization” real, not a slogan.

Ford is moving Lincoln production out of China. Toyota is shifting Tacoma production from Mexico to Texas. GM, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, and others are expanding U.S. production.

9. He replaced lopsided trade deals with balanced, reciprocal trade.

Trump used tariffs as leverage to reverse 80 years of lopsided trade deals that favored everyone but America, and to win new or improved agreements with trading partners accounting for more than half of global GDP.

10. He shifted global energy dominance from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of America.

Once the world’s largest energy importer — “exporting” $700 billion a year to our enemies — America now outproduces Saudi Arabia and Russia combined. The U.S. is also setting new records in oil, natural gas, and LNG exports, becoming the first country ever to export more than 100 million metric tons of LNG in a year. 

11. After four decades of nuclear paralysis, Trump brought five new reactors back online in a single year.

For more than 40 years, not one new privately developed non-light-water reactor reached criticality in America.  DOE delivered four by the deadline (July 2026), then a fifth just one month later.  Decades of zero. One Trump summer: five. That is a genuine nuclear renaissance.

12. He broke the Deep State’s power to defy the elected branches.

In Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time in 90 years that Article 2, Section 1 is still part of the Constitution: the President may fire subordinate officials in the executive branch, overturning the 1935 precedent that insulated “independent” agencies from voters’ control. 

Ever wonder why elections often seem to change nothing? How about one President and 5,000 political appointees vs. 2.8 million unfireable, unaccountable bureaucrats? THAT is the “Deep State”.

Trump then made that victory real. For the first time in a century, all policy-making bureaucrats can now be fired for misconduct, incompetence, or defying lawful directives. The permanent bureaucracy no longer gets to veto the voters.

13. He ended nationwide injunction abuse.

In Trump v. CASA, the Supreme Court sharply limited nationwide injunctions. A single, local, district judge should not be able to block a national policy for everyone, everywhere; and yet that’s exactly what they’ve done, nonstop, ever since Trump (and only Trump) took office in 2017. In restricting that unconstitutional power, the Court kneecapped the Black Robe Bureaucracy’s favorite tool of unlawful judicial supremacy.

14. He shut down USAID as a left-wing slush fund and shadow government.

USAID had become a taxpayer-funded machine for exporting abortion, gender ideology, censorship, and left-wing politics. It had a bigger budget than the CIA and the State Department combined, absolutely no accountability whatsoever, and a penchant for overthrowing governments. 

Trump terminated it — completely — and moved real humanitarian aid under the State Department. Immediately, seven socialist Latin American governments lost re-election. Coincidence?

15. He shrank Federal employment to its lowest level in 60 years.

From a high under Biden, the federal workforce is now its smallest since 1966. Workforce reductions, agency closures, and spending cancellations mean fewer bureaucrats paid to resist the voters.

What’s more, when Biden left office, 94 percent of federal employees “worked” from home. The Trump administration cracked down: as Elon Musk put it, “you can work from the office or you can pretend to work somewhere else.”

16. He expelled DEI from the federal government.

Trump eliminated federal DEI offices and barred race- and sex-based preferences across the executive branch. Government hiring and contracting are returning to merit and equality under the law, ending the grotesque Democrat idea that “fighting discrimination” requires the federal government to discriminate.

17. He delivered sweeping pro-life reform.

In his first term, Trump delivered the judges that overturned the abominable Roe v. Wade. Result was a half-century of basically “unlimited access to abortion” finally ended.

Since returning to office, Trump has enforced the Hyde Amendment prohibiting the use of federal funds to pay for abortions, reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy prohibiting federal funding of foreign abortions, ended federal fetal-tissue research, strengthened conscience protections, protected Medicaid from funding large abortion providers, and pardoned 23 pro-life activists prosecuted by Biden’s weaponized Justice Department.  He’s also done everything within the Executive Branch’s power to defund Planned Parenthood. No President in probably the last 100 years has done more to protect life.

18. He got men out of women’s sports, and restored biological reality to federal policy.

The United States government once again officially recognizes two sexes: male and female. Trump ended federal support for the chemical and surgical gender mutilation of children, stopped taxpayer funding of such irreversible abominations, and forced more than three dozen health systems to end or suspend their programs as well.

