Donald Trump’s Promises to Keep
The former president has made abundantly clear what he intends to do if re-elected. Here’s a roundup, in his own words.
AS KAMALA HARRIS AND TIM WALZ emerge from the Democratic convention in Chicago brimming with optimism and ideas for building a better future, it’s worth remembering what the Republicans’ standard bearer, Donald Trump, has pledged to accomplish—a compendium of grievance, radicalism, and ill will.
Leave aside the extreme policy goals set forth in Project 2025, from which Trump and his campaign have sought to distance themselves, even though the Heritage Foundation blueprint for “the next conservative president” was crafted with extensive input from Trump associates, and even though the people who put the plan together claim in private that Trump is “very supportive of what we do.” Leave aside, too, what Trump’s critics say he stands for, in case they are misinterpreting something.
Rather, let’s look only at what the former president himself has said, in his campaign speeches and on the Agenda 47 section of his website, which outlines his various policy planks and includes videos and transcripts that convey his reasoning, if that’s the right word. Here is some of what he has promised to do:
Release the rioters who attacked the Capitol and brutalized police on January 6th
“Free the J-6 hostages now. They should free them now for what they’ve gone through.”
—Speaking at a campaign rally in Virginia, June 28, 2024
“From the moment I win the election, I will rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner who has been unjustly victimized by the Biden-Harris regime so we can get them out of prison and back to their families where they belong.”
—Addressing religious conservatives at a rally on July 26, 2024
Order the mass deportation of immigrants
“The Republican platform promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country. Even larger than that of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, from many years ago. You know, he was a moderate but he believed very strongly in borders. He had the largest deportation operation we’ve ever had [‘Operation Wetback’].”
—From Trump’s nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, July 18, 2024
End birthright citizenship
“On Day One of my new term in office, I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward, the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship. . . . They must go back.”
—Agenda 47 campaign video on “Ending Citizenship for Children of Illegals and Outlawing Birth Tourism,” May 30, 2023
Ramp up executions
“I will urge Congress to ensure that anyone caught trafficking children across our border receives the death penalty immediately and that includes also for women, because women as you know are number one in trafficking. Children are actually number two.”
—From Agenda 47 campaign video on Trump’s website, July 21, 2023
“We’re going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts.”
—Trump in announcing his campaign, on November 15, 2022
Militarize the failed war on drugs
“The drug cartels are waging war on America—and it’s now time for America to wage war on the cartels. . . . I will order the Department of Defense to make appropriate use of special forces, cyberwarfare, and other overt and covert actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations.”
—Trump campaign video, December 22, 2023
Shield police from accountability
“I’m also going to indemnify all police officers and law enforcement officials throughout the United States from being destroyed by the radical left for taking strong action on crime. These are people, they want to destroy them because they want to put criminals away.”
—Trump speaking at a campaign events in Waterloo, Iowa, December 19, 2023
“We’re going to give our police their power back, and we are going to give them immunity from prosecution, so they’re not prosecuted for doing their job.”
—Speaking at a campaign event in Waukesha, Wisconsin, May 1, 2024
Reverse Biden’s modest successes at gun control
“Every single Biden attack on gun owners and manufacturers will be terminated on my very first week back in office, perhaps my first day.”
—Addressing the NRA’s Presidential Forum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, February 9, 2024
Bar government officials from pointing out disinformation on social media
“Within hours of my inauguration, I will sign an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with any organization, business, or person, to censor, limit, categorize, or impede the lawful speech of American citizens. I will then ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as ‘mis-’ or ‘dis-information.’ And I will begin the process of identifying and firing every federal bureaucrat who has engaged in domestic censorship—directly or indirectly—whether they are the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, the DOJ, no matter who they are.”
—“Free Speech Policy Initiative” video, December 15, 2022
Deregulate with a vengeance
“I will restore my famously successful executive order requiring that for every one NEW regulation, two OLD regulations must be eliminated—and I will ask Congress to make it permanent. . . . In addition, I will require that all agency regulatory guidance must be posted publicly in a central database, or else be rendered null and void.”
—Agenda 47 campaign plank, April 16, 2023
Terminate efforts to pursue green energy alternatives to combat climate change
“I will deploy a team of warrior lawyers to hunt down every unnecessary regulation in the federal registry that hampers domestic [energy] production. And we will wipe them off the books. We will again get out of [the] Paris [climate agreement]. And we will rapidly issue approvals for all worthy energy infrastructure projects [that involve fossil fuels] . . . Nobody has more liquid gold under their feet than the United States of America. And we will use it and profit by it and live with it. And we will be rich again and we will be happy again.”
—Agenda 47 campaign plank on energy independence, February 9, 2023
Bring back polio, whooping cough, chicken pox, diphtheria, and more for the nation’s children
“I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate.”
—Reading from a teleprompter at a rally in Virginia, March 3, 2024
Pilfer private school endowments, redirect funds to MAGA universities
“Under the plan I’m announcing today, we will take the billions and billions of dollars that we will collect by taxing, fining, and suing excessively large private university endowments, and we will then use that money to endow a new institution called the American Academy.”
—Agenda 47 campaign video, November 1, 2023
MAGA-nify public schools
“We will empower parents and local school boards to hire and reward great principals and teachers, and also to fire the poor ones. The ones whose performance is unsatisfactory—they will be fired. Like on The Apprentice: You’re fired.”
“We will teach students to love their country, not to hate their country like they’re taught right now.”
“We will support bringing back prayer to our schools.”
“We will achieve schools that are safe, secure, and drug free, with immediate expulsion for any student who harms a teacher or another student.”
“And one other thing I'll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education. . . . We’re going to send it all back to the States.”
—Select items from Trump’s ten-point education plan, part of Agenda 47, unveiled September 13, 2023
Prohibit DEI in schools and punish the offenders
“I will direct the Department of Justice to pursue federal civil rights cases against schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination [i.e., diversity, equity, and inclusion policies]. . . . I will advance a measure to have them fined up to the entire amount of their endowment. A portion of the seized funds will then be used as restitution for victims of these illegal and unjust policies, policies that hurt our country so badly. . . . We are going to get this anti-American insanity out of our institutions once and for all.”
—From Agenda 47 campaign plank titled “Protecting Students from the Radical Left and Marxist Maniacs Infecting Educational Institutions,” July 17, 2023
Make it a crime to provide gender-affirming health care to minors
“I will revoke every Biden policy promoting the chemical castration and sexual mutilation of our youth and ask Congress to send me a bill prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states.”
—Speaking at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference, March 4, 2023
End (largely mythological) benefits to immigrants
“I will reinstate my action making illegals ineligible for public housing. We will terminate all work permits for illegal aliens. And I will demand that Congress send me a bill blocking any future President from abusing his power to distribute welfare benefits in this manner.
—Agenda 47 campaign video, November 1, 2023
Outlaw homelessness
“Under my strategy, working with states, we will BAN urban camping wherever possible.
Violators of these bans will be arrested, but they will be given the option to accept treatment and services if they are willing to be rehabilitated. Many of them don’t want that, but we will give them the option.”
—Agenda 47 campaign video, April 18, 2023
Goodbye, representative democracy
“Christians, get out and vote! Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. . . . In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.”
—Speaking to religious conservatives in West Palm Beach, Florida, July 26, 2024
 | A guest post by
|