The Trump Dilemma
February 25, 2024

It is exceedingly difficult to get an accurate, fair assessment of Donald Trump. The liberal media despises him to a cartoonish degree, and some on the right have elevated him to cult leader status.

So, Americans and folks living abroad are being misled about a man who could be leading the United States again by this time next year. If that happens, Mr. Trump would join the hefty Grover Cleveland in the non-consecutive presidential terms category.

I know former President Trump as well as any journalist, with more than 30 years of interaction, dozens of interviews, sporting events, dinners, and telephone chats.

So here is the truth about the man.

He's disciplined in strategy when engaged. Most everything comes down to "the art of the deal." Although some foreign leaders despise him, there was far more order in the world on his watch than there is today under the apathetic, ideological Joe Biden. 

Trump was able to largely stop the migrant invasion by "convincing" Mexican President Obrador to place troops on the Guatemalan border as well as the USA barrier. Once Biden took office, those Mexican troops stood down because that country makes money from unchecked border intrusions with which Biden has no problem.

The Trump administration had a first-rate national security team headed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien. The ISIS terror group, allowed to gain ferocity under President Obama, was virtually destroyed in the Middle East by U.S. Special Forces. Trump was feared in the terrorist precincts, including Iran and Afghanistan. Biden is not. 

Putin was largely contained by the Trump administration. Bad Vlad's annexation of Crimea happened under Obama; the invasion of Ukraine is on Biden's resume. 

Economically, Larry Kudlow and Steve Mnuchin basically imposed an anti-inflation, steady growth policy that allowed "real wages" for American workers to rise around 7 percent.

Covid stopped the economy cold, of course, but the pre-pandemic numbers are impressive.

Under President Biden, Americans are suffering from higher prices. Real wages are actually down.

So, on policy, the Trump administration was largely successful. That is if you are a fair assessor.

A mystery of the universe is why Donald Trump does not make his record the centerpiece of his current campaign. Once again, emotion clouds the situation.

The former President wanted to believe, and still does to this day, that the election of 2020 was a fraud. Trump then made that unproven opinion the centerpiece of his legacy.   

To assist him in his election challenge, he rallied his supporters, some of whom attempted vigilante actions on January 6, 2021. Donald Trump's condemnation of that anti-American display never surfaced. A mistake of historical proportions.

That has overwhelmed his political profile and allowed his enemies to use the justice system, which is increasingly corrupt, to badly damage him.

Encouraged by the Biden White House, a variety of unprecedented legal cases and outcomes have badly injured Trump. There's a multi-million-dollar judgment to a woman in New York who cannot even remember the year Donald Trump allegedly attacked her. There's a half-billion-dollar judgment ordered by a leftist New York City judge in a contrived real estate beef that has no victims. There's a federal case against Trump for secreting top-secret documents while President Biden walks on the same charge, on and on and on. 

All of this has infuriated Mr. Trump, who cannot stop lashing out against the machine arrayed against him. That lash includes many crude personal attacks, some of which damage the former President.

But he and his supporters don't see it that way. Trump, the "avenger," is the avatar.

The result is political chaos in America. The sitting President is hurting the nation with unfathomable policies like the open border and massive, irresponsible spending designed to buy votes.

Joe Biden will go down in history alongside Jimmy Carter.

Therefore, Donald Trump, successful in running the country for four years, should easily defeat the hapless Joe Biden, who can barely function at this point.

But that is not the case. Polls show a close race.  

It shouldn't be. But emotions are dictating on both sides.

Dangerous times.

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Posted by Bill O'Reilly at 12:00 AM
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