Trump promised the MAGA base no new wars.
In his election night victory speech in November 2024, Trump told his supporters: “I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars.”
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump promised “no new wars”
9 Campaign Promises That Obama Has Broken
The Promise: While running for president in 2008, then Senator Barack Obama, in all his fresh-faced, dark haired enthusiasm, pledges that a vote for him means a vote for a candidate who won’t be swayed by the influence of special interests and Super PACs.
"If you choose change, you will have a nominee who doesn't take a dime from Washington lobbyists and PACs,” Obama said in a
campaign speech in Denver, Colorado.
The Reality: Just four years later, faced with another election, now president Obama has second thoughts about those same special interests and Super PACs. He still doesn’t like them, but he’s going to use them, only because everyone else is.
Source: University of California, Santa Barbara
Source: The New York Times
Closing Gitmo
The Promise: On 60 Minutes in 2008, Obama was asked whether he would take early action on closing the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, and his answer was about as unequivocal as an answer can get:
“Yes. I have said repeatedly that I will close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that.”
The Reality: Well, maybe it wasn’t that unequivocal. On March 7, 2011, the president signed an executive order to resume military trials for Guantanamo detainees and allow detainees to continue to be held in the facility.
Though the president said that he is still committed to closing the detention center, the move was largely seen as a concession.
Source: The Washington Post
Goodbye Bush Tax Cuts
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The Promise: Throughout his campaign, Obama played the not-Bush card a lot. And one thing he promised was ending the Bush-era tax cuts, which gave breaks to some of the richest Americans.
The Reality: Obama agreed to temporarily extend the tax cuts in exchange for extending unemployment benefits and reduction of Social Security taxes. With the 2012 election on the horizon, Obama has now stepped up his criticism of the current tax code and is pushing to raise taxes on the wealthy.
Source: whitehouse.gov
Get Cap-And-Trade Passed
The Promise: “As President, I will set a hard cap on all carbon emissions at a level that scientists say is necessary to curb global warming — an 80% reduction by 2050,”
said Obama in 2007 before the Real Leadership for a Clean Energy Future.
The Reality: Well it’s not quite 2050 just yet, but it looks like cap-and-trade may be dead. After making it's way through the House, the bill died in the Senate after Democrats lost their majority in 2010. Sensing that getting it passed was unlikely, Obama walked back his commitment on the plan. "[Cap-and-trade] was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way. It was a means, not an end."
Source: NPR
No New Taxes For Families Making Under $250,000
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The Promise: In his campaign, Obama pledged that Americans making less than $250,000 would not see "any form of tax increase." Simple as that.
The Reality: But sixteen days into his presidency, Obama signed into law and increase in the federal excise tax on tobacco, and with that, all the smokers making less that $250,000 a year saw their taxes go up.
Source: The Daily Caller
Encourage states to guarantee same-sex couples are treated equally in regards to family and adoption laws
The Promise: In an
open letter to the LGBT community, Obama wrote “I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws.”
The Reality: Although Obama hasn’t taken this statement back, he hasn’t gone out of his way to “use the bully pulpit” to advance the cause.
And Obama has been presented with several opportunities to speak in support.
Since coming to office, Vermont, Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire, Washington D.C., and now Maryland have legalized same-sex marriage. California voters rejected same-sex marriage. All of these events were an opportunity to use the bully pulpit. But he has remained quiet.
Source: BarackObama.com
Send people to the Moon by 2020...and then Mars
The Promise: In Obama’s 2008
campaign material “A Robust and Balanced Program of Space Exploration and Scientific Discovery” Obama said, “He endorses the goal of sending human missions to the Moon by 2020, as a precursor in an orderly progression to missions to more distant destinations, including Mars.”
The Reality: When Obama released his fiscal year 2011 budget, he said he was offering an alternative direction for space exploration.
"NASA's Constellation program - based largely on existing technologies - was based on a vision of returning astronauts back to the Moon by 2020,” the report says. “However, the program was over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation due to a failure to invest in critical new technologies. Using a broad range of criteria an independent review panel determined that even if fully funded, NASA's program to repeat many of the achievements of the Apollo era, 50 years later, was the least attractive approach to space exploration as compared to potential alternatives. Furthermore, NASA's attempts to pursue its moon goals, while inadequate to that task, had drawn funding away from other NASA programs, including robotic space exploration, science, and Earth observations.”
The NASA space shuttle program officially ended on August 31, 2011.
Source:
Barack Obama Campaign MaterialSource: whithouse.gov
Guarantee that employees get at least 7 paid sick days per year
The Promise: During the 2008 campaign, Obama listed on his website his support for a federal guarantee that all employers provide seven paid sick days per year.
The Reality: In the first year of this presidency, Obama expressed support for the Healthy Families Act. However the
bill stalled in committee. It is unlikely that this bill, or any version of this bill, will pass anytime soon now that the Republicans have a majority in the House of Representatives.
Source: Department of Labor
Introduce a comprehensive immigration reform bill by the end of his first year in office
The Promise: “The American people need us to put an end to the petty partisanship that passes for politics in Washington. And they need us to enact comprehensive immigration reform once and for all. We can’t wait 20 years from now to do it. We can’t wait 10 years from now to do it. We need to do it by the end of my first term as President of the United States of America. And I will make it a top priority in my first year as president,” Obama said during a speech to the League of United Latin American Citizens in 2008.
The Reality: Obama said immigration reform would be a top priority, but by the end of the first year no comprehensive bill supported by Obama had been introduced in Congress.
In April of 2010 a 26-page immigration reform proposal was released. However he has yet to support a bill in Congress.
Source:
Associated PressSource: senate.gov
