How should we grade the President for his first year in office?

If we look at what he campaigned on, he has been largely successful.

So we need to start with what he campaigned on in order of how much campaigning he did.

1. Immigration: This was his number one campaign issue, contrary to what some might suggest. He ran on closing the border, he ran on deporting criminal aliens, and he ran on putting Americans first (implicitly putting them ahead of immigrants). At this point the border has been closed. Nearly 900K have been deported and nearly 2 million have self-deported. He has accomplished more in this particular area in his first year than anyone could have probably projected. Remember, the Democrats said it would take a half a trillion-dollar bill to fix the problems at the border. Trump did it by doing no more than enforcing existing laws. On this issue, he is getting an A plus.

2. Transgenderism: Trump ran over 30,000 ads that ended with the tagline, Kamala Harris is for they/them, Donald Trump is for you. Specifically, he campaigned against the transitioning of children as well as keeping biological men out of women's sports and women's locker rooms. These are very specifically popular items within the public (or unpopular if you are pushing them), but there was a deep entrenchment of people in places of power who wanted to continue to push both. The administration won a big case in front of the USSC which confirmed that it was constitutional to ban transitioning of children. At this point in time over half the states have banned transitioning children and the most recent lawsuit filed over the issue (trying to keep the transitions flowing) includes only 19 states who are still in favor of this debacle of medical garbage. Meanwhile, no biological males are competing as women in the Olympics, the Olympic committee will ban biological males for the summer games in 2028. The NCAA has banned biological males from competing and the infamous Lia Thomas is now a footnote in history, as are her NCAA records. There are only 21 states left that allow Transgender females to compete with biological females at a High School level, but federal guidelines may overturn this. One has to wonder how many biological males will see the concept of competing in High School, when they can go no further no matter how good they do. Overall, this is an A.

3. Inflation: This has been a mixed bag. Inflation is well under where it had been under Biden, but still stubbornly remaining closer to 3% than 2%. Wages are growing faster than inflation, but you hear Democrats and people in the media saying the opposite every day, because lying is all they have on the subject. The tariffs have been the biggest problem for Trump as Democrats and the media are pushing the nonsense that there is additional inflation from tariffs that is not included in the inflation numbers. This is entirely untrue and actual studies into these tariffs show that 80% of the cost is being absorbed by the exporter and importer and not the consumer. Would inflation be lower without the tariffs? Probably, but the tariffs have shown the effects that were promised with imports being diminished, exports rising, and the trade deficit closing. The tradeoff should be acceptable, but "affordability" is now a buzzword that is being used against Trump every day and sometimes rhetoric is stronger than reality. Time will tell if this rhetorical argument can withstand stronger economic numbers down the road. I would argue that many would see Trump is struggling on this issue, but on paper he probably earns a B minus. If things continue to improve, so would that grade by the time midterms hit.

4. Peace on earth: Trump did promise that he would end the wars that were going on. He has technically ended several wars, but the peace between Israel and Hamas is tenuous and obviously we are not seeing the progress (so far) between Russia and Ukraine. I believe if he were to be able to bring peace to Eastern Europe that it would overshadow everything else, and he would be in line for that peace prize that he seems to covet. For this particular issue, Trump has an incomplete. If he can get Putin and Zelensky to agree to a truce, then this becomes an A.

5. Crime: I think Trump has done such a good job with lowering crime, that people are no longer as concerned about it. I think the same thing has happened with the immigration issue. Funny thing about governing and politics. Sometimes when you solve the bigger problems, the things you didn't solve now become the focus for voters and things that they used to be focused on are afterthoughts. So I think Trump gets an A if not an A plus in crime, so much so that it will likely not be much of a campaign issue for Republicans in the midterms because people will no longer see it as a problem. In fact, I expect that Democrats will go after the manner in which he has lowered crime as a campaign issue. Suggesting he is being overly authoritative in trying to resolve the issue. Unfortunately, it may work at least to some degree.

6. Economy in general: This is another mixed bag. While wages are out gaining inflation, GDP growth is outstanding, the job market has been soft. The problem for Trump is that he is in constant adversarial turmoil with the media, so any negative will be highlighted and emphasized. Employment losses are tied highly to the government sector, while the private sector has shown increases. The total employment gains for 2025 shows just over 600K, which is much less than we are used to. But again, much of this is by design (layoffs and reduction in federal government) as well as the removal of nearly three million illegal immigrants (who in theory held jobs). One would suspect that 2025 may be a little more consistent, but time will tell. There seems to be two thoughts about the upcoming job market. The first is that AI is taking away jobs, while others are suggesting that AI Is actually creating jobs. From my personal experience, AI is not at a place where it can be trusted to make any real determinations without a live person actually monitoring and confirming. In software, AI can program and it can find solutions much faster, but not as effectively as a human. Everything still needs to be double checked. I am more part of the crowd who believes that AI (right now) will provide job growth, even as it may someday actually start to eliminate some jobs. So in the areas of GDP growth and the markets, Trump is getting a B plus or even an A minus. But in terms of job growth, he is probably closer to D plus, and you know the Democrats and media will hit that portion hard. Overall, it should be better, but a C is about as good as I can give him.

So Trump has arguably done very well on the issues that he demanded he would do very well with during the campaign. He has stopped immigration, reduced crime, undercut the trans movement, and has pushed a pro-growth economy that have the markets rocking. However, he is still trying to end the war in Ukraine, inflation is still at least a perceived problem, and the job market is currently soft. Based on the pure bulk of the successes he has had, I would offer him a solid B for his overall grade. Obviously, others might have different opinions.