Politics

Trump Sees the U.S. as a ‘Disaster.’ The Numbers Tell a Different Story.

Published

1 year ago

January 5, 2025

Trump Sees the U.S. as a ‘Disaster.’ The Numbers Tell a Different Story.

To hear President-elect Donald J. Trump tell it, he is about to take over a nation ravaged by crisis, a desolate hellscape of crime, chaos and economic hardship. “Our Country is a disaster, a laughing stock all over the World!” he declared on social media last week.

But by many traditional metrics, the America that Mr. Trump will inherit from President Biden when he takes the oath for a second time, two weeks from Monday, is actually in better shape than that bequeathed to any newly elected president since George W. Bush came into office in 2001.

For the first time since that transition 24 years ago, there will be no American troops at war overseas on Inauguration Day. New data reported in the past few days indicate that murders are way down, illegal immigration at the southern border has fallen even below where it was when Mr. Trump left office and roaring stock markets finished their best two years in a quarter-century.

Jobs are up, wages are rising and the economy is growing as fast as it did during Mr. Trump’s presidency. Unemployment is as low as it was just before the Covid-19 pandemic and near its historic best. Domestic energy production is higher than it has ever been.

The manufacturing sector has more jobs than under any president since Mr. Bush. Drug overdose deaths have fallen for the first time in years. Even inflation, the scourge of the Biden presidency, has returned closer to normal, although prices remain higher than they were four years ago.

“President Trump is inheriting an economy that is about as good as it ever gets,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. “The U.S. economy is the envy of the rest of the world, as it is the only significant economy that is growing more quickly post-pandemic than prepandemic.”

Those positive trends were not enough to swing a sour electorate behind Vice President Kamala Harris in the November election, reflecting a substantial gap between what statistics say and what ordinary Americans appear to feel about the state of the country. And the United States clearly faces some major challenges that will confront Mr. Trump as he retakes power.

The terrorist attack by an American man who said he had joined ISIS that killed 14 people in New Orleans early on New Year’s Day served as a reminder that the Islamic State, which Mr. Trump likes to boast he defeated during his previous term, remains a threat and an inspiration to radicalized lone wolves. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza are daunting challenges even without U.S. troops engaged in combat there.

Thanks in part to Covid relief spending by both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, the national debt has ballooned so much that it now represents a larger share of the economy than it has in generations, other than during the pandemic itself. Families remain pressed by the cost of living, including housing, health care and college tuition. The cost of gasoline, while down from its peak, is still about 70 cents per gallon higher than when Mr. Biden took office.

Moreover, Americans remain as divided as they have been in many years — politically, ideologically, economically, racially and culturally. As healthy as the country may be economically and otherwise, a variety of scholars, surveys and other indicators suggest that America is struggling to come together behind a common view of its national identity, either at home or abroad.

Indeed, many Americans do not perceive the country to be doing as well as the data suggests, either because they do not see it in their own lives, they do not trust the statistics or they accept the dystopian view promoted by Mr. Trump and amplified by a fragmented, choose-your-own-news media and online ecosphere.

Only 19 percent of Americans were satisfied with the direction of the country in Gallup polling last month. In another Gallup survey in September, 52 percent of Americans said they and their own family were worse off than four years ago, a higher proportion than felt that way in the presidential election years of 1984, 1992, 2004, 2012 or 2020.

It was in Mr. Trump’s political interest, of course, to encourage that sentiment and appeal to it during last year’s campaign. He was hardly the first challenger to emphasize the negative to defeat an incumbent president.

Dwight D. Eisenhower disparaged the state of the country when he first ran in 1952, much to the irritation of President Harry S. Truman, only to have John F. Kennedy do the same to him when running in 1960. Kennedy hammered away at a “missile gap” with the Soviet Union that did not exist, then after winning declared that America was in “its hour of maximum danger,” in contrast to Eisenhower’s view of his security record.

“This is a contrast you oftentimes find,” said Michael Beschloss, a historian who has written nine books on the American presidency. “Candidates who are running against incumbent presidents or sitting governments make it sound much worse than it is.”

Still, few have been as extreme in their negative descriptions as Mr. Trump, or as resistant to fact-checking. He has suggested falsely that immigration, crime and inflation are out of control, attributed the New Orleans incident to lax border policies even though the attacker was an American born in Texas and as recently as Friday called the country “a total mess!”

Yet Mr. Trump is moving back into the White House with an enviable hand to play, one that other presidents would have dearly loved on their opening day. President Ronald Reagan inherited double-digit inflation and an unemployment rate twice as high as today. President Barack Obama inherited two foreign wars and an epic financial crisis. Mr. Biden inherited a devastating pandemic and the resulting economic turmoil.

