President Donald Trump continued to bulldoze through Washington, D.C., with his well-planned agenda to shake up the city and all federal agencies.
Take his moves on Friday alone as an example of daily action. His most controversial nominee, FBI Director Kash Patel, was sworn into office and immediately announced plans to dump some workers and push others out to field offices. Trump spoke to governors at the White House and called out Maine Gov. Janet Mills for opposing his ban on boys playing as girls. And by the end of the day, he dumped the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and made the unusual move of naming a retired three-star Air Force general as his new pick.
FULL LIST OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS, ACTIONS, AND PROCLAMATIONS TRUMP HAS MADE AS PRESIDENT
During the week, he and his staff took shots at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an apparent negotiating tactic aimed at settling the Russia-Ukraine war and winning the prize of rare earth minerals for all the U.S. has spent on behalf of Zelensky.
Both of our graders were not as pleased with Trump’s performance as they have been in his first month in office. Conservative grader Jed Babbin gave Trump a D-minus for “dissing Zelensky” and making it sound like Ukraine started the three-year war. Democratic pollster John Zogby also slammed the negotiations and raised questions about Elon Musk’s cuts through the Department of Government Efficiency.
Jed Babbin
Grade: D-
What started out as a very good week for President Donald Trump went south fast with his remarks on Ukraine.
Aside from those remarks (which I’ll get to in a minute) Trump managed to:
- End federal aid to illegal immigrants.
- Slow illegal immigration to almost a trickle.
- Fire all the remaining Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys.
- Freeze all payments to the Palestinian Authority “security services,” meaning their supporters of terrorism.
- Found $4.7 trillion in virtually untraceable U.S. Treasury payments.
But then Trump laid into Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky. There is a lot to criticize about former President Joe Biden’s endless aid to Ukraine and the corruption that almost certainly accompanied it. But why repeat Russian President Vladimir Putin’s lies?
First, Trump accused Zelensky of being a dictator and not holding elections since the war began with Russia in 2022. That, of course, is what the Ukrainian constitution provides for. It suspends elections while martial law is imposed, which it was soon after the invasion. Trump’s remarks sounded like Putin’s propaganda.
And then, further indulging in Putin-style propaganda, Trump accused Ukraine of starting the war. That was a truly stupid statement that defies the facts. The war is a Russian act of aggression in which Russian forces have committed war crimes as a matter of policy. It is the start of Putin’s grand plan to reassemble the old Soviet empire. Trump, by defying the facts, makes himself and America weaker.
ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, IT’S TRUMP FILING THE LAWSUITS
John Zogby
Grade: D
It has been quite a year this past week.
We begin with the outlines of a possible “deal” between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the war on Ukraine. What we have learned thus far is that this deal may include the U.S. splitting half of all revenues from new licenses in perpetuity from the opportunities brought from a cessation of hostilities.
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Bad enough that even members of the president’s own party are critical, but it continued with Trump’s bombastic rewrite of how the Russia-Ukraine War began and with him insulting the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by calling him a dictator and second-rate comedian.
EXPERTS WARN THAT TRUMP’S FOREIGN AID PIVOT COULD BE A BOON FOR CHINA
Don McLean has sung about the “day the music died,” but this may have been the week when diplomacy (as we have known it) was put on life support. American veterans who volunteered to fight and advise the Ukraine are said to be furious at Trump. Starting with the president of France calling for a European Union Summit over this U.S. unilateral action, a lot of folks are angry and scared.
The Department of Justice’s dismissal of charges against the mayor of New York City in possible exchange for more support from the mayor to Trump certainly seems to quack like a duck, but it has also led to the resignation of several deputy mayors of the city.
The president’s unelected Honcho-in-Chief, Elon Musk, gave indications that he may look into cuts in Social Security just as he was wielding a chainsaw at the annual CPAC confab in Washington, D.C. Employee firings continue en masse as Trump and Musk admit that there will be early pain before the common good feels some relief.
Maybe they are right. But for now, my grade is based on this week’s early pain. Consumer confidence has taken a beating, as has Trump’s approval numbers.
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Jed Babbin is a Washington Examiner contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in the administration of former President George H.W. Bush. Follow him on X @jedbabbin.
John Zogby is the founder of the Zogby Survey and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His latest book, Beyond the Horse Race: How to Read Polls and Why We Should, was just released. His podcast with son and managing partner and pollster Jeremy Zogby can be heard here. Follow him on X @ZogbyStrategies.
