Highlights of the Brightest Points of Light in President Trump’s Speech to Congress

Here is that summary of the president’s speech to congress that I promised, particularly focusing on the positives in order to give credit where credit is due. It includes my commentary on where I stand just in case you are curious, and that will sometimes fact-check a few things:

President Donald Trump: We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years. And we are just getting started.

Me: I’ve never seen anything like it, not even close. How much he has the legal right to do remains to be seen as the Supreme Court already stepped him back just a little, saying he cannot refuse to pay contractors for work already completed, which would seem like a no-brainer to me. Nevertheless, he’s certainly making sweeping changes this time around, far different than his first term.

President Donald Trump: I return to this chamber tonight to report that America's momentum is back. Our spirit is back, our pride is back, our confidence is back. And the American dream is surging bigger and better than ever before.

Me: I’m sure Trump’s Republican supporters feel energized and confident because of the stunningly swift and broad and bold action Trump is taking, particularly against the deep state and the size of government and the longterm abuse of the United States by Democrats to turn it into the international purse for everything at the cost of enormous debt—not that Republicans didn’t pile on just as much debt toward expanding the military empire and by giving huge tax breaks that inured far more to the wealthy than the rest. However, consumer confidence in general is downright dismal, particularly regarding future inflation where it has never been lower.

President Donald Trump: Now, for the first time in modern history. More Americans believe that our country is headed in the right direction than the wrong direction. In fact, it's an astonishing record, 27-point-swing, the most ever.

Me: Not sure what on earth he’s looking at. A chart published in Wednesday’s array of headlines shows that no president in history, other than Trump in his first term, has experienced lower approval of his actions during his first hundred days in office. Second lowest-was Joe Biden, but he was still well above where Trump places in both terms:

President Donald Trump: Over the past six weeks, I have signed nearly 100 executive orders and taken more than 400 executive actions, a record to restore common sense, safety, optimism and wealth all across our wonderful land. The people elected me to do the job and I'm doing it.

Me: He is certainly doing all that he told his supporters he would do this time, unlike last time where he ran the swampiest White House I’ve ever seen. He is delivering on his promises at a record pace. The Dem’s all look like deer caught in the headlights, acting like they can’t quite figure out which way to run. So, he’s charging right over the top of them. Of course, he is ruling like a czar, and will probably wind up having the Supreme Court turn back some of his actions as being unconstitutional or illegal (like his attempt to not pay bills that are already due for work already performed).

President Donald Trump: Within hours of taking the oath of office, I declared a national emergency on our southern border, and I deployed the U.S. military and border patrol to repel the invasion of our country. And what a job they've done.As a result, illegal border crossings last month were by far the lowest ever recorded ever. They heard my words and they chose not to come much easier that way. In comparison, under Joe Biden, the worst president in American history. There were hundreds of thousands of illegal crossings a month, and virtually.

Me: According to NPR, a source not all that likely to be friendly toward Trump, the president is exactly right about all of that. To me that is a stunningly bold accomplishment of something that was never that hard to do, proving as I’ve always said that the real problem was that neither Republican presidents nor Democratic presidents wanted to do it. They both want to let in illegal aliens to create a peasant labor pool for their financial supporters. Biden was the worst. He is totally responsible, as was Obama, for hugely amping up illegal crossings while he pretended, as they all have done, that he actually wanted to do something about it with the lame excuse that needed more funding. Trump has done it with zero additional funding approved.

President Donald Trump: All of them, including murderers, drug dealers, gang members and people from mental institutions and insane asylums were released into our country. Who would want to do that?

Me: Allowing illegal aliens of any kind to remain in the country once you apprehend them was unconscionable. The idea that they deserve to have a day in court before deported is completely braindead. If you don’t have papers saying you can be here, you are automatically deported. There is nothing to hear in court. After all, if you came in the legal route through a border crossing, you wouldn’t be allowed in at all without the necessary paperwork. So, no papers: out you go!

The fact that Democrats even went so far as to insist we needed to let criminals—even violent criminals—remain here for their day in court was truly sub-intelligent and dishonest. There is no reason we should waste time and money giving them trials except in cases where we really need to make sure certain ones stay locked up for life and can’t trust their governments to do that. Why should our prison system pay to feed them and pay for their medical and their secure housing? Absurd. Good or bad, no papers, good-bye! Good on Trump for intelligent enforcement at the border.

President Donald Trump: Every day my administration is fighting to deliver the change America needs to bring a future that America deserves, and we're doing it. This is a time for big dreams and bold action. Upon taking office, I imposed an immediate freeze on all federal hiring, a freeze on all new federal regulations, and a freeze on all foreign aid.

