Donald Trump is set to be sworn in Monday for a second term as president after running on a very long and varied list of campaign promises last year.
And if you believe he means to keep them, then does he have a southern border wall to sell you!
Because, just like Trump’s most notorious promise in his first White House run – “Mexico will pay for the wall” – became a running, rueful joke about how openly dishonest he is, the former and future president is sure to again abandon any pledge as soon as it no longer suits his ambitions.
How can we tell? Because it’s already happening.
American voters usually have to wait for politicians to get into office before they start breaking campaign promises. But not with Trump. He’s already out there, shrugging off his past assurances like debts he never intended to pay.
Remember when Trump promised to lower your grocery bills?
Former President Donald Trump in New York City, on Sept. 6, 2024.
Consider inflation. The price of supermarket staples like eggs and bacon were common complaints as Trump sought support at campaign rallies. He knows it. He brags about it.
“I won on groceries,” Trump said on NBC News’ “Meet The Press” last month, just 33 days after winning November’s election.
That echoed a typical promise Trump made while campaigning in August, when he repeatedly told a crowd in North Carolina that he would “rapidly drive down prices” at supermarkets on the day he is sworn into office.
That is one day away. How’s that going?
Here’s what he had to say to Time magazine on Dec. 12, in response to a question about whether his presidency would be a failure if he doesn’t bring down prices.
“I don’t think so. Look, they got them up,” Trump said. “I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard.”
Keeping campaign promises is hard for any politician. Breaking them comes easy to Trump.
Trump vowed to lower your gas prices. Think he’ll keep that promise?
Supreme, Plus, Regular gasoline at gas station pump
And how about the price of gasoline? Trump in September vowed to get the price of a gallon of gasoline under $2 as president, during a speech where he announced that Elon Musk would run a new government commission to cut costs, now known as the Department of Governmental Efficiency, or DOGE.
But Trump’s threatened trade war with Canada could actually drive up the prices of gas. And his claim that he will drive down gas prices by encouraging more domestic drilling for oil – with the simple-minded slogan “drill baby drill” – was always offset by the inescapable fact that America is already drilling more for oil than ever before.
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The U.S. Energy Information Administration on Tuesday issued a short-term energy outlook memo predicting that gasoline will cost an average of $3.20 per gallon this year and $3 per gallon in 2026, down 10 cents from last year but still nowhere near $2 (or below that.)
It’s been a while since you’ve heard Trump promise gas at less than $2 per gallon, right? That’s usually a strong sign that he’s walking away from a promise.
Elon Musk has already walked back his big Trumpian promises
Speaking of dodgy, Musk is now backpedaling on promises about DOGE, serving as a proxy for broken promises from Trump.
Musk, as a warm-up speaker for Trump’s campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York in October, said he could find “at least $2 trillion” to cut from the federal budget, drawing cheers from the crowd.
That’s a big promise. And it makes it easier to understand why Trump and Musk have formed a mutual admiration society. Breaking promises comes as easily to Musk as it does to Trump.
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Musk on Jan. 8 sliced his pledge in half, announcing that he thinks DOGE has “a good shot” at cutting nearly $1 trillion from the federal budget.
I guess when you’re ranked as the world’s richest person, the difference between “at least $2 trillion” and “a good shot at getting $1 (trillion)” is just a rounding error. And if you bought Musk’s bunk, you made an error as well.
The war in Ukraine shows no sign of stopping despite what Trump promised
I wrote last month about how Trump was backpedaling on the promise he made while campaigning that he would end the war that started when Russia invaded Ukraine, even before being sworn into office.
His inauguration is Monday. The war shows no sign of ending anytime soon. Trump last month offered a limp “I’m going to try” when asked if he could still pull that off before being sworn in.
Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general named by Trump in late November as special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, said in a Fox News interview just last week that he wants to take “100 days” to see if they can “figure a way we can do this in the near term.”
So not before Day 1. And not on Day 1. But maybe on Day 101. But also maybe not.
Trump isn’t known for keeping promises. Expect that to continue.
The past is prologue when it comes to Trump promises.
PolitiFact, a nonpartisan fact-checking website, tracked 102 promises Trump made during his 2016 campaign and found that he had broken 53% of them, kept 23% and compromised on 22%.
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That ran from big issues to small stuff. Consider that Trump, an avid golfer known for owning several courses and cheating at the game, repeatedly said in 2016 that he’d be far too busy as president to hit the links.
The Washington Post’s Philip Bump in January 2021 extrapolated from Trump’s travels to his golf courses that he probably played 261 rounds as president, or every 5.6 days in that term. The Trump White House didn’t release a full accounting, but television cameras caught him on courses again and again.
We can’t trust Trump on the trivial stuff like golf – and you really shouldn’t trust him when he claims how many shots he took in a round – so there’s no reason to expect him to hold true to any campaign promise now, on Monday or in the next four years.
Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump heads into inauguration amid trail of broken promises | Opinion