Trump also enforced Title IX as written: women and girls deserve their own teams, trophies, scholarships, and locker rooms. The NCAA and other athletic organizations changed their rules in response. After years of Democrats doing everything they could to destroy women’s sports and ruin girls’ lives, Trump’s administration protects women and girls again.

19. He enacted America’s first nationwide school-choice program — and launched Trump Accounts.

As part of the President’s One Big Beautiful Bill, Trump enacted America’s first-ever nationwide school choice program. The new Education Freedom Tax Credit helps fund scholarships for tuition, books, and other educational costs. 

That’s on top of the new Trump Accounts, which give every child a tax-advantaged stake in America’s future, including a $1,000 federal seed for eligible newborns. Parents gain power. Bureaucracies lose it. And children learn first-hand about free markets and future orientation.

20. He targeted anti-Christian bias and discrimination.

Trump created the White House Faith Office, Religious Liberty Commission, and Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias. He restored conscience protections and made clear that Christians do not surrender their First Amendment rights merely by entering public life.

21. He forced NATO to stop freeloading and increase defense spending by 250 percent.

For decades, wealthy European governments underfunded their militaries, effectively sending America the bill and using American taxpayers to subsidize their bloated welfare states. Trump forced NATO to replace its old two-percent-of-GDP spending target with an enormous five percent by 2035.  Allied spending is rising, American defense orders are soaring, and Europe is becoming a partner instead of a dependent.

22. He drove China out of the Caribbean.

China spent years building strategic beachheads at both ends of the Panama Canal, in Cuba, and in Maduro’s Venezuela. Trump forced Panama out of Belt and Road, expanded American security access around the Canal, and captured Maduro, who now sits in a New York jail cell awaiting trial. 

23. He assisted in brokering a number of peace deals in just year of second term.

India–Pakistan (ceasefire following fighting over Kashmir)

Rwanda–Democratic Republic of the Congo (Washington-backed peace agreement)

Thailand–Cambodia (agreement following border clashes)

Armenia–Azerbaijan (peace agreement framework)

Egypt–Ethiopia (dispute over Ethiopia’s Nile dam; no permanent settlement yet)

24. He launched and funded Golden Dome, the first-ever true missile defense for the U.S. population.

Ronald Reagan dreamed of making nuclear missiles obsolete through his Strategic Defense Initiative. Today, Trump is actually building it: a layered homeland shield with space-based sensors and interceptors, conventional defenses, and new technologies including microwave systems to destroy drone swarms and directed-energy weapons (yes, lasers) that can replace an $11 million missile with $2 of electricity.  Congress has funded the initial $25 billion, with far more on the way once it passes the NDAA this fall.

25. He restored the warrior ethos — and reversed the recruiting crisis.

After years of missed targets under Biden, every active military component met or exceeded its 2025 recruiting goal. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth refocused the newly renamed Department of War on actually winning wars, while pouring resources into shipbuilding, munitions, drones, missile defense, and America’s atrophied industrial base.  Young Americans once again believe their Commander-in-Chief is worth serving. And they’re showing up en masse.

26.  Negotiated Lower Drug Prices on 89% of Drugs. 

Drug prices have fallen more in 2026 [so far – September] than any year before 1963. 

27.  Since June, 2025, DOT has purged more than 28,000 drivers and linked fraudulent school graduates to 239 traffic fatalities.

28. Poul Thorsen, a former CDC visiting scientist [from Denmark], pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday to wire fraud. Prosecutors said he stole more than $1 million through over a dozen phony invoices bearing the forged signature of a CDC laboratory section chief. Two of his published ‘studies’– after manipulating Danish data–have been the basis of claims that deny the correlation of thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism incidence.

29. He dismantled the federal censorship machine at home—and confronted government censorship abroad.

On his first day back in office, Trump prohibited federal employees and agencies from coercing or paying private companies to censor constitutionally protected speech. He ordered an investigation of the Biden Administration’s abuses, gutted CISA’s censorship apparatus, and made free speech a foreign-policy priority. He also imposed visa restrictions on foreign officials and NGO operatives who pressured American platforms to silence Americans.