Me: Generally good on the federal hiring freeze and the regulatory freeze. Mostly good on foreign aid, but a total whacking away of all aid has likely imperiled lives that don’t deserve to be imperiled. We have no idea how many people we have enabled to become dependent on that aid, and just jerking the table cloth out from under them may cause untold and inhumane suffering. It’s like feeding the birds in your neighborhood for years so their numbers build up, then suddenly taking away all the bird feeders. Some things need to be given time to adjust, or you wind up with unnecessary harm. I imagine we’ll be hearing a lot about the devastating consequences. I said the same thing about how Biden pulled out of Afghanistan: it was past time to leave, but the way he did it empowered our enemies against the very people who had worked as our allies. That was atrocious.

President Donald Trump: I terminated the ridiculous green new scam. I withdrew from the unfair Paris Climate accord, which was costing us trillions of dollars that other countries were not paying. I withdrew from the corrupt World Health Organization. And I also. Withdrew from the anti-American UN Human Rights Council. We ended all of Biden's environmental restrictions that were making our country far less safe and totally unaffordable. And importantly, we ended the last administration's insane electric vehicle mandate. Saving our auto workers and companies from economic destruction.

Me: These programs probably had a lot more effect of putting a damper on the American economy than those who were for them realized or would admit, and I don’t find global warming to be an entirely convincing argument, especially when the US had a much colder-than-normal winter. The fact that almost every weather report that has came out during and since the Biden years has had to mention “climate change” says to me there is an obvious driven agenda. They can’t just talk about the weather, and it doesn’t matter if the story is about severe heat or severe cold; both are always a result climate change. The very move away from “global warming” to “climate change” has me suspicious. Was the world no longer evidently warming to where they had to switch to merely talking about it “changing?”

My man gripe with those accords and regulations is that no one does a serious cost-benefit analysis, even the environmental costs. When I wash out a can to recycle it, does the extra junk going down the drain, the extra running of city pumps to deliver the water to every house that does that, the extra fuel and tire rubber used to haul the cans to a recycler, instead of all to the same dump, etc. really end up as a net improvement to the environment? Maybe. I’m not saying it doesn’t. Does anyone consider that the earth LOVES CO2 as its favorite form of oxygen? There is a reason we call it a “greenhouse gas” besides it heat trapping ability—plants love the heat and can only consume that form of oxygen. So, CO2 not hard on the earth. It’s not a pollutant. Most of the earth LOVES it. It’s hard on people. The earth did extremely well during the Jurassic period, but I wouldn’t have wanted to live in that heat and humidity. So, let’s not pretend CO2 is a risk to the earth, which has, for millions of healthy years, had a lot more CO2 than it has now. You are not “saving the earth;” you’re just making it more pleasant for people.

President Donald Trump: To unshackle our economy. I have directed that for every one new regulation, 10 old regulations must be eliminated, just like I did in my very successful first day. And in that first term, we set records on ending unnecessary rules and regulations like no other president had done before. We ordered all federal workers to return to the office. They will either show up for work in person or be removed from their job.

Me: We have too many regulations, but we do need some and need them a lot. I saw the world get much brighter and greener and the water much clearer with the Clean-Air and Clean Water Acts. I lived on the second-most polluted bay in the US growing up. Waves literally slopped and glopped upon the shore. It is now clear again.

However, I also live in a county that now requires mounded pump septic systems that cost $25,000 and use electricity when we once had energy-conserving gravity-powered systems that did the job just fine without any water problems all because some college graduates got a bee under their bonnets and decided mound systems that make your front yard look stupid were better for the environment. How does adding a thousand sewer pumps and chunks of old plastic pipe to the landfill every year in just one county (because no one wants to touch that stuff for recycling or rebuilding) as those systems break down improve the environment over a system that typically lasted fifty years and never use a single watt of electricity? Braindead.

In my county, we also spend about $1.2-million dollars on every culvert we convert into a bridge on the basis that it saves salmon, and we have been doing these conversions constantly for years now. I’ve seen plenty of their cousins (steelheads) swimming through the culverts with no difficulty, so how many salmon does this really save? Maybe we could just fish for ten fewer salmon for each culvert we keep each year to make up for the loss at a great deal less cost. But college economists in their twenties don’t care about that. A million dollars per salmon saved is religiously worth it.

President Donald Trump: And we ended weaponized government where, as an example, a sitting president is allowed to viciously prosecute his political opponent like me. How did that work out? [crowd shouting] Not too good, not too good.

Me: And now he is weaponizing it the other way against his own opponents in revenge, so not much gained there. Mostly turning the tables.

