ExclusiveDonald Trump: The Return to the White House

Each culture has its legends, and that could be myths or different stories, but here in America, our greatest legends are the wonderful heroes who are right from our history pages. Now, some of these heroes are very famous, and some are obscure, but each person deserves to be discovered because each man or woman stands as a great example of how we can be better Americans in our daily lives. Most U.S. presidents have basically one shot at the White House. Whether they serve for one term or four terms, as in the case of FDR, it's still basically one presidency. However, for two individuals, they've seemed to have a second chance in the fact that their two terms were not consecutive. Today, we're going to talk about the second term of President Donald Trump, the 47th and current president, that is, his presidency so far. If there were one word which could be used to define President Trump's entire political career, I think it would be historic. Everything he does seems to be groundbreaking. There are so many things he's done that just, whether you think they're good or bad, you can't help but notice that they're very unusual. When he won for the second time, having been defeated four years earlier, it was historic, although not a first. Back in the late 19th century, Grover Cleveland proved that it was possible to lose and then win again four years later. One could draw some parallels between the two men. Both were sort of free thinkers who wanted to drain the swamp, if you will, to root out some political corruption, but they were a bit rough-edged, tough men who were married to much younger, beautiful, model-esque women. Like Grover Cleveland, Trump has shown that winning a second time isn't necessarily proof of overall popularity or indication that the second term will be smooth and free of difficulties. Many presidents over the course of history have tried to get in again, and it sort of seemed like a pipe dream that Donald Trump could ever make it back into the White House. Yet, as the election results were pouring in in November of 2024, the conservative supporters of the Make America Great Again, or MEGA movement, had hopes that their dreams of a long four years might be coming true. Overcoming the long years of struggle because of the pandemic, various wars, record inflation, and a host of other little problems, Americans were ready for a change, whether that was something new or a return to something good from the past. And Donald Trump's attempt at a second term seemed to have all those things. This time, he picked J.D. Vance as his running mate. Vance, around the time of the election, had recently published his autobiography, And that really highlighted the vice president's background in a rural, hillbilly upbringing, showing that he was more a common man of the people in contrast to Donald Trump's elite, wealthy background. Trump surrounded himself with an eclectic group of rebels, you could say, even during his campaign. And once he took office, that proved even more the case. His cabinet has been defined as one of the most eclectic in recent history, including a record 13 billionaires. Many of his critics have pointed out the fact that most of his closest allies and appointees were from his loyal fan base, people who were very ardent supporters of him. Sometimes, one might say, instead of people who were really qualified for the job. People have said that this reeks of nepotism and a favor for a favor. But I would encourage anyone saying that to look a little bit farther back in America's history to see that, although you might not agree with it, this practice of appointing close allies to one's cabinet is not new. In fact, it's sort of an old American tradition. Only in recent years has it become more standard to really appoint government positions based on merit or long years of service. For the majority of the early years of American history, a president's cabinet was sort of his team. So he would appoint people who were relatives, friends, longtime allies, and there was no shame in it. That's just what everybody did. Just as it was very common practice for the first lady to appoint a female relative if she had any sort of assistance, because it's only in more recent years that there's actually been an official staff for the first lady. And the same is true of the White House. The things that are happening today with the president or that have been happening during basically anything anyone can remember are more recent standards. They really are just traditions because very few of the laws and customs which are standard practice today are set in stone or engraved in the Constitution. Much of them are just things that one random president did 150 years ago or 50 years ago, and everyone said, oh, that's a good idea, and then continued to do so. So in the case of Donald Trump, one can understand why he would appoint people who were close supporters of his. Looking at the people who were at his inauguration and the ensuing festivities, he's sort of like a who's who of some of the most powerful people in the world today. He was seen hobnobbing with people like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and other media and tech moguls. Interestingly, many of these tech companies, mainly their leaders, began putting their support behind Donald Trump as soon as it became clear that he was going to be the next president. I'd say that the early days of the Trump presidency were clear proof of the old saying, if you can't beat him, join him. Elon Musk, in particular, was one of Trump's closest allies during the earliest days of his second term. Trump appointed Musk, who was the purchaser of Twitter, which he renamed X, and most famously, the CEO of the Tesla electric car company. And he made him the head of this new branch of the government, the Department of Government Efficiency, which was given the acronym DOGE. For the first few months of Trump's second term, it seems like Musk and Trump and DOGE were all we saw all over the news. And it caused quite a bit of backlash against Musk's own company as people began putting bumper stickers on their car that said, like, the anti-Elon Tesla company, or I bought this before Elon was crazy, or calling him Musk rat and things like that, considering him a bit of a traitor, because many people who espoused a more liberal political agenda liked the idea of an electric car, but they didn't like to see Musk becoming friendly with the very conservative President Trump. The goal of this new government program was to highlight, point out, and eliminate excessive government spending, because a big part of Trump's new agenda was cut the fat, to drain the swamp, and to basically help the economy by reducing all the waste that was being spent in the government, by going after Social Security to see whether there were people who had been dead for years who were still receiving payment, or seeing places where government employees were making money for doing very little, and that was Musk's job. Of course, a good