“He’s stepping into an improving situation,” William J. Antholis, director of the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, which has studied presidential transitions, said of Mr. Trump.

Mr. Antholis compared the situation to President Bill Clinton’s arrival in 1993, when he took over a growing economy and a new post-Cold War order. While the country had already begun recovering from recession during the 1992 election, many voters did not yet feel it and punished President George H.W. Bush.

“The fundamentals of the economy had turned just before the election, and kept moving in the right direction when Clinton took over,” Mr. Antholis recalled.

Much as it did for the first Mr. Bush’s team, the disconnect between macro trends and individual perceptions proved enormously frustrating to Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris, who failed to persuade voters during last year’s election that the country was doing better than commonly believed. Rattling off statistics and boasting about the success of “Bidenomics” did not resonate with voters who did not see it the same way.

“Of course, not everyone is enjoying good economic times, as many low-middle income households are struggling financially, and the nation has mounting fiscal challenges,” said Mr. Zandi. “But taking the economy in its totality, it rarely performs better than it is now as President Trump takes office.”

Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said the latest reports demonstrated that Mr. Biden’s policies are working and argued that Republicans should not seek to repeal them once they take control of the presidency and both houses of Congress.

“After inheriting an economy in free-fall and skyrocketing violent crime, President Biden is proud to hand his successor the best-performing economy on earth, the lowest violent crime rates in over 50 years, and the lowest border crossings in over four years,” Mr. Bates said.

Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, responded by citing the election: “Americans delivered an overwhelming Election Day rebuke of the Biden-Harris administration’s abysmal track record: communities being overrun with millions of unvetted migrants who walked over Biden’s open border, lower real wages, and declining trust in increasingly politicized law enforcement agencies that are unable to even publish accurate crime data.”

Mr. Trump does not have to share a positive view of the situation to benefit from it. When he takes office on Jan. 20, absent the unexpected, he will not face the sort of major immediate action-forcing crisis that, say, Mr. Obama did in needing to rescue the economy from the brink of another Great Depression.

Mr. Trump instead will have more latitude to pursue favored policies like mass deportation of undocumented immigrants or tariffs on foreign imported goods. And if past is prologue, he may eventually begin extolling the state of the economy to claim successes for his policies.

He has already taken credit for recent increases in stock prices even before assuming office. He has a demonstrated skill for self-promotion that eluded Mr. Biden, enabling him to persuade many Americans that the economy during his first term was even better than it actually was.

At the same time, with unemployment, crime, border crossings and even inflation already pretty low, it may be difficult for Mr. Trump to improve on them significantly. Mr. Trump obliquely seemed to acknowledge as much when he noted in a post-election interview with Time magazine that he may not be able to live up to his campaign pledge to lower grocery prices. “It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up,” he said. “You know, it’s very hard.”

On the contrary, Mr. Trump faces the risk that the economy goes in the other direction. Some specialists have warned that a tariff-driven trade war with major economic partners could, for instance, reignite inflation.

N. Gregory Mankiw, an economics professor at Harvard and chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers under the second Mr. Bush, recalled that even his former boss faced significant challenges when he took office in 2001 as the economy was already heading into a relatively mild recession following the bust of the dot-com boom.

“There are no similar storm clouds on the horizon right now,” Mr. Mankiw said. “That is certainly lucky for Mr. Trump. On the other hand, all presidents must deal with unexpected shocks to the economy. We just don’t know yet what kind of shocks President Trump will have to handle.”

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Politics

EXCLUSIVE: ICE says El Paso detention facility will stay open under new contractor after $1.2B deal scrapped

Published

9 hours ago

March 11, 2026

Press Room

EXCLUSIVE: ICE says El Paso detention facility will stay open under new contractor after .2B deal scrapped

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EXCLUSIVE: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas will remain open and is undergoing an operational upgrade, Fox News Digital has learned.

“Camp East Montana is NOT closing, quite the opposite,” an ICE spokesperson exclusively told Fox News Digital Tuesday.

“Rather, ICE has contracted with a new provider following Secretary Noem’s termination of the old contract inherited from the Department of War. ICE is always looking at ways to improve our detention facilities to ensure we are providing the best care to illegal aliens in our custody.”

Camp East Montana is photographed Friday, March 6, 2026, in El Paso, Texas. (Omar Ornelas/El Paso Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

BLUE-STATE GOVERNORS MOVE TO KEEP HEAT ON NOEM AS DHS FIRES BACK

The spokesperson said the new contract will allow the facility to maintain what the agency described as the “highest detention standards” while expanding oversight.

According to ICE, the new contractor will also provide increased on-site medical care, additional staffing and a “PRECISE quality assurance surveillance plan.”

The agency said the updated agreement also strengthens ICE’s direct oversight of operations at the El Paso-area facility.