President Donald Trump: And I have stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America. It's back. And two days ago, I signed an order making English the official language of the United States of America. I renamed the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America. And likewise, I renamed, for a great president, William McKinley. Mount McKinley again. Beautiful Alaska.

Me: I was clobbered many times by Biden’s 1984-style antics to control speech, so I know the direct financial cost involved in that. Bad as the cost was for me, the imperiling of free expression of thought under the new Biden wokeism was even more dangerous.

As for making English the official language, I think it is about time. Millions of immigrants moved here from all over the world and had no issue whatsoever with adopting English. Why is it that Spanish-speaking people seem to be the only ones who resist that and try to make their language more dominant? The nation will not be better off if we cannot understand each other.

As for renaming the Gulf of Mexicana, that is a dumb-fart, imperialist move that I think is completely worthless. It’s like arguing “My dad is bigger than your dad.” Who cares?! It stirs up trouble for no practical reason other than flaunting your own arrogance. Americans already have a bad global reputation for arrogance. This kind of thing cements that image. I didn’t name this little publication The David Haggith Post because I don’t need my name on everything like Trump does, and it would be a dumb name. It would be meaningless to anyone but me. Trump’s move adds nothing to America. It merely struts while it angers others. It’s pure bombast.

President Donald Trump: We've ended the tyranny of so-called diversity, equity and inclusion policies all across the entire federal government and indeed the private sector and our military. And our country will be woke no longer.

We believe that whether you are a doctor, an accountant, a lawyer or an air traffic controller, you should be hired and promoted based on skill and competence, not race or gender. Very important. You should be hired based on merit.

We have removed the poison of critical race theory from our public schools, and I signed an order making it the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female. I also signed an executive order to ban men from playing in women's sports.

Me: Fantastic! Biden gave us the tyranny of the tranny. No one on earth has ever truly changed genders. Not even close; so, we should not be teaching children they can do what they, IN FACT, cannot do. We should not be making special allowances in hiring for those who want to pretend they have made such a change with their halfway accomplishments of fake body reformation. No man has ever become a woman who can a) conceive a child carrying her own genetics, b) bring it to full life inside of her, 3) give natural birth to it and then 4) nurse it into stronger life with milk her body produces. Women are amazing. Fake women are a little bit frightening and nothing close to the real thing. If you want to pretend, that is up to you; but don’t force your pretenses on me or pretend I’m intolerant because I don’t indulge your lunacy.

Gender-change ideology is a mockery to womanhood; yet it was completely swept up in Biden’s DEI changes and shoved on society. It deprives women of their own track in sports when someone who has a male skeletal structure with longer arms and longer legs (on average), male chromosomes, male musculature, but who has simply transformed a few sexual parts into something less serviceable than the real thing, steps into the race. It’s nothing but all of society being pressed to play along with “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

Moreover, those hired by Biden often had lower qualifications than others, but were chosen just to prove how tolerant the Biden administration was about gender, how embracing of something that is totally artificial that ends up being some half-baked blend of male and female at best. You don’t have to be much of a biologist to fully examine the best transition out there and say, “This is not really female,” especially if you take a look inside. It’s a fake.

As for CRT, I love all races but hate the racism that CRT perpetuates with such lame claims as “math is racist.” If I were not already happily married, I wouldn’t be the least bit reluctant to marry someone of another race. I might even be drawn that way, and I think racially mixed children are often the most exotically beautiful and bright children out there. There is something special that happens when mixing two races back together to reduce the genetic divide that developed due to ancient geography. All we need is policy that requires racial neutrality in hiring and in government programs. Reverse discrimination only keeps racism alive by angering those who get gypped.

President Donald Trump: Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control. The egg price is out of control, and we're working hard to get it back down.

Me: I don’t know how much of the chicken destruction that caused this was by US government mandate, how much was state mandate and how much was farmer choice to protect other chicken houses, but it certainly looked WAY excessive in response like something a Democratic regime would do (like the Covid response) that never includes an honest cost-benefit analysis.

I would think you could quarantine the farm, quarantine the infected spots within the farm and kill and incinerate all the birds that had any actual contact with the infected birds or were within a near radius (wherever they are kept in separate cages as is often the case) and sanitize the entire hen house and everything going out of it and accomplish the job without cremating every chicken on the farm. At least, give that a try while the farm is under quarantine before cremating the entire farm. Help farmer implement better health controls, rather than burning up half the chickens in America.

Eggs are amazing. They come in their own perfect little packages. We need them; we want them. So, protect them. (Said by a guy who is unfortunately allergic to eggs.)

President Donald Trump: A major focus of our fight to defeat inflation is rapidly reducing the cost of energy. The previous administration cut the number of new oil and gas leases by 95%, slowed pipeline construction to a halt, and closed more than 100 power plants. We are opening up many of those power plants right now. And frankly, we have never seen anything like it.