deal of the news headlines were over whether they were publicly getting into arguments, and at this point, Musk is no longer really working with the government. Of course, both parties insisted that it was never intended to be a long-term role. It was a temporary measure to make some changes. On his first day in office, Trump signed 26 executive orders, a record. To give some context, out of the past 10 presidents, a few of them had signed one or maybe two executive orders on the first day. Trump himself only signed one executive order on his first day in office. Biden, in contrast, signed nine executive orders on his first day, which was a record at the time, now being beat by President Trump. During his first 100 days, he signed 143 executive orders, and these were all part of both putting his new agenda into action and curtailing or reversing many actions and initiatives started by Joe Biden. At the beginning of his new term, Trump had several goals, I would say. Strengthen the borders, stop the huge influx of illegal immigrants, deport many of those illegal immigrants, strengthen the American borders, make the government stronger, bolster the American economy, and return more production to the United States. And a big part of how he planned to do that was using the tariffs. Tariffs began being discussed more than they have in years during the election and the early days of Trump's presidency, as he insisted upon the importance of using tariffs to basically make American companies manufacture in the United States and thus create more jobs. The matter isn't quite as simple as I just stated. It's far more complex. And the debate over the efficiency of tariffs goes back centuries. The debate has often been tariffs versus taxes. Historically, Republicans have favored tariffs, while Democrats have favored taxes, because the Democratic argument has long been that tariffs are more beneficial to the rich, whereas taxes give a fairer deal for lower income people when they're based on income. Trump has often cited President McKinley as one of the best presidents in history. And in many ways, his own policies are comparable to this early 20th century American Republican president in that McKinley greatly favored the use of tariffs. He even was called the tariff king because of the amount of tariffs that he implemented. He also was very supportive of the idea of America being not only a strong national power, but almost an empire. And under his presidency, the United States acquired a lot of foreign holdings and really became this international world power with a global empire. Similarly, Trump has had a strong international policy and, some have said, almost an imperialist mindset, as well as a very forceful view on relating to other countries. Now, one difficulty, one might say, for the American people is that while Trump quickly increased tariffs, income tax cuts did not immediately follow. It's not a simple matter because the last time the tariffs were really used as the main source of income for the United States, which was back in the early 20th century, the size of the government was miniscule compared to what it is today. So it's not as simple as just switching over to tariffs. Retaliative tariffs have been a big part of Trump's plan, meaning these foreign nations are putting huge tariffs on the goods that we export, so we should similarly put tariffs on the goods that we import. Like many of Trump's early initiatives, courts and Congress have done a lot to block what he's done or to reverse his executive orders, and the tariff situation has been a very fluid one. As of today, the tariffs are much lower than they were in the early days of Trump's presidency. Another controversial person who has been a big part of Trump's team is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He was originally a third party candidate in the 2024 election, running as an independent, but as he saw that he really didn't stand a chance of being the first person to win as an independent, he eventually withdrew from the race and put his full support behind Trump. He then joined Trump's team, campaigning for cleaner health options, making America's food cleaner, investigating the safety of vaccines, and a lot of other sort of alternative health options, which many people claim are rooted in conspiracy theory rather than scientific fact. Nevertheless, he and Trump together launched the Make America Healthy Again initiative, MEHA, as sort of a sister offshoot to MEGA. And this is sort of just my opinion here, but I think that there are many people who are more fringe, alt-right conspiracy theory people who might have been hesitant to put their support behind Trump, but ended up doing so because of Kennedy joining his team. I think one thing that might have made some really alt-right people a little hesitant to get behind Trump was the fact that he was behind Operation Warp Speed and rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine, which ended up being sort of a source of contention for both sides, because the left doesn't really like anything that he ever did, but many people on the right disagreed with the vaccine and felt that it was dangerous. So by putting a known anti-vax proponent like Kennedy on his team, I think Trump might have won back some of those people. As the head of some health departments in the government, Kennedy has proven that he really doesn't care what anyone thinks about him in being very bold in blocking many childhood vaccines, launching investigations into causes of autism, spearheading the movement to remove a lot of dyes from food production and other chemicals that have been shown to be toxic. I think that this is something that isn't being covered as much in the news, but it's a positive takeaway that, if we're honest, people from both sides could really support, because so many people who are very liberal politically believe in clean food and regenerative agriculture, and I think it really could be a positive non-partisan thing that we could all support that the Trump administration has done. Another ongoing issue in the Trump presidency has been the funding of arts. As part of his government cuts of funding, Trump removed a lot of funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. Again, this is one of these things that people act like it's been around since the Declaration of Independence. It is a somewhat recent initiative. It really was started in the mid-20th century, and many people say it has socialist roots, that the government should be funding the arts. As a member of the entertainment community myself, it was concerning to see that maybe some organizations would struggle, but it's a complex issue, and as our government is deep in debt, one has to wonder how many of these non-profit institutions, which really should be private sectors, deserve government funding. A big part of it was that Trump insisted that a lot of these arts groups, from the Kennedy Center to just independent companies, were using that government money to further agendas, shall we say, politically