I have always said that I will give Trump a fair shake, even when I thought there was no chance in hell that I would ever support him. As a Constitutional Conservative, I had and still have many concerns about the Trump administration. He has done some really good things over the past two years. Some of those things, I never would have expected him to actually follow through on. He has also done some really bad things that I don’t find to be Constitutional and are really concerning when it comes to the path that America is currently on, and what kind of precedent he is leaving his successors.
In this article I’m going to lay out some of the things that I think Trump has gotten right over the past two years. Next week I will examine some of the issues that I have serious concerns with.
Israel
President Trump following through with his pledge to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and officially recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital comes as the biggest surprise. This is something that no president has accomplished since Israel became a nation in 1948. Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush were against the move, with Reagan even going as far as threatening to veto any bill requiring the US to move the embassy to Jerusalem. In 1992 Bill Clinton criticized George H. W. Bush for keeping the embassy in Tel Aviv and promised to move the embassy. In 1995, a law was passed by Congress requiring the embassy be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Since then, every 6 months each President from Bill Clinton to Donald Trump has signed a 6 month delay. That was until December 2017 when Donald Trump actually followed through with his campaign promise to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and officially moved the US embassy to Jerusalem in May 2018.
Supreme Court
On the campaign trail Trump promised that he would appoint Conservative justices to the Supreme Court and released a list of 25 possible names, of which he would choose from to fill Supreme Court openings. Neil Gorsuch was one of the names on that list, who was later confirmed to replace Antonin Scalia. It always seems to be difficult for Republican Presidents to choose nominees that don’t end up moving to the left after they are confirmed, but so far it appears that Donald Trump has done just that (at least when it comes to Neil Gorsuch). So far Gorsuch has lived up to Conservative expectations.
While Neil Gorsuch appears to be a win for the Constitution, the jury is still out on Brett Kavanaugh. Many Conservatives had concerns when Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh, who was not on the original list that was released during the 2016 campaign. Kavanaugh appears to be slightly more Conservative then his predecessor Anthony Kennedy, but so far doesn’t appear to be the Conservative that we were promised. It’s still early in Brett Kavanaugh’s tenure, so how he rules on some key issues remains to be seen.
Iran Deal
One of the biggest and best foreign policy decisions that President Trump has made so far is his decision to withdraw from the Iran deal that was signed into law under Barack Obama. The deal involved loosening sanctions on Iran and companies that do business with Iran, with an agreement that Iran will not continue to pursue nuclear weapons. The deal has turned out to be a disaster, with Iran using that money to continue to fund rebels in Syria and Yemen, as well as continuing their pursuit of nuclear weapons.
The reversal of the Iran deal brings back new sanctions on Iran in hopes that it will deter Iran from continuing to pursue nuclear weapons.