Me: It will help, but I hope it is not done at the cost of a more polluted environment. I have not seen, however, that anything Biden did made any meaningful or visible change in the environment, not like I did under the Clean Air Act where the change was monumentally obvious to the YELLOW-BROWN, putrid sulfurous air in the little town where I grew up! I would never want to go back to that level of deregulation, as it was not pleasant and not healthy, even if it does mean less money. So, let’s be intensely thoughtful about it.

President Donald Trump: That's why on my first day in office, I declared a national energy emergency. As you've heard me say many times. We have more liquid gold under our feet than any nation on earth and by far. And now I fully authorize the most talented team ever assembled to go and get it. It's called drill, baby, drill.

My administration is also working on a gigantic natural gas pipeline in Alaska, among the largest in the world…. It's all set to go. The permitting is gotten, and later this week, I will also take historic action to dramatically expand production of critical minerals and rare earths here in the USA.

Me: Seems reasonable. I have not seen where the Alaska Pipeline system that was built when I was growing up has been all that environmentally destructive. It has certainly been FAR less destructive than transport of the same amount of oil by tankers. (Cost-benefit analysis.) I’ve seen many photos of elk, caribou, etc. grazing happily alongside the ugly pipe. Beats oil spills in the ocean that happen far more often than with the pipeline and are harder to contain when they do happen.

President Donald Trump: We will not only be reducing the cost of energy, but will be ending the flagrant waste of taxpayer dollars. And to that end, I have created the brand new Department of Government Efficiency -- DOGE. Perhaps you've heard of it.

Me: I’ve written plenty about that, so I will leave it alone for this article, except to give credit where due by saying that a lot of things that were cut should have been cut. The US is overextended far beyond its means in foreign aid. We are merely fooling ourselves and pretending we can afford it when we take out enormous credit to fund foreign aid. Until we end deficit spending, the truth is we have no money to give. We are just borrowing it from a future generation to look like we’re the ones being generous but generous with THEIR money. Even if future generations never pay it back on our behalf, all future generations will have to keep servicing that debt, and that will drain their own financial energy. It’s practically criminal.

I’ll leave all the bad aspects of what is happening because of DOGE alone as already covered.

President Donald Trump: And in the near future, I want to do what has not been done in 24 years: balance the federal budget…. With that goal in mind, we have developed in great detail what we are calling the gold card. Which goes on sale very, very soon. For $5 million. We will allow the most successful job-creating people from all over the world to buy a path to U.S. citizenship.

Me: A balance budget and immigration have nothing to do with each other, and Trump is moving much further from a balanced budget with all his tax plans. The reason we hit a balanced budget 24 years ago was because Clinton RAISED taxes and found the sweet spot for revenue generation (above which, revenue starts to fall off), and Gingrich cut expenses. As even David Stockman, Reagan’s budget director, has said, you have to do BOTH. Even Stockman advocated raising Reagan’s taxes back up when it became obvious they had cut too deeply to where revenue was plummeting, which Reagan advice Reagan took.

President Donald Trump: It's like the green card, but better and more sophisticated. And these people will have to pay tax in our country. They won't have to pay tax from where they came, the money that they've made, you wouldn't want to do that. But they have to pay tax, create jobs. They'll also be taking people out of colleges and paying for them so that we can keep them in our country, instead of having them before being forced out.

Me: The idea that billionaires create the most jobs is a bit worn out. The bulk of new jobs have come from smaller entrepreneurs creating thousands of businesses, a few of which become huge over time. These people became billionaires. Still, letting in some billionaires to create jobs is likely to help a little. I see no reason to keep them out because their numbers are far too small to matter in terms of immigration. They’re not coming to take jobs. However, Musk has also been advocating we let brainy people in to get jobs, but I think his true corporate desire there is to get brainy people more cheaply than they can be had in the US. US brainy people demand higher incomes. If we cannot train our own brainy people, we need to focus on that.

In all, I think we’re full up and should stop bringing in people, except through marriages because Americans (if we are to be the world leaders we claim to be) should be free to marry whomever they want to; and people who come by marriage have a stronger connection to the culture. It should be an easy path that still bars marriage mills. Limited refugees in extreme situations, MAYBE. Sometimes they are very appreciative of American freedoms and the rescue and make better citizens than those born here. Maybe we could swap a few woke college kids for sterling immigrants like that.

President Donald Trump: Take out the criminals, killers, traffickers and child predators who are allowed to enter our country under the open border policy of these people, the Democrats, the Biden administration, the open border. insane policies that you've allowed to destroy our country.