motivated agendas. Now, like many of his other most controversial initiatives, courts and Congress strongly opposed this action, and funding has been restored to the National Endowment for the Arts. One positive thing that has resulted from the whole arts issue, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the statewide arts initiatives, and the renaming issue with the Kennedy Center, which he wanted to rename the Trump-Kennedy Center, has been an increased awareness about the vulnerability of the arts and how much they really rely on public support, whether it's from independent private donors, or more importantly, the individuals. If more people went to live arts, they wouldn't need the government money as much. And between that, and then the whole Timothee Chalamet thing about that nobody cares about opera ballet, and then locally here in California, in San Diego, there were some huge cuts to funding, and it was such a dramatic moment, because California is one of the most liberal states in the whole country. It's often cited as an example, either positively or negatively, of the kind of country our whole nation could be if a very liberal Democrat became president, someone almost socialist like Gavin Newsom. Liberals say it's a shining beacon example of what a great country could be. Republicans say it's a cautionary tale of the kind of horrific country we could become. Depends on your point of view. But in this ultra-liberal state, in the county of San Diego, when the mayor tried to cut all this arts funding because of a government deficit, all these very liberal individuals and organizations began picketing, showing that not caring about the arts is something that is a non-partisan issue. But more importantly, all these things, whether it was Trump, the mayor, Timothee Chalamet, made people as individuals say, do we care about the arts? And the answer was yes. And ticket sales have actually gone up all around the world recently. So I think, thank you, President Trump. Thank you, Mayor Todd Gloria. And thank you, Timothee Chalamet. It's made people realize that we as individuals have to show where we care and what we think is important. As Donald Trump has now been in office for a year and a half for his second term, he has had a lot of historic firsts. He was the oldest person ever inaugurated as president when he took office at the age of 78. He is now celebrating his 80th birthday. And people are debating, is that too old for a president? As well as people on both sides of the aisle asking questions. Where is our nation headed? Are we becoming more unified or more divided? What are our most important values? Do we support the office, the individual man, the party? Where do our priorities lie? And ultimately, what is the best way to show what we support and where we want our country to go? It's been hard to really tell where President Trump's true loyalties lie. And I think people on both sides have had to analyze differently whether he's done some things that have had positive effects and whether he's done some things that have had negative effects and whether he's doing it for the good of the country or for some personal agenda. The clearest statement of Trump's overall worldview in his second term was stated in January of this year when he was asked, are there limits on your global power? He responded, yeah, there is one thing, my own morality, my own mind. It's the only thing that can stop me. I don't need international laws. I'm not looking to hurt people. You can interpret that as you will. I think that it's harder to be a president in the 21st century than in any other time. That might seem like sort of an overly simple point. But if you really think about it, imagine what it would have been like for some of these world leaders 100, 200 years ago if they had been in the fishbowl that people are now. I think if there's one thing I would say to President Trump, it would be keep your mouth shut. I think he just posts too much and says too much that tends to be taken out of context and misconstrued, leading people on both sides to just look at the headline. It's all about clickbait. And very few people are hearing the actual facts rooted in solid evidence. In the past, you would read a newspaper headline or see a more complete, intelligent overview. Instead of now, I think most people are just getting their news from rants on social media and little clips, viral clips taken completely out of context. Instead of really looking at the issues and deciding for or against in an intelligent manner. I think of all the presidents in the past, more than McKinley, Donald Trump could be compared to Andrew Jackson. A hot-headed, hot-blooded man who was a fighter. They called him Old Hickory because he was as tough as hickory. He was riddled with bullets from duels because he would just get into duels. And I think if we were still in the age of duels, Donald Trump would be in one every week because now he gets in duels on social media. He's dueled with the Pope. He duels with governors. He duels with judges. But in the past, people would actually get out their guns and start shooting at each other. He's had assassination attempts against him, just like Jackson did. And when a couple of his cabinet members were turning against the wife of one of his supporters, Jackson fired everybody in his cabinet. He prized loyalty above all else. And he was just plain stubborn and tough. And like Donald Trump, it's anybody's guess whether he was actually a good president. You can't deny that he was an influential president. For decades after, politics in America were shaped by his influence. His protégés became future presidents. The whole party was called Jacksonian Democrats, just like a very powerful branch of the Republican Party are considered mega-Republicans or mega-Americans. Trump has shaped American politics, whether you think that's a good or a bad thing. So whether he'll go on the list in American history as one of the best presidents or one of the worst presidents, without a doubt, Trump will be remembered as one of the most exciting presidents. And we can only wait and see what continues to happen in the remaining few years of his presidency. But above all, as we are especially now in the 250th anniversary of our nation, we must remember that our country was founded by a group of people with very different backgrounds and different beliefs. The founding fathers got into serious fights. The important thing is that we don't forget that we're all Americans and we need to support the country whether we like what the president's doing or not. And remember that whether we voted for him or not, he is our commander-in-chief, and we... It's easier to say that when it's a man you like who's in office, but it's something we should try to put into place whether we personally support the current president or not. And like all American presidents, Donald Trump will take his place among the ranks of American legends. Thank you for spending this time with me, and I hope you'll join me next time for more American legends.