“Far from closing, Camp East Montana is upgrading,” the spokesperson said.

El Paso immigration facility faces scrutiny but ICE says Camp East Montana is upgrading, not closing, after the $1.2 billion contract termination. (Omar Ornelas/El Paso Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

FOUR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS LINKED TO MS-13 INDICTED FOR ALLEGEDLY MURDERING 14-YEAR-OLD BOY IN MARYLAND PARK

The news that the facility will remain open comes after The Washington Post reported that the facility could face closure amid scrutiny over operations.

A document was distributed to ICE staff, the Post reports, indicated that the agency was drafting a letter to terminate the facility’s $1.2 billion contract at an unspecified date.

ICE officials, however, characterized the contract termination as a deliberate effort by Noem to raise standards and improve services.

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Camp East Montana is photographed Friday, March 6, 2026, in El Paso, Texas, as a bus enters the detention center. (Omar Ornelas/El Paso Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

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The facility, located at Fort Bliss in Texas, has been used to house thousands of detainees as part of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.

ICE did not immediately provide details on the identity of the new contractor or the timeline for full implementation.

Preston Mizell is a writer with Fox News Digital covering breaking news.

Politics

War with Iran fuels Russian oil boom — and trouble for Ukraine

Published

10 hours ago

March 11, 2026

Press Room

War with Iran fuels Russian oil boom — and trouble for Ukraine

WASHINGTON — Russia is emerging as one of the few early economic beneficiaries of the war with Iran, as disruptions to energy infrastructure drive up demand for Russian exports and the world casts its gaze to the Middle East and away from Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

The U.S. and its European counterparts slapped severe sanctions on Russia in March 2022, barely a month into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The effect was a stranglehold on Russia’s exports, depriving Putin’s war effort of at least $500 billion, experts say. But over the last week, as President Trump’s war in the Middle East choked energy markets worldwide, the White House began easing its restrictions on Moscow.

“It is traitorous conduct for you to help Russia,” California Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) said on X, demanding the Trump administration reverse course. “Russia is giving intelligence info to Iran that helps Iran target American forces.”

Crude droplets rained over Tehran after Israeli airstrikes decimated oil depots, draping the Iranian capital in a dense smog. Iranian counterattacks have also targeted refineries and oil fields in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Crude oil prices have surged, and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has all but ceased, sending energy importers in search of alternate sources.

Those spikes are giving Russia, one of the world’s largest oil and gas exporters, a rare advantage. After spending a decade as the world’s most sanctioned nation over his aggression in Ukraine, Putin is finally starting to regain some leverage in global markets.

“In the current economic situation, if we refocus now on those markets that need increased supplies, we can gain a foothold there,” Putin said at a meeting at the Kremlin on Monday, according to Russian state media. “It’s important for Russian energy companies to take advantage of the current situation.”

On March 4, the Treasury Department issued a temporary 30-day waiver allowing Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil. The appeal by the Trump administration was described as a way to ease demand for Mideast oil, but was criticized as a reversal of sanctions placed against Putin meant to deny him the capital needed to fund his occupation of eastern Ukraine.

Now, Moscow is poised to press that advantage further, after Trump said Monday he will further lift sanctions on oil-producing countries to ease the trade friction and reintroduce additional oil and gas supplies. The only countries with U.S. oil sanctions are Russia, Iran and Venezuela.

“So, we have sanctions on some countries. We’re going to take those sanctions off until this straightens out,” Trump said at a news conference at his golf club in Doral, Fla. “Then, who knows, maybe we won’t have to put them on — they’ll be so much peace.”

The surprise concession to Moscow comes as reports suggest Russia is assisting Iran in targeting U.S. personnel.

Trump’s announcement followed an unscheduled hourlong call with Putin about the situation in the Middle East.

The war has also set the stage for Russia to make gains in Ukraine, as hostilities draw the global spotlight away from Kyiv and its struggle to hold back the bigger Russian army. U.S.-brokered talks between the two adversaries have been sidelined as Washington shifts focus to its war in Iran.

“At the moment, the partners’ priority and all attention are focused on the situation around Iran,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X. “We see that the Russians are now trying to manipulate the situation in the Middle East and the Gulf region to the benefit of their aggression.”

Putin is unlikely to intervene militarily on Iran’s behalf, according to Robert English, an international foreign policy expert at USC. Instead, Putin is expected to play his position carefully, reap the economic rewards, and keep focused firmly on Ukraine at a time when key air defense systems are diverted from Ukraine to the Persian Gulf.

“Russia is winning the Iran-U.S.-Israel war, at least so far. Oil and natural gas prices have soared, filling Putin’s Ukraine war chest,” he said. “Russia is gathering forces for a big spring offensive in Eastern Ukraine, and it’s not even front-page news.”

