MEMORANDUM
TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Democratic National Committee Community Engagement
DATE: March 3, 2025
RE: Trump’s Address to the Nation: Promises Made, Promises Broken
Tomorrow night, Donald Trump will take the stage for his address to the joint session of Congress as the least popular president in modern American history at this point in his term. Staring down the threat of a Trump Recession, the American people will not hear solutions for any real problems they face. Instead, they will hear from a man bought and paid for by fat cat billionaires. They will hear excuses for his failure to deliver on the promises he made to the American people. They will hear the hollow words of a president who is as malicious as he is incompetent.
Trump has always promised to be a voice for the left behind. But since the moment he first took office, Trump has made it clear who he speaks for: corrupt billionaires, ultra-wealthy scam artists, and Vladimir Putin. And he couldn’t care less about working families.
In the Capitol, he will be surrounded by his billionaire Cabinet — the richest in American history — and his shadow president, Elon Musk. Despite promising to lower costs on “Day One,” Trump’s unpopular agenda is threatening to tank the economy and skyrocket inflation. Costs are rising, and consumer confidence just registered the sharpest monthly decline in four years. His dangerous funding freezes and mass firings have put seniors, kids, and families already struggling to make ends meet at risk. And now, in the halls of Congress, his MAGA lackeys are advancing a budget plan that would take money out of the pockets of working people, kick millions off their health insurance, and take food off the table of low-income families in order to give a massive tax handout to the richest 1%.
No matter what lies he spews tomorrow, the reality is Trump isn’t just breaking the promises he made to the American people — he’s playing politics with their lives.
Trump Isn’t Just Failing to Deliver on His Promises — He’s Making Things Worse
PROMISE: “Making America affordable again”
BROKEN: Prices are climbing under Trump while economists predict “a serious Trump recession” and consumer confidence plummets
PROMISE: “Rapidly defeat” inflation on Day One
BROKEN: Barely a month into his presidency, Trump admitted “inflation is back”
PROMISE: No cuts to Medicaid or Social Security (even after he tried to gut them every year of his first term)
BROKEN: Republicans are pushing a budget (with Trump’s blessing) that would put Medicaid on the chopping block while DOGE threatens to slash the Social Security Administration
PROMISE: No Project 2025 in his administration
BROKEN: Trump’s administration is stacked with Project 2025 contributors and allies – including its “key architect” Russ Vought – and are now following through on their Day One agenda of mass firings and devastating cuts to programs for working families
PROMISE: Lower mortgage rates to 3% and “maybe even lower than that” to make housing more affordable
BROKEN: DOGE cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development are likely to worsen housing markets and upend mortgages
PROMISE: Reduce energy prices by 50% and bring down the price of gas to under $2 a gallon
BROKEN: Gas prices are set to rise across the country under Trump
PROMISE: Promised to “protect our workers [and] … protect our jobs”
BROKEN: Trump and Musk’s reckless mass firings forced small businesses to lay off employees, losing thousands of private sector jobs
PROMISE: Promised to make IVF free
BROKEN: Trump’s executive order on IVF doesn’t actually make it free at all – and his role in overturning Roe v. Wade is the only reason it’s at risk
PROMISE: Promised to take care of veterans “properly”
BROKEN: Fired thousands of veterans while simultaneously gutting VA health care
PROMISE: Promised no individual assistance would be affected by his federal funding freeze
BROKEN: Critical programs like Head Start, Meals on Wheels, and community health centers were unable to access funding
PROMISE: Promised to “put money into the pockets of American consumers”
BROKEN: Shuttered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has put $21 billion back in the pockets of hardworking Americans
PROMISE: Promised there would be no conflicts of interest with Musk leading DOGE, telling Americans that Musk would recuse himself
BROKEN: Musk was given $2 billion and $38 million contracts from agencies he was overseeing, his wealth has grown by over $200 billion since Election Day, and the Justice Department dropped a legal case against SpaceX
PROMISE: Promised to end the revolving door between lobbyists and government officials
BROKEN: On Day One, Trump rolled back ethics rules and fired administration watchdogs that police conflicts of interest, while nominating people to lead the Interior, Transportation, and Energy Departments with conflicts of interest in the industries they now regulate
PROMISE: Promised to “make America safe again”
BROKEN: Put our national security at risk with his unqualified and unfit Cabinet nominations for Director of National Intelligence and FBI Director
PROMISE: Promised to bring safety back to America
BROKEN: Fired critical FAA air traffic controllers after a major plane crash, froze the hiring of much-needed firefighters on the eve of fire season, and stalled several counternarcotics efforts in Mexico to stop fentanyl
This is just the beginning: Trump and House Republicans are now pushing an agenda that will put billionaires over working families:
· Threatening cuts to Medicaid that could devastate 22 million Americans – including many families in rural communities
· Threatening increased student loan payments for young people
· Cutting SNAP benefits, preventing millions of Americans from putting food on the table
· Letting costs for health care rise by refusing to extend ACA tax credits
· Slashing over $300 billion from higher education funding across the board
· Cutting programs that help families afford child care
The American People Aren’t Buying What Trump is Selling
Trump is taking the stage for his joint address with the second lowest approval rating of any president since WWII at this point in their term — beaten only by himself during his first term. Republicans are getting dragged down by Trump and his unpopular agenda as Americans make clear they think the country is on the wrong track.
The American people know our future is at risk with Trump and the GOP at the helm, disapproving of how he’s threatening the economy, refusing to lower costs, and putting his corrupt ultra-wealthy friends above working families.
And let’s be clear: There’s going to be a price to pay for Trump’s unpopular agenda.
Here’s what Americans think of Trump’s second term so far:
· 53% think the economy is on the wrong track
· A majority disapprove of the way Trump is handling the economy (and his overall job performance) and think Trump hasn’t focused enough on lowering costs
· 64% say their cost of living is heading in the wrong direction
· 2 out of 3 Americans believe the economy is rigged for the rich and powerful
· 69% of Americans say the ultra-wealthy are making money off their White House connections
· And 71% agree the very wealthy have too much influence on the White House, and a majority say corruption is on the wrong track under Trump’s billionaire Cabinet
· 59% of Americans are concerned about the ultra-wealthy gaining power and threatening basic rights
· Across the board, American consumers’ confidence in the market is falling while economic uncertainty rises to higher than at any time during the Great Recession
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