Trump Was Right: On the Economy and the Border

These days, former President Trump is most likely getting tired of doing the “I told you so!” dance around his Mar-a-Lago club. While the media works overtime to protect Biden, the current administration still can not help themselves from handing Trump more wins and more political ammunition for 2024. Two cases in point are the teetering U.S. economy and the crisis on America’s southern border.

The greatest impact of President Biden’s economic agenda can be felt by every single American household that is now paying approximately $175 more per month for basic goods and services than they were 8 months ago. Inflation is up 5.3% as of August 2021 compared to the same time one year ago. 

In June 2021, former President Trump appeared on Fox Business’ Varney & Co. show, where he outlined his worst fears of America under Biden. Trump expressed that he was “very worried” about the direction of America. He warned of “massive inflation,” which was “going to be rampant” and “very bad,” if Biden and the Congressional Democrats got their way. 

“We had energy independence when I left [office]. Gasoline was $1.87, now it’s going to be double that. It’s going to be triple and quadruple that,” Trump told show host Stuart Varney by phone. Indeed, the national average of the price of gas is $3.288 as of this writing, nearly double, as Trump astutely predicted. 

“Food prices, everything, lumber for a house is up at a level that it’s never been, so it costs much more for housing. It’s inflation,” Trump told Varney. 

“I used to spend $70 a week, but all of sudden this summer, I noticed that I couldn’t leave the store without spending at least $120,” education worker Allison says, according to the New York Post.

On immigration, things are even more bleak for everyone living in Biden’s America.

When Trump was preparing to leave office in December 2020, the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) reported 40,565 Southwest border crossings. Under President Biden, the USBP reported 208,887 crossings at the Southwest border in August 2021. That’s more than 4 times as many people crossing the border than when President Trump left office a mere 8 months ago. 

As the Biden border crisis continues unabated, Biden has not visited the border to see the carnage firsthand. In fact, he hasn’t visited the border in over a decade, leading RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel to make the point that “his policies show it” in a recent op-ed penned in The Hill. In an ironic twist, Biden laid into Trump on the campaign trail over his immigration policies, particularly deportations and entry refusal, as his administration is now defending those practices-mostly because they now know that Trump was right, and it worked.

While it appears that President Biden is trying to have his cake and eat it too, the American people can see through the President’s words as compared to his deeds. President Biden’s job approval rating has now fallen to 44%, down from 55% in July, according to Pew Research Center’s latest poll (Sept. 13-19, 2021). Clearly, Trump was right about a lot of things, especially the economy and the Biden border crisis.

Bob Carlstrom is President of AMAC Action.