JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Inauguration Day is Jan. 20. President-elect Donald Trump and his team made a series of promises that he would enact the following on Day One in office:
- Begin what Trump says will be “the largest deportation program in American history”
- Expedite permits for drilling and fracking
- Sign an executive order that would cut federal funding for any school “pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content onto the lives of our children”
No one will argue that 2025 got off to a turbulent start. It leaves the president-elect having to confront a difficult opening to the 2nd Trump presidency.
As one analyst put it, he’ll be “confronting the kinds of crises he has long been railing against.”
You’ve got the driver plowing a truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers in New Orleans.
The detonation of a Tesla Cybertruck in front of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.
Oh, and the breach of the U.S. Treasury Department. That was a major cybersecurity incident at the hands of what’s believed to be Chinese state-sponsored hackers.
Trump uses all of this to paint a picture of a declining nation and to reinforce the dark image he painted both on the campaign trail and after his re-election.
The fact is that the president-elect’s assertions about immigration and crime, considering what happened in New Orleans and Las Vegas, are in direct contrast to reality.
Both suspects are U.S. citizens. Both suspects served in the United States Army. Yet, he used the incidents to highlight his fight against illegal immigration.
He has also proclaimed repeatedly that crime is at “an all-time high.” Look at the statistics. They show the homicide rate is plummeting across several of the nation’s major cities. And violent crime was down broadly.
We just did a story on News4JAX that the murder rate in Jacksonville was down 50% according to JSO Sheriff T.K. Waters. (Learn more here)
Concerning the hacking incident and China’s involvement, look to Mr. Trump’s approach. Political analysts say it threatens to inflame already tense relations between the U.S. and the Chinese.
He is padding his administration with people hawkish on China and threatening new tariffs on one of the United States' biggest trading partners.
Mr. Trump did invite Chinese President Xi Jinping to his upcoming inauguration to try and smooth relations, but Xi turned him down.
Concerning some of the other issues on the “Day One” agenda, Trump and his Republican cronies are plotting a radical policy agenda in what’s been described as one “big, beautiful bill.”
It contains all his major policy ambitions, including tax cuts, increased military spending and a clampdown on immigration, in an attempt to supercharge his radical agenda as he embarks on a second presidency.
But the bill raises the possibility of what “the prospect of months of potentially bruising political in-fighting needed to secure its passage.”
Sure, the GOP has a majority in both the House and Senate. But it’s a very slim majority.
Is it going to hold up? That remains to be seen!
Those in the know say there are a lot of things in the bill that will be politically contested.
Political analyst Daniel Cronrath joined me for this week’s Politics and Power. Watch any time On Demand on News4JAX+, News4JAX.com or our YouTube Channel.