The First 100 Days Have Already Started
When I was a young journalist, the first White House correspondent for USA Today, I liked to interview communications director Pat Buchanan. Once, when support for a lower court judicial nominee (not Robert Bork) was collapsing on the Hill, Buchanan stood alone, urging the President Reagan not to abandon the judge, not to cave to his political foes. Buchanan lost that fight, but I never forgot the lesson he drew from it.
“Political capital is like financial capital,” he told me. “If you don’t use it, you lose it.”
No one understands that better than Donald J. Trump. He is mobilizing to get things done even before he walks through the gates of the White House on Jan 20.
In the two days since Trump’s epic victory, this has happened:
The amir of Qatar told the terrorist group Hamas, “You are not welome here.”
The European Union announced it may start buying oil from the US, not Russia.
Aware of Trump’s threat to put tariffs on Chinese imports, Steve Madden executives said they plan to slash the company’s footprint in China by half.
Russian President Putin said he is open to talks on ending war in Ukraine. Mindful of Trump’s vow to put a 100% tariff on countries that don’t trade in the US dollar, Putin also said he has decided to stay with the US dollar.
For his part, Trump and his team have not been shy about announcing their goals.
On the campaign trail, Trump often called Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan the most embarrassing moment in American history — abandoning the huge Bagram Air Base to the Chinese, leaving $82 billion in equipment to the Taliban and most tragically killing 13 US soldiers, with hundreds more badly maimed. Now, he says he wants the resignation of “every single senior official who touched the Afghanistan calamity to be on my desk at noon on Inauguration Day.”
Health Czar RFK Jr., who joined the Trump campaign to “Make America Healthy Again,” has already telegraphed his intention to root out corruption at the FDA. In a tweet this week, he wrote, “The FDA’s war on public health is about to end. This includes its aggressive suppression of peptides, stems cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, Ivermectin, hydroxychloriquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma. If you work for the FDA and are part of this corupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags.”
At the US-Mexico border, where some 10-20 million illegal were allowed to cross unvetted by President Biden and his border czar Kamala Harris, a new caravan of some 3,000 was heading toward the border. After Trump’s election, many left.
In an effort to celebrate the best of us, stir patriotism and perhaps even unify the country, Trump called for “the biggest and most important milestone in our country’s history — 250 years of American Independence — since the Declaration of Independence in 1776. “As a nation, we should be preparing for the most spectacular birthday party,” he said. “We want to make it the best of all time.”
Nine months after he took office, Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” Trump has done more in two days.
Often at his rallies, Trump pledged, “We will fight, fight, fight, and win, win, win.”
Who knew it would start this early?
What an outstanding article. I'm honored to know you and appreciate your credibility in these matters. Great insights that ought to be shared widely.
Trump gets it....he hits the ground running! It will be exhilarating to watch him and his administration work to keep the promises they made....Trump has done it before and I, for one, am confident he and his administration will do everything possible to make America great again.