30. He ended state-run “public” broadcasting.

Republicans have talked for decades, but Trump delivered, cutting off funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Now PBS and NPR– delivering mostly very leftist perspectives– must compete for audiences and donors like everyone else.

31. He ended catch-and-release.

Under Biden, illegals arrested often meant a bus ticket, a court date years away, and easy disappearance into the country. Under Trump, it means detention and removal. The Border Patrol has now recorded 15 consecutive months without releasing a single apprehended illegal alien into America.

32. He helped drive fentanyl trafficking—and fentanyl deaths—sharply downward.

Under President Trump, fentanyl trafficking at the southern border fell 56 percent compared with the same period in 2024. CDC figures showed synthetic-opioid deaths falling from 48,913 in 2024 to 38,084 in 2025 — a 22 percent decrease.

33. He designated the cartels as terrorists—and took the counter-narcotics war to sea.

Trump designated eight cartels and transnational criminal organizations as terrorist groups, thus unlocking powerful sanctions, intelligence, and enforcement tools. He stopped treating them like ordinary criminals and started treating them as the government-sponsored paramilitary forces they actually are. The Coast Guard also set an all-time record, seizing nearly 510,000 pounds of cocaine across the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean in fiscal 2025, and blowing up even more.

34. He crushed Washington, D.C.’s violent-crime wave.

Trump refused to let America’s capital remain a cesspool of murders, rapes, carjackings, and municipal incompetence. He flooded Washington with federal law-enforcement resources and forced cooperation among police, prosecutors, and federal agencies. One year later, homicides are down 45 percent, carjackings 64 percent, and authorities have seized nearly 2,000 illegal guns.  Urban violence disproportionately victimizes the poor.

35. He restored Second Amendment rights.

Trump ordered the entire executive branch to identify and reverse policies that infringed the right to keep and bear arms. DOJ created a Second Amendment Enforcement Task Force. ATF repealed Biden’s punitive “Zero Tolerance” policy for gun dealers and other unreasonable restrictions on selling firearms.

Then Trump’s DOJ filed the first affirmative civil-rights lawsuit in Department history, forcing Los Angeles County to end nine-month delays for concealed-carry permits. It also restored the congressionally authorized process through which deserving Americans may regain federal firearms rights — and zeroed out the $200 federal tax on suppressors.

36. He ended federal income tax on tips and overtime pay.

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill allows eligible workers to deduct up to $25,000 in qualified tips through 2028. It also created a deduction for the overtime premium — up to $12,500 for an individual or $25,000 for a married couple. It’s hard to think of a more pro-working-class reform than that.

37. He eliminated the tax on Social Security for nearly all seniors.

Under the One Big Beautiful Bill, seniors may deduct an additional $6,000 apiece or $12,000 for a qualifying married couple. For most seniors, that eliminates federal income tax on retirement income, including Social Security.

The fact that Democrats taxed Social Security in the first place is obscene. Trump reversed it.

38. He made Opportunity Zones permanent.

Instead of “handouts”, Trump’s Opportunity Zones steer private capital toward distressed communities by rewarding long-term investment. The One Big Beautiful Bill made them permanent and established recurring qualifying rounds, giving investors and local leaders the certainty to build for decades.

39. He protected farms and family businesses from the death tax.

The death tax can force a grieving family to sell family farms, homes, and businesses just to pay Washington. But Trump made it easier to pass a lifetime’s work and dreams on to the next generation. He increased the federal estate-and-gift-tax exclusion to $15 million per person in 2026, with inflation adjustments and no scheduled expiration — potentially $30 million for a married couple.

40. He expanded Health Savings Accounts — and created a $50 billion rural-health fund.

The One Big Beautiful Bill gives millions more Americans the use of Health Savings Accounts. Which means more personal control and fewer gatekeepers between doctor and patient. Trump also created a $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program, reversing years of rural hospital closures.

41. He used TrumpRx and most-favored-nation agreements to force down drug prices.

For decades, Americans paid the world’s highest drug prices while socialist governments imposed price controls and freeloaded on American innovation. Trump securing most-favored-nation agreements with 26 drugmakers covering 89 percent of the branded-drug market. It’s not a price control: it’s the end of a free ride. Foreign governments must now pay more for American drugs so Americans can pay less.

