President Donald Trump has never been a reliable conservative leader. He has gone through cycles of good governance and baffling decisions during both terms of his presidency. Now, he is in the midst of a particularly terrible cycle.
Trump’s obsession with the United States acquiring Greenland has led him to become increasingly belligerent toward Europe. While there is nothing wrong with slapping around the Europeans on occasion, as they themselves are poor allies at times, Trump’s threats of tariffs and possibly military force to take Greenland have undermined legitimate American interests in the territory and hardened Europe against legitimate criticisms of the continent’s lack of military spending and unwillingness to face real threats to global stability, including Russia, China, and Islamic terrorism.
MACRON TEXTS TRUMP HE DOESN’T ‘UNDERSTAND’ HIS GREENLAND PLAN
Trump is also still handing out pardons like candy to people who clearly do not deserve them, hoping to receive some benefit in exchange. My colleague Tim Carney detailed many of those cases, including one of the most egregious: a pardon for Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX). Trump helped Cuellar, a Democrat, avoid facing any accountability for his alleged crimes (the pardon came before there was even a trial) and then attacked Cuellar for a “lack of loyalty” when he didn’t flip parties.
Trump has also turned his back on the pro-life movement, as my colleague Peter Laffin accurately deemed the Trump-Vance administration to be “the most anti-life Republican administration in history.” Most recently, Trump urged Republicans to be more “flexible” in allowing federal tax dollars to go to funding abortions.
TRUMP ESCALATES GREENLAND LAND GRAB INTO A FULL-BLOWN, FIVE-ALARM TRANSATLANTIC CRISIS
To top it all off, Trump is losing his touch when it comes to American adversaries. He has been weakening American opposition to China, a side effect of his growing reliance on China in economic matters due to his disastrous tariff policies and the rising costs they have created. Trump promised Iranian protesters that “help is on the way,” urging them to continue to protest Iran‘s authoritarian, terrorist government. The Iranian regime killed thousands, and Trump declared victory because he secured a promise from the Iranian government that the killing would stop. It echoes the failed worldview of former President Joe Biden and the “promises” the Taliban gave his administration.
These past few months have been arguably the worst stretch of Trump governance in either term, proving right the critics who knew that Trump was a repurposed Democrat who would be unshackled from electoral responsibility toward Republicans as a lame-duck president. Trump is not just failing to advance the ball; he is repeatedly punting it backward, jeopardizing conservative wins at home and weakening his “peace through strength” message abroad. Trump is on pace to leave the movement, the party, and the country in worse positions than he found it last year on everything but maybe immigration, handing Democrats (and Europeans) the keys to America’s future at home and abroad.
