Trump planned to campaign with the slogan 'Promises Kept' -- but has shortened it to just 'Promises': op-ed

Writing in the Los Angeles Times this Wednesday, Noah Bierman and Eli Stokols take a look at how President Trump's 2020 campaign is shaping up. According to them, Trump had planned to run on the slogan "Promises Kept," but has instead shortened the message to one word: Promises.

"This is not the type of ambitious governing agenda most presidents roll out as they seek a second term. There are no white papers explaining the math, policy teams building legislative coalitions or national security experts laying out the geopolitical conditions and trade-offs," they write. "Instead, it’s Trump, who has flubbed repeated requests to specify his second-term agenda, making grandiose and, in some cases, pie-in-the-sky pledges that often catch even fellow Republicans by surprise."

Trump's campaign promises of cracking down on illegal immigration, installing conservative judges, and rolling back environmental legislation were largely kept, but "his record shows little evidence that he is likely to succeed where he has failed in the past."

"The president spent part of his first year in office trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. He failed, even with Republican control of both houses of Congress," Bierman and Stokols write. "Since then, he has repeatedly promised to release a replacement plan 'in two weeks.' He has yet to do so, and there is little public support for dismantling America’s healthcare system as millions fight a virus that has claimed more than 164,000 American lives."

His inability to find a replacement for the Iran nuclear deal he pulled out of, his failure at crafting a trade pact with China, his likely doomed effort to eliminate the payroll tax -- “It’s like a bad imitation of Oprah and Ellen DeGeneres or a game show host because at least they have real stuff to give away,” former Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) told the pair.

“With him, it’s just a bunch of empty promises and I think people have realized that," she added.

Read the full op-ed over at The Los Angeles Times.