Me: Fully agreed. People who were apparently incapable of intelligent thought let them slip through the border as Biden did and as Obama did. They were even dumber to let them stay here more than a day after they’d already been caught them when we knew their records. If you have to, send them back across the border with a catapult. We owe them NOTHING, and our courts should not be belabored with them for even one second since they have zero right to even be standing inside our nation, and killers and child predators deserve death anyway. So, catapults to Mexico!

President Donald Trump: And any federal bureaucrat who resists this change will be removed from office immediately. Because we are draining the swamp. It's very simple. And the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over.

Me: Good. It’s why you were removed from office last time. You drained the swamp right into the White House in your last term, running the swampiest White House I’d ever seen. Glad to hear you learned by hard experience what you already should have known by common sense. I didn’t get thanked for saying so back then, even though it should have been obvious, but it looks like you might be doing better this time; and I’ll say that just as readily because I’m all about objectivity.

President Donald Trump: And the next phase of our plan to deliver the greatest economy in history is for this Congress to pass tax cuts for everybody.

Me: Exactly what EVERY Republican administration has said aftter Nixon, only to create far worse deficits in every instance. It’s amazing what a party you can throw when you do it all on the company credit card. You can juice any economy when you do it all on credit. I think Trump’s tax plans will be a total wreck just like all other major Republican tax cuts were, including Trump’s last ones, which caused huge deficits. Republican never learn.

There is no doubt you can supe up the economy on debt, but now we’ve reached the time where we have to pay the piper because credit agencies and bond buyers are going to drive up our costs—a lot—if we go further down that road. They won’t be forgiving if you tax breaks increase the deficit …. AGAIN. All the DOGE cuts won’t work if you cut revenue by just as much. Time and again, we’ve seen Republican tax cuts end up as higher deficits. Every time!

President Donald Trump: We had tremendous success in our first term with it, a very big part of our plan. We're seeking permanent income tax cuts all across the board and to get urgently needed relief to Americans hit especially hard by inflation. I'm calling for no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on Social Security benefits for our great seniors.

Me: I like the idea of no tax on those things, but then you have to raise taxes on other things, such as especially capital gains, which give special lower rates to billionaires, whose form of income (asset value gains) already come with tax-deferred status because many of those assets can compound in net worth for years because the billionaire only gets taxed when he/she finally sells and realizes the gain. That is enough advantage. Capital-gains tax cuts have completely failed to live up to all their job-creating propaganda. What they created was the yawning gap between the haves and have nots by giving the richest 1% lower tax rates than the upper middle-class. But Republican voters will fall for the propaganda again. Like wiling slaves to the rich, they always do. Why? Because they fantasize someday they will get there, and they don’t want their billions taxed when they do; but the capital-gains tax break virtually assures they will never get there.

President Donald Trump: And I also want to make interest payments on car loans tax deductible, but only if the car is made in America.

Me: Must be an Elon plan.

President Donald Trump: In fact, already numerous car companies have announced that they will be building massive automobile plants in America. with Honda just announcing a new plant in Indiana. One of the largest anywhere in the world. And this has taken place since our great victory on November 5th, a date which will hopefully go down as one of the most important in the history of our country.

Me: Not entirely due to you and your tariffs, and it is not likely that auto manufactures made such momentous decisions just since November. There has to be more that was already involved than just the tariffs:

The last few years have seen a boom in new investments in auto manufacturing in the U.S., driven in large part by a shift toward electrification. Those investments were also boosted by tax credits that the Trump administration has signaled it would like to roll back….

Auto executives have emphasized that they cannot make billion-dollar, multi-year decisions to open new factories based on tariffs that are subject to change in the near-term depending on what other countries do about border enforcement, fentanyl policies or other Trump administration priorities. (NPR)

President Donald Trump: In addition, as part of our tax cuts, we want to cut taxes on domestic production and all manufacturing. And just as we did before, we will. provide 100% expensing. It will be retroactive to January 20th, 2025. And it was one of the main reasons why our tax cuts were so successful in our first term, giving us the most successful economy in the history of our country. First term, we had a great first term.

Me: His tax cuts created enormous deficits, which continued under Biden because the cuts continue by legal mandate under Biden (though Biden expanded on those deficits with his spending initiatives). I’m all for 100% expensing if that is what is best for the company, and amortization on things with long lifespan if companies need to derive the profits from those expenses before they can afford to pay the taxes.

President Donald Trump: If you don't make your product in America, however, under the Trump administration, you will pay a tariff…. On average, the European Union, China, Brazil, India, Mexico and Canada, have you heard of them? And countless other nations charge us tremendously higher tariffs than we charge them. It's very unfair. India charges US auto tariffs higher than 100%.