Moreover, the President’s new TrumpRx program gives patients direct access to steep discounts. Patients have already saved more than $700 million, while the latest nine deals added $19.6 billion in American manufacturing commitments.

42. He turned MAHA from a slogan into reality.

Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and MAHA forced a reckoning. HHS and FDA began moving manufacturers away from petroleum-based dyes, approved natural alternatives, changed labeling rules, and created a public tracker of corporate promises.  For the first time in generations, Washington is asking why American children are fat and sick — and fixing the problem instead of prescribing another drug.

43. He prioritized adoption and family formation.

Trump made the adoption tax credit partly refundable, allowing eligible families to receive up to $5,000 per adopted child even when they owe less tax. He also raised tax-free dependent-care assistance from $5,000 to $7,500 in 2026. Trump is forcing government to stop making it harder to adopt, care for dependents, or build families.

44. He stood up for victims of revenge porn and sexual deepfakes.

The TAKE IT DOWN Act criminalized specified nonconsensual intimate imagery, including AI-generated sexual deepfakes. Covered platforms must now provide a reporting process and must remove all qualifying images within 48 hours. Perps go to prison.

45. He stopped federal support for dangerous gain-of-function research in sketchy foreign labs.

Wuhan should have ended this debate. Instead, the Fauci-led bureaucracy doubled down on experimentation and gain-of-function research, not just in the United States but in foreign labs, even in China. Trump put a stop to it, terminating projects in countries of concern and suspending other high-risk programs.

46. He turned valuable access to the world’s largest consumer market into leverage and revenue.

Washington treated access to the richest consumer market on Earth into a global entitlement, while allowing them to maintain huge trade barriers against U.S. producers. By January 2026, the Administration reported $300 billion in gross tariff collections.

47. He began breaking China’s rare-earth chokehold.

China dominates the minerals and magnets inside everything from smartphones to submarines. It controls 92 percent of global rare-earths refining. That’s not free trade: It easily becomes a strategic hostage situation. Trump’s Pentagon partnered with MP Materials to expand American rare-earth separation and magnet production, backed by long-term purchases and a domestic price floor. He also made deals with allied nations to bring their own production and refining online.

48. He launched the AI Action Plan and Genesis Mission.

Trump’s AI Action Plan attacks the energy, permitting, infrastructure, and regulatory bottlenecks that could hand this century’s most important technology to China. Genesis brings federal data, national labs, supercomputers, and private AI companies together to accelerate discovery. So far, the Energy Department has secured more than $800 million in partner commitments.

49. He restored the Moon to the center of American national strategy.

Trump ordered America back to the Moon by 2028, with initial elements of a permanent base at its strategically vital South Pole by 2030. He also directed development of space-based nuclear power and nuclear rockets, and greater use of America’s unmatched commercial-space industry.

50. He brought American hostages home.

By March 2026, the Administration had secured the release of 105 detained Americans. Marc Fogel came home after years in a Russian prison. George Glezmann came home after two years in Taliban captivity. So did prisoners held by Hamas, Belarus, Venezuela, and others.

51. He replaced foreign aid with investment and trade.

For a century, Washington measured compassion by how many dollars it spent, regardless of the often abysmal results. His “Trade Over Aid” doctrine offers not a handout but investment, markets, infrastructure, and partnership.

The December 2025 agreement with the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a perfect example. It tied American investment to secure critical-mineral supply chains. This creates Congolese jobs and infrastructure while rewarding American investors and securing American supply chains. It also helps reduce (or eliminate) impoverished Third World countries dependence from Chinese Communist debt “aid”.

52. He launched a $76.6 billion American undersea buildup — and began rebuilding the shipyards to sustain it.

China is on track to outnumber the U.S. submarine fleet by 2030. In July 2026, Trump’s Navy awarded contracts for five Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarines and nine Block VI Virginia-class attack submarines. The package totals $76.6 billion a contract allowing shipbuilders to expand production lines and train skilled workers.  The President also ordered plans for a fifth Navy shipyard — the first new one in more than 80 years.

53. Targeting fraud around Federal Programs, of which there are too many to list.  The dollars are likely close to $1trillion.  No prior administration has been willing to attack these fraud crimes.