Trump’s Triumph: First week proves president right in all these ways
President Donald Trump’s whirlwind first week in office has his opponents gasping for breath. Stalwart Never-Trumpers on the left and right (here’s looking at you Bill Kristol) look not only hapless but foolish. Expected demonstrations against his second term failed to materialize, faithful liberal platforms like the Washington Post have turned turtle and efforts to block his nominees look pointless and petty.
The nation is upbeat. A Reuters/Ipsos just-published poll shows 29% of Americans think the country is headed in the right direction while 45% disagree, for a combined reading of -16; that doesn’t sound great, but in early December and in late October, with Biden still at the helm, the combined spread was -54. That’s quite a turnaround.
If I had to pick one word to describe the country’s mood, I would choose “liberated.” People no longer feel they must kowtow to the sanctimonious platitudes of the liberal Left; they are relieved from pledging allegiance to the climate gods or pretending that men and women are exactly the same. They are free to protest idiotic regulations and to advocate for freedom of speech, meritocracy and other core American values. They can fly an oversized American flag, like RV dealer Marcus Lemonis, breaking the rules because…they know the president is in their corner.
Trump’s favorable reviews are boosted by comparisons with his predecessor Joe Biden; the energy, transparency and sense of urgency demonstrated by Energizer Trump is a welcome shock to the nation’s system.
But the most important thing working in Trump’s favor is that he has been proven right on so many fronts, and his adversaries have been proven wrong. Remember, the president was called a racist for saying that COVID leaked from China’s Wuhan Lab; finally, even the curiously reluctant CIA has reached the same conclusion.
He was right about the geopolitical importance of space; his 2019 creation of U.S. Space Force was widely mocked at the time, but has proved prescient as our enemies race to dominate the cosmos.
He was right to call out China for breaking the rules; even the insipid Biden administration kept Trump’s sanctions in place. He was right about trade agreements injuring our workers; eventually, he forced globalists like Hillary Clinton to denounce the deals.
Trump was also right that the left’s climate obsession flew in the face of reality and would ultimately undermine U.S. competitiveness.
Trump was especially right about the need to secure the southern border, arguing early in his first term that the U.S. was vulnerable to drug gangs, criminals and terrorists sneaking into our country. Americans, after four years of a border purposefully left open by President Joe Biden, agree. A shocking New York Times poll shows that 88% of the nation approves of deporting people in the U.S. illegally who have committed crimes.
Americans haven’t suddenly lost their compassion; they have seen the damage that unfettered illegal immigration can do. Damage to sanctuary cities that have welcomed migrants in overwhelming numbers, damage to innocents like Laken Riley, murdered by an illegal in Georgia, and to our national security.
In his opening statement during House hearings in September on terrorists coming across the southern border, Rep. August Pfluger, Republican from Texas, said, “382 individuals whose names appear on the terrorist watchlist were stopped trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally between ports of entry from FY2021 to FY2024 year to date. This is compared to the 11 individuals apprehended from FY2017 – FY2020.” That doesn’t include the two million “gotaways” that also penetrated our border.
At that same hearing, which Biden’s DHS officials refused to attend, the former chief patrol agent for the San Diego Sector testified before the Committee saying, “I was told I could not release any information on this increase in [Special Interest Aliens] or mention any of the arrests. The administration was trying to convince the public that there was no threat at the border.”
The Biden White House, and the country, got lucky; there were no major terror attacks on U.S. installations carried out by jihadists allowed to enter the U.S. illegally. We came close. Two Jordanians, both in the country illegally, tried to ram through a barricade with a box truck and access our Quantico Marine Base in Virginia last May. Weirdly, in November, prosecutors dropped the case against these individuals; no rationale was given for the dismissal.
Probably the most gratifying arena where Trump has emerged victorious is among the world’s business and political elites, who just eight years ago dismissed the upstart real estate developer-turned president as a joke. Gathered recently at Davos, the snowy Alpine village where money meets power, business leaders and politicians from around the world pointed to Trump’s push for deregulation, lower taxes and common-sense governance as the template for success.
Even notoriously left-wing Bloomberg recounted the enthusiasm that met Trump’s virtual address to the Davos luminaries, noting he gathered the biggest audience of the week while “Olaf Scholz… Germany’s chancellor, limping toward an election after three years of economic malaise and coalition stasis, addressed a hall far too big for his audience.” Bloomberg’s article titled, “One by One, World Leaders in Davos Fall in Line in Trump Era” says it all.
Trump railed to the Davos potentates about unfair taxes imposed on U.S. companies (he has already pulled out of an international tax agreement fashioned by Janet Yellen, who did not put American or our greatest companies first), high central bank interest rates, too-high oil prices and excessive regulations. Business leaders like Jamie Dimon are coming aboard, frustrated by the regulatory overreach of the Biden White House. The Financial Times banner yesterday proclaimed: “EU Faces mounting pressure to slash “frivolous” climate change red tape.” Wonder why.
Argentine President Javier Milei is a fan, telling Bloomberg in an interview, “The guidelines he is putting forward will create a much better world.”
Yes, he will; that’s why Americans elected Donald Trump president.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/liz-peek-trumps-triumph-first-week-proves-president-right-all-ways
Published on Fox News