Me: Again, I’ll leave tariffs alone for this article, as I’ve covered them a lot; except to note that the reason Trump so rapidly retracted his second attempt at tariffs since entering office again had nothing to do with any changes by Canada (because Canada made absolutely no change in response to his second attempt). Since Canada changed nothing, that means the tariffs were rapidly retracted because Trump started seeing how quickly the entire economy started to shake, especially stocks.

If there are still countries that have tariffs that create unfair advantage, why didn’t Trump solve that with his first tariff agreements? Why does he need to go after the same nations he already said had signed near-perfect trade agreement during Trump 1.0? Why should they trust him on a new agreement if he is already tearing up the last one that he pushed for? Why should we trust him that their tariffs are unfair, when he told us the last time he had just created treaties that were good for America? The treaties haven’t changed since the, and Trump has not said the nations were cheating on their treaties either.

I’ll leave all the rest of his tariff arguments alone, except for the new things he claims:

President Donald Trump: This system is not fair to the United States and never was. And so on April 2nd, I wanted to make it April 1st. But I didn't—want to be accused of April Fool's Day … but we're going to do it in April.

Me: It already looks like April Fools day because you’ve jerked the football away twice now. And the end result is we are the fools because we now have no new tariffs on Canada while Canada now has retaliatory tariffs on us because they stayed true to their word and held theirs in place, having sworn they would not remove them until you removed yours. Since you have only postponed yours, they have kept theirs in play but have said they won’t levy their next round of retaliatory tariffs. You look like the fool, and the US is the worse for it right now.

President Donald Trump: I'm a very superstitious person. April 2nd, Reciprocal tariffs kick in.

Me: That’s what you said last time, and right now NO tariffs have kicked in because you postponed your second attempt at tariffs in this term and have also removed a number of items from the list of things that will be hit with tariffs down the road. So, you look like the fool so far. You flinched as soon as the economy showed hints of crumbling under the force of tariffs.

President Donald Trump: I did it with China and I did it with others, and the Biden administration couldn't do anything about it because there was so much money. They couldn't do anything about it.

Me: And you won nothing worthwhile from China, which is why you have to do it again, even though all the first tariffs remained in play, as you say, clear through the Biden administration to the present.

President Donald Trump: Apple announced $500 billion investment. Tim Cook called me. He said, I cannot spend it fast enough. It's going to be much higher than that, I believe. They'll be building their plants here instead of in China. And just yesterday, Taiwan Semiconductor, the biggest in the world, most powerful in the world has a tremendous amount -- 97% of the market announced a $165 billion investment to build the most powerful chips on Earth right here in the USA.

Me: Excellent. Credit where credit is due. I don’t know how much of that is due to Trump and how much to Biden’s huge chip-manufacturing program. Probably some of both, but the computer makers and chip makers have no reason to credit Biden when Trump is the man they now need to please.

President Donald Trump: And we're not giving them any money. Your Chips Act is a horrible, horrible thing. We give hundreds of billions of dollars. And it doesn't mean a thing. They take our money and they don't spend it all that meant to them. We're giving them no money. All that was important to them was they didn't want to pay the tariff. So they came in that building. And many other companies are coming.

Me: Not sure all the money and expedited construction and government-funded infrastructure already approved under Biden is not a huge part of that picture. I doubt they will contradict you, though, because ticking you off will not go well for them.

President Donald Trump: We don't have to give them money. We just want to protect our businesses and our people, and they will come because they won't have to pay tariffs if they build in America. So it's very amazing. You should get rid of the Chip Act. And whatever's left over. Mr. Speaker, you should use it to reduce debt or any other reason you want to.

Me: Giving them huge additional tax cuts is giving them money. True, it’s their money that will no longer be taken away from them, but that will add to the debt as much as the government Chip Act did. Whether you add to the debt via stimulus money given to corporations though the Chip Act or add to the debt by reducing the revenue side of the equation so you can stop taking the money from them in the first place makes no difference there. Peter and Paul: “We’re not going to take this money from you anymore” v. “We’re going to give it all back to you by helping fund your development with government funds.” The debt problem remains the same until you cut spending and boost revenue and we are way beneath the point where additional tax cuts will generate more revenue. If that is not the case, cut their taxes to zero and watch tax revenue soar!

President Donald Trump: Our new trade policy will also be great for the American farmer. I love the farmer. Who will now be selling into our home market, the USA, because nobody is going to be able to compete with you…. It may be a little bit of an adjustment period. We had that before when I made the deal with China. $50 billion in purchases, and I said, just bear with me. And they did…. Probably have to bear with me again and this will be even better. That was great. The problem with it was that Biden didn't enforce it. He didn't enforce it - $50 billion of purchases….