Ukraine has dispatched drone interceptors and ordered its anti-drone experts to pivot from their war with Russia to help Western allies help intercept Iranian attacks. Zelensky’s allegiance may not pay off, English said.

“When will Ukraine see the benefits of helping the U.S. with anti-drone technology? No time soon, apparently,” he said.

Even several weeks of interruption in Gulf energy supplies could bring the largest windfall to Russia, the Associated Press reported, citing energy analysts.

The economic turmoil caused by the war has exposed vulnerabilities in Europe’s energy system, particularly its lingering dependence on Russian fuel.

Despite sanctions, the European Union remains a major purchaser of Russian natural gas and crude oil. Russian gas accounted for approximately 19% of E.U. gas imports in 2025. Allied Europeans have agreed to completely stop importing Russian liquefied natural gas, oil and pipeline gas by late 2027.

Putin expressed no desire Monday to rescue the European market now that U.S.-Israeli escalations and Iranian retaliation have choked oil production and shipping. The Russian president instead proposed to divert volumes away from the European market “to more promising areas” like the Asia-Pacific region, Slovakia and Hungary, which he said were “reliable counterparties.”

European leaders have been criticized for being “stunned, sidelined, and disunited” since hostilities began in late February. Excluded from the initial military planning by the U.S. and Israel, Europe entered the conflict with gas storage at only 30% capacity, the lowest levels in years. Instead of bold action, English said, European leaders have quarreled over internal divisions and rivalries.

“Sky-high energy prices are the underlying cause of many of these frictions, as Europe struggles now more than ever to find affordable alternatives to the cheap Russian petroleum,” English said.

Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, told European leaders in Brussels on Tuesday that rising energy prices and the world’s shifting attention risk strengthening the Kremlin at a critical moment in the war in Ukraine.

“So far, there is only one winner in this war,” Costa said. “Russia.”

Politics

Trump stirs GOP primary drama with visit to Massie’s Kentucky home turf

Published

21 hours ago

March 10, 2026

Press Room

Trump stirs GOP primary drama with visit to Massie’s Kentucky home turf

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President Donald Trump is taking his feud with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., to the libertarian lawmaker’s home turf on Wednesday.

Trump is expected to hold an event in Hebron, Kentucky, on Wednesday, the Republican Party of Kentucky announced on social media Monday. It’s located in the northern part of the state’s 4th Congressional District, which Massie represents.

Massie’s primary rival, Ed Gallrein, will attend the Hebron event, his campaign confirmed to Fox News Digital on Tuesday, while deferring all other questions on the matter to the White House.

Massie himself will miss the event due to a previously scheduled official engagement, his spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

KHANNA AND MASSIE THREATEN TO FORCE A VOTE ON IRAN AS PROSPECT OF US ATTACK LOOMS

President Donald Trump will be visiting Rep. Thomas Massie’s congressional district on Wednesday. (Win McNamee/Getty Images; Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

When asked about the visit, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told Fox News Digital, “President Trump will visit the great states of Ohio and Kentucky on Wednesday to tout his economic victories and detail his Administration’s aggressive, ongoing efforts to lower prices and make America more affordable.”

The president has thrown his considerable influence behind Gallrein to unseat Massie after the GOP lawmaker publicly defied Trump on multiple occasions.

MASSIE, KHANNA TO VISIT DOJ TO REVIEW UNREDACTED EPSTEIN FILES

Massie most recently was one of two House Republicans to vote to stop Trump’s joint operation in Iran with Israel, though the legislation was successfully blocked by the majority of GOP lawmakers and a handful of Democrats.

Ed Gallrein, left, seen with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House. (Ed Gallrein congressional campaign)

He was also one of two Republicans to vote against Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last year.

Trump in turn has hurled a slew of personal attacks against Massie, including calling him “weak and pathetic” in a statement endorsing Gallrein in October.

“He only votes against the Republican Party, making life very easy for the Radical Left. Unlike ‘lightweight’ Massie, a totally ineffective LOSER who has failed us so badly, CAPTAIN ED GALLREIN IS A WINNER WHO WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN,” Trump posted on Truth Social at the time, one of numerous criticisms targeting the Kentucky Republican through the years.

He called Massie the “worst Republican congressman” in July amid Massie’s bipartisan push to force the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein.

Then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

But Massie has so far appeared to defy political gravity despite making political enemies out of both Trump and House GOP leaders.

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He handily defeated multiple primary challengers in 2024 and 2022, despite public feuds with Trump, and has served his district since 2012.

Gallrein is a retired Navy SEAL and farmer who launched his campaign days after Trump made his endorsement. Their primary election day is May 19.

Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.

Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com