Year One Report Card · Updated May 2026
One year in.
The receipts are filed.
Two Aussie cousins locked a fixed scorecard in November 2024, eleven measurable metrics plus the loudest promises on the record, set after the election was called but before he touched a thing. No moving the goalposts. Here is how the bloke is tracking, scored and sourced.
01 The verdict
Two wins, a pile of broken shit, and a trillion-dollar bar tab.
He smashed two numbers we will concede through gritted teeth: border crossings and the China trade deficit. Almost everything transformational, ending Ukraine on day one, a trillion in DOGE savings, cheaper drugs, 500 miles of new wall, is buried in a drawer or flat broken. We grade it a D+, and we are being generous.
02 Kept vs broken
What he said. What actually happened.
We picked the loudest promises and counted them, no spin. He delivered on a handful, pardoning January 6, killing the tip tax, gutting the federal workforce. The rest either failed, got quietly dropped, or blew the deadline while he was on a buggy.
A couple of the kept ones are genuinely bad for the world. We said we would be objective. Credit where it is earned.
Source: Trump Scorecard promise tracker, each item sourced on the page.Headline promises, year one
03 The eleven metrics
The scorecard we locked before he was sworn in.
Each metric is one specific promise with a number attached and a baseline agreed in 2024. Ordered worst to best by grade. The bar shows progress to target; the coloured chip is our grade. Notice the pattern: most of the green hit target on a trend that was already running before he showed up.
Open any metric on the tracker pages for the full breakdown, sources, and the editorial that makes Steve's eye twitch.
Sources: BEA, Federal Reserve, EIA, CDC, BLS, CBP, Treasury. Per-metric citations in methodology.Progress to the 2024 target, by metric
04 Approval underwater
47% to the high thirties in twelve months.
He started above water. By week three the disapproval line had crossed over and it never came back. The honeymoon ended about the time the tariffs hit everyone's grocery bill, and the gap has sat near twenty points ever since.
Source: monthly polling average across Gallup, Quinnipiac, Marist, Reuters/Ipsos, Pew, AP-NORC, NBC, Fox and YouGov, via Wikipedia.Approve vs disapprove, monthly average
Approval fell from 47% in January 2025 to about 38% by mid 2026. Disapproval rose to roughly 58%. The two lines crossed in late February 2025 and approval has been underwater by around 20 points since.
05 Dead last
Everyone's unpopular eventually. He got there faster.
Job approval at a comparable point in the term. Obama had a financial meltdown. Reagan had a deep recession near 10% unemployment. Biden was the bloke Fox called the most unpopular president in history. Trump 2.0 polls below all of them, with no recession he did not start himself.
Source: Gallup Presidential Job Approval Center, roughly 16 to 18 months in. Higher is better.Job approval at a comparable point (%)
06 The trillion-dollar tab
He campaigned on slashing it. Here's the live tab instead.
National debt, live from the U.S. Treasury. Up $3.0 trillion since he took the oath, despite the DOGE "savings" fantasy.
Source: U.S. Treasury, Debt to the Penny.Debt at inauguration, plus what he's added
National debt was $36.21 trillion at inauguration. About $3.0 trillion has been added since, taking it to $39.21 trillion, a rise of roughly 8%.
07 The tariff tax
The tariff isn't paid by China. Funny, that.
Extra cost per US household per year from the 2025 tariffs, the highest effective rate since the 1930s. In February 2026 the Supreme Court ruled them unlawful, 6 to 3.
Sources: Yale Budget Lab; SCOTUSblog.SCOTUS on the IEEPA tariffs
08 DOGE's vanishing savings
A trillion in savings. Verified: a rounding error.
of the headline "savings" did not survive scrutiny. The big claims were contract ceiling values, not real money. POLITICO verified about $1.4B of the $30 to $50B claimed from terminated contracts.
Source: POLITICO.Terminated-contract savings: claimed vs verified
DOGE claimed $30 to $50 billion in terminated-contract savings. POLITICO verified about $1.4 billion, roughly 95% lower.
09 The golf habit
He spends more time on the green than at the desk.
About 114 golf days in roughly 511 days in office, nearly one day in four, and close to double his first-term rate. Estimated cost to you, around $92M. He owns most of the courses. You fund the motorcade.
Sources: TrumpGolfTrack and CREW; cost on GAO travel methodology.Share of days in office with a golf visit
10 It hasn't stopped
Year one is locked. The bullshit isn't.
The scorecard above is frozen at the one-year mark. Everything live, the court losses, the cabinet musical chairs, the approval slide, the tariff hit on your weekly shop, runs on its own pages. Here are the reset counters, the "days since last workplace incident" board for a wrinkled fascist.
Live "days since" reset counters load here, for example days since the last court loss, sacking, pardon and walk-back. The running tally lives on the Right Now page.
· Methodology
How we keep score.
The framework was locked in November 2024, after the election was called but well before he put his hand on the bible. The baselines, the targets, the scoring legend, all agreed before he was sworn in. Mike writes the copy and calls Trump what he is. Steve fact-checks it and tells Mike when he has gone too far, which is rarely. Every claim links to a credible source.
Full methodology and both bios live on the about page.