Me: You left out the part about how you had to bail out farmers with taxpayer funds because you were breaking their backs. THEN they stuck with you. Also, I wrote back when you were president then: China had duped you with the $50-billion promise because “IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN!” And the reason I gave to prove it would never happen was that China could not even use as much pork as you pressed it to agree to if it bought all of its pork from the US (not even close). It was a sucker deal because there was no chance they were going to buy all that pork just to let it sit on the docks and rot. So, I predicted for all my readers on The Great Recession Blog that China would never live up to that, and it never did; but it got you to stop going ahead with your Phase Two tariffs. China’s agreement was always an “act first, beg forgiveness later” situation.

[Again, skipping past a whole lot of tariff stuff in Trump’s talk …]

President Donald Trump: But if we truly care about protecting America's children, no step is more crucial than securing America's borders.

Me: Trump has brought border crossing almost to a stop, it appears, and it didn’t take completing the wall. It took stronger enforcement. I always argued the wall was a DUMB solution. There is no doubt it helps a little, but all you really have to do is show you’re dead-serious about arresting people, whatever it takes. An even better step is to start arresting the American business people who knowing give illegal aliens jobs. Their employees will take themselves homes when their employer disappears, and the employers will stop quickly when they start doing jail time for saving themselves money along with fines that make it no longer worthwhile. All presidents until now have done a weak and shoddy job of enforcement. Thank goodness, Trump is taking the job seriously.

President Donald Trump: Over the past four years, 21 million people poured into the United States. Many of them were murderers, human traffickers, gang members and other criminals from the streets of dangerous cities all throughout the world because of Joe Biden's insane and very dangerous open border policies. They are now strongly embedded in our country, but. We are getting them out and getting them out fast.

Me: Well done. It was ludicrous and completely inexcusable and always solvable if someone really wanted to solve it (even without a hideous, expensive wall). So, thanks for getting right on that! Now, hopefully, your deportations will start to improve because Biden and Obama both had better numbers there. Still, you’ve only been in office a little over a month, and you appear to have done great at stopping illegal border crossings. Near as I can tell.

President Donald Trump: And I want to thank Tom Homan and Christie. And I want to thank you and Paul of Border Patrol. I want to thank you. What a job they've all done. Everybody Border Patrol, ICE or law enforcement in general is incredible. We have to take care of our law enforcement. Since taking office, my administration has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history. And we quickly achieved the lowest numbers of illegal border crossers ever recorded. Thank you.

Me: Absolutely. It was always doable. All other presidents—Republican and Democrat—merely gave border enforcement lip service then served their financial backers by allowing the cheap labor in or tried to build a voting base of grateful immigrants. All the human examples you gave were truly horrible events for people, which never had to happen if there had been serious border enforcement. Man the catapults!

President Donald Trump: The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying, “We needed new legislation. We must have legislation to secure the border.” But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president.

Me: Yes, all we ever needed was enforcement of the laws that already existed, which means a president who would actually do that. This time you are doing it. Now, also go after the employers because, if no one will hire illegal aliens, 95% will stop even trying to cross the border.

President Donald Trump: Joe Biden didn't just open our borders, he flew illegal aliens over them to overwhelm our schools, hospitals and communities throughout the country. Entire towns like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, buckled under the weight of the migrant occupation and corruption like nobody's ever seen before. Beautiful towns destroyed. Now, just as I promised in my inaugural address, we are achieving the great liberation of America.

Me: And some places started bussing them to the sanctuary cities that wanted them. Brilliant. Suddenly, they no longer wanted them.

President Donald Trump: And as we reclaim our sovereignty, we must also bring back law and order to our cities and towns. In recent years, our justice system has been turned upside down by radical left lunatics….

Me: No argument there.

President Donald Trump: We're also once again giving our police officers the support, protection and respect they so dearly deserved.

Me: Things those “radical left lunatics” did, such as defund their police, certainly made their crime-infested cities worse. Some of them wound up begging to get some police back, and they didn’t want to return. Leftist lunatics.

President Donald Trump: And tonight, I'm asking Congress to pass that policy into permanent law. I'm also asking for a new crime bill getting tougher on repeat offenders….

Me: Much needed, but we’ve had those before like “Three strikes and you’re out” laws, and somehow they never last long nor accomplish enough. I hope you find a way to make it work.

President Donald Trump: Joining us in the gallery tonight is a young man who truly loves our police. His name is D.J. Daniel. He is 13 years old. And he has always dreamed of becoming a police officer himself. But in 2018, D.J. was diagnosed with brain cancer. The doctors gave him five months at most to live. That was more than six years ago. Since that time, D.J. and his dad have been on a quest to make his dream come true. And D.J. has been sworn in as an honorary law enforcement officer.

