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Citizen Donald Trump made a whole lot of promises about what he would do if returned to the White House. President Trump has not yet delivered on so, so much of that wish list, and, in some cases, almost certainly never will.
He promised he would end the war in Ukraine even before he took office. He similarly promised to end the war in Gaza. He promised to cut federal spending by $2 trillion. He promised to eliminate the so-called Deep State, end taxes on Social Security, and make IVF free.
Failed. On every single one of them. At least to this point.
There’s the tired cliche that campaigns are fought in poetry and government is conducted in prose, but Trump’s clash with reality has been more stark than his more recent predecessors. His tax-cut agenda is on shaky ground at the Capitol as his demands are running head-first into the challenges of a narrow Republican governing majority. His other campaign promises are stuck in park as he is finding even his considerable bullying power has its limits.
The tape on Trump’s list of guarantees is a long one. Take, for instance, his insistence that the Russian aggression against Ukraine would melt immediately if he were elected. “Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after I win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled,” Trump told an audience in Detroit in August of last year.
But speaking to TIME last month, Trump brushed off that bold prediction: “Obviously, people know that when I said that, it was said in jest, but it was also said that it will be ended.”
These days, it’s a much different tune, as he’s expressed frustration and even some surprise at Vladimir Putin’s unwillingness to compromise. On Wednesday, as he was flying to Qatar on a tour of the Middle East, Trump told reporters he was considering attending peace talks this week that Putin hasn’t committed to attending; Trump also didn’t commit to joining the session that has been proposed by Moscow.
While Trump does deserve credit for progress in Gaza—the last living U.S. hostage this week found freedom after intense lobbying from Washington—the occupied territories remain a mess. Overnight airstrikes there killed at least 50 civilians, and the United Nations continues to warn that the Israeli actions risk becoming a genocide. And Israel is threatening to flatten and occupy Gaza if all of the other hostages aren’t freed by the time Trump returns to Washington from his current trip.
And while it’s easy to post all-caps pledges of a balanced budget on social media, it’s another to deliver. Despite aggressive efforts to shrink federal spending through the new Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE has actually not delivered anything close to the cost-cutting promises laid out by billionaire presidential adviser Elon Musk. In fact, as The New York Times recently reported, tens of millions of dollars in canceled federal contracts were later resurrected, in some cases because they had been required by law. And now, the remainder of those trims have run into the reality of a Trump agenda that could explode the red ink on the federal ledger by anywhere from $5 to $11 trillion over the next decade.
The list goes on, and that’s not even taking into account the many other Trump promises that he has tried to carry out but remain tangled in courts: ending birthright citizenship, deporting more immigrants than at any other point in history, indiscriminately firing tens of thousands of federal workers. Elsewhere, Trump has made novel moves that were nowhere on his campaign-trail BINGO card, like cutting medical research dollars, making it easier for tax scofflaws to avoid their bills, and gutting public-housing vouchers.
All politicians make promises they should frankly know are impossible to keep; with Trump, it’s not entirely clear he knows his bill of goods is a fantasy, or which ones the larger public actually wanted him to pursue. That’s why grading this list of deliverables is so difficult. Many voters were not thrilled with Trump’s vows to exact revenge on his political enemies or pardon the Jan. 6 rioters. Yet both technically count as promises fulfilled. And he has dunked on goals like banning transgender service members from wearing the uniform and exiting the Paris climate accord. Others, like releasing the files about President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, are similarly filled but also feeling hollow.
As Trump coasts toward next week’s four-month mark back in power, it’s worth taking a step back from the hour-to-hour outrage machine and the online hate tank to properly assess what Trump has actually done—and what he has not. Everything out of the White House of late has felt like a breakneck pace, but some of his biggest pledges are actually stuck in the garage and showing no signs of movement.
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The post For Donald Trump, Promises Are Easy; Governing Is Hard appeared first on TIME.
