Mr. Trump managed by alienating India with a ridiculous level of tariffs to bring together Putin, Modi, and Xi in a demonstration of their unity. The U.S. may not, in the next year or two, suffer the wounds that have been created by Mr. Trump in Europe, India, China, and Africa but those countries will not forget his snubs, his tariffs, his racial commentary, all of which will come back to haunt us long after he is gone and unfortunately long after most Republicans who support him are gone. One has to look at the long game, which is something few, if any Republicans are doing at this juncture.
I decided to take a look at crime rates, and as has been well documented in the media, violent crime and crime generally is down substantially in many cases. Four of the big cities that have the highest crime rate are red, and yet Mr. Trump is not sending troops into any of those states nor cities. Louisiana is one of the worst at the state level and yet again, no action by Mr. Trump. In a recent interview Mr. Johnson seemed stumped by that news which really raises the question – is he in touch?
Have you noticed Mr. Trump is being ignored by Mr. Putin and Mr. Netanyahu? He seems completely flummoxed as to how to respond.
U.S. job growth was much lower than expected at 22,000 jobs and apparently job growth was overstated for much of 2024 and to date in 2025 which will put more pressure on the Bureau of Labor Statistics to modify their approach. If this is in fact true, it is rather disturbing. This also raises the question as to how we proceed on a going forward basis to make sure we receive accurate data.
Inflation came in at 2.9%, up from the prior month, and job losses continued as the unemployment numbers again increased. In that same line, the US has lost thousands of manufacturing jobs this year just as Mr. Trump is asserting that tariffs will bring back manufacturing to the US. There is obviously some confusion.
Trump is closing in on Chicago with both immigration and potential national guard action although there seems to be a slow down in that process and there may well be ongoing negotiations between Chicago, the State of Illinois, and the Federal Government. The other interesting issue, of course, is that no red states, as I noted previously, with higher crime rates than Chicago and Baltimore are being pursued by Mr. Trump. This is at least suspicious, if not overtly political in nature. No surprise coming from Mr. Trump.
Vaccine issues are becoming more and more chaotic as the recent Senate hearing displayed with Mr. Kennedy. It appears that even Republican senators who voted for him are now concerned with his activities, or, in some cases, lack thereof, but most of this is deliberate and acts of commission and not omission. This is dangerous for the entire country and has potential to cause major harm to our health system. This seems to be one of Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Kennedy’s intentions, that is, harming the healthcare system. Hard to understand.
The Hyundai raid has created a massive turnoff in Japan and in South Korea with Hyundai putting on hold 22 projects in the US, including the one at which the raid took place. This is not going to have a positive effect on the Georgia economy nor the US economy. It is clear that the indiscriminate raids, while they work against low level Mexican workers, the people who were targeted in Georgia were mostly upper echelon engineers so likely they won’t be coming back.
It was recently disclosed that 33 million voters were processed through a new program which DHS now possesses to determine whether or not they are citizens or were otherwise eligible to vote. The most striking was in Louisianna where they processed approximately 2.9 million people and got 79 negative hits. I’ll let you do the math. There clearly is no evidence that this project is delivering the kind of numbers that Mr. Trump and his sycophants at the DHS are claiming in terms of illegal people even registering to vote.
It appears that the Trump Administration is supporting claims by January 6th rioters who were pardoned that they should be compensated for the way in which they were treated. If this is true, and it appears to be, this is a bridge too far in my view in terms of Mr. Trump trying to placate his base because even many of them must think that attacking the Capitol Police is attacking all police, and if they don’t, I am afraid we have a much bigger problem than I thought.
The horrific murder of Charlie Kirk has stirred many emotions and many accusations by both sides. It is clear many inappropriate and dangerous statements involving Mr. Kirk, the Democrats murdered in Minnesota, and Mr. Kilmeade’s comment about euthanizing the homeless, are examples of truly outrageous and essentially barbaric behavior. The test will be, do each of us have the courage to sit and have the courage to sit and have a conversation with people holding opposing views in a civil matter. I’m happy to chat.
Bill Owens is a former member of Congress representing the New York 21st, a partner in Stafford, Owens, Piller, Murnane, Kelleher and Trombley in Plattsburgh, NY and a Strategic Advisor at Dentons to Washington, DC.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