Me: I am sure most of my readers have seen the Democrats hall of shame where not a single one applauded the kid, but all sat stone faced. Sure, it was no different than politicians kissing babies. Trump didn’t do it just to honor the kid, but come on! Would it kill you to give the boy a full applause and make his moment all the greater?

President Donald Trump: I signed an executive order banning public schools from indoctrinating our children with transgender ideology. All right. I also signed an order to cut off all taxpayer funding to any institution that engages in the sexual mutilation of our youth. And we feel so much better for it, don't we? Don't we feel better?

Me: I certainly do. Indoctrinating children who aren’t even usually thinking about sexuality at elementary-school age was evil. You don’t solve a gender-identity problem that one kid in a thousand might struggle with by making all kids struggle with it by teaching them it is a choice they need to make when 9,999 are comfortable with the declaration mom, dad and doctor made at birth. Keep it simple. Pressing children to evaluate existential questions at the age is cruel, even if it is only in the simplest of ways.

I work at a school that told the entire staff we will all use the gender pronouns the children choose and said that was by Biden’s orders but also because they affirm that. Until Biden, not one child ever talked about gender pronouns. I won’t use the wrong pronoun even if I get fired, just like I didn’t get the vaccine they insisted on, so they fired me for two years; and then Biden stripped away most of my writing income as well via censorship of my Covid articles, leaving me with not much more than my wife’s good income. I did shift gears and focus back on economics exclusively, since I have more experience there, and slowly built the income back up. I’m not playing the gender-confusion game because what I have seen is lots of kids in our school now talking about what gender they will be when they grow up when I never heard them talk about it before. Biden presented a solution in need of a problem and then created the problem via the solution. It’s abusive to children who should just be playing on merry-go-rounds and reading and doing basic science and math, learning some music and getting some physical exercise.

President Donald Trump: I am pleased to report that in January, the U.S. Army had its single best recruiting month in 15 years. And that all armed services are having among the best recruiting results ever in the history of our services…. What a tremendous turnaround.

Me: Well done! I always figured the reason Biden’s military recruiters started to complain that recruitment had fallen off a cliff was because no one wanted to join his pink or rainbow army. What people choose to be (as adults!) is between them and God, but Biden put it all on parade and made a big clown show of it, which sometimes made the army look more like a gay cabaret than a serious fighting force.

President Donald Trump: AS commander in Chief. My focus is on building the most powerful military of the future as a first step. I'm asking Congress to fund a state of the art Golden Dome Missile defense shield to protect our homeland. All made in the USA.

Me: At least it is purely defensive. Israel’s Iron Dome has worked fairly well. But there goes the budget deficit all over again, just as happened with Reagan’s military spending.

President Donald Trump: And Ronald Reagan wanted to do it long ago, but the technology just wasn't there. Not even close. But now we have the technology.

Me: True. Accomplishing it for atomic ICMBs, however, may be a much different matter because you can’t have them raining their debris down on the nation (or on Canada if they are shot over the Arctic and Canada is not by then part of the USofA), though I suppose even that would be better than a nuclear explosion.

President Donald Trump: My administration will be Reclaiming the Panama Canal. And we've already started doing it…. And I also have a message tonight for the incredible people of Greenland. We strongly support your right to determine your own future….

Me: “Or we will determine it for you.” Stuff for a separate article or see my thoughts on that in this comment.

President Donald Trump: I'm also working tirelessly to end the savage conflict in Ukraine.

Me: I’ve already written about this, too, so I’ll leave it alone for now to focus more on the good stuff as I promised I generally would in this particular article.

President Donald Trump: Meanwhile, Europe has sadly spent more money buying Russian oil and gas than they have spent on defending Ukraine by far. Think of that. They've spent more buying Russian oil and gas than they have defending, and we've spent perhaps $350 billion like taking candy from a baby.

Me: Always inexcusable on Europe’s part, especially after they had the first year to make energy adjustments. Getting them to pay a lot more for European defense only makes sense. I’ll leave off all the negative side to this that I’ve already talked about it, but that much is good.

President Donald Trump: I believe that my life was saved. That day in Butler for a very good reason. I was saved by God to make America great again, I believe that.

Me: Well, it was a pretty amazing close call; but I’ll have to leave it to God to say why he saved you and if he saved you. I can easily understand why you would feel that way. The question in my mind that you will have to prove is “Did God save you to save America and make America great again, or did he save you to be his wrecking and bring judgement on America?” If God saved you, I guess it is up to you and God to prove which way this actually goes.

Time will tell.