The Chris Cuomo Project - Chris Cuomo Grades Trump’s First Six Months

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

Chris Cuomo evaluates Donald Trump’s second term six months in, issuing a full report card across ten major categories. He breaks down the administration’s handling of immigration, the economy, foreign policy, health care, education, infrastructure, and more. From the Iran bombing and ICE’s “Alligator Alcatraz” to crypto policy, Medicaid cuts, solar subsidies, and the Epstein press fallout, Cuomo examines the decisions shaping Trump’s return to power — and what they reveal about the direction of the country. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is time to grade the Trump administration six months in. And it is not a one-man job. I am Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. You have me and the inimitable Gregory Ott here. Why? Because grading is subjective. We know this.

Even if you're doing it on a curve, it's still subjective. And I may find it a little bit of a shame that you're not doing it on a curve. But I'm sure you're doing it on a curve. And I'm sure you're doing it on a curve. And I'm sure you're doing it on a curve. inimitable Gregory Ott here. Why? Because grading is subjective. We know this. Even if you're doing it on a curve, it's still subjective. And I may feel a certain way about things that he doesn't, that doesn't match how people in general feel about it. So let's do it together. What do you say? We're going to go by category. Now, do I like this idea? Yes, I like doing things with Greg. He's funny and smart.

Thank you. Do I like the idea of grading? No, why? First of all, the period is irrelevant. Six months, I feel the same way about turning 55. Like 50 is a thing, 65 is a thing. I'll even give you every decade is a thing. 55 is not a thing.

Then all of a sudden I'm turning 55 and people are like, oh, that's a thing. It's nice to celebrate milestones in your life. I think in 50, it's like a, you know, fives are like a way of counting, you know, Roman numerals. And that's fine. That's fine. Like VII, I'm not going to celebrate VII, you know? VII.

I love when you go Roman. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Roman numerals like VX, like you want the V's and the X's. The I's forget about it, you know. Do your people have numbers? Yeah. One, two, three, four, five, six. I don't speak the language, but I speak the English language. He's Scandinavian.

Here's my problem. Oh, okay. We should really get into this, by the way. Well, but here's my problem with what we're about to get into. Geez, he's in such a rush. We have 10 categories to get through. You're the one complaining about it before we start. You listen to most of these podcasts, it takes guys 10 minutes to say hello.

All right, no, okay, we'll do a three-hour version of it. I'll get 50 categories. Here's what I'm saying is that it puts pressure on evaluation that puts pressure on creating false urgency, false conclusions, extreme reckonings, hyperbole. The economy's good. It depends on what you want to look at. This is a win. extreme reckonings, hyperbole, the economy's good. Depends on what you wanna look at. He's been, this is a win.

You know, these things are subjective and very often they're at best relative and incremental. So with that, let's go through the categories that should matter and then, you know, when he gives me a category, I'll say that doesn't matter enough, let's grade that later, okay? So we should be grading on the basis of what matters to the many not just a few what

do you got well for these grades just so you know I'm handing these to you right now I'm giving you a B C D and F before you complain in the comments yes I know there's an A- I know there's a B- I know there's a B- etc and I know that E I had E in school instead of F, but I think this is a better visual so that when I make the YouTube thumbnail, you can see the, you're holding up an F or something. So that's- Now do you want me to hold them up?

Yeah, well, when the final, when we give a grade, you will hold up the ultimate grade in front of the camera, which you're so deft at doing. Okay. Great. So I have a list of 10 different categories. You want me to do my overall grade first, or should we do that last?

We should do that last. Okay. So we'll start with. Do you want to know what it is? Well, do you want people to watch the video? Boy, he's getting frustrated. I'm saying. Did you just notice a little tone change

in our boy, Grundle? Grundle, okay. If people don't skip the ad you read for some sort of product, what was the product about? Like cleaning your balls or something? It was Mando. Oh Mando. Okay, so It's near the grondle is like the taint right? Yeah, it's the same. It says the synonym antonym. What is that?

It's a synonym. Yeah, it's a synonym So the grondle is the taint and this is the content that people have come here to see it content. Yeah, that's right continent continent, yeah as an incontinent Oh Peepee. Oh great. Continent? Yeah, as an incontinent. Oh, I... Poopoo pee pee. Oh, great, I thought you meant like Asia. Okay, well, we're starting with the... Okay, I said Asia, let's start with foreign policy. Asia is a different continent

than the one that we're on right now. I have some general, just some bullet points of things that have happened since the beginning of the Trump second term. You had the Greenland shit, you had the Panama Canal stuff go down, you had the Gulf of America, you had the the Iran bombing, everything going on in Israel and Gaza, you've got everything with Ukraine and Putin, so this is not a timid time to be a overseeing foreign policy, like there's a lot of stuff going on. So what do you take from all the stuff I just said to you?

Trump has done too much. Obviously you get an incomplete because there are too many things that are still extant. I didn't print that one. That's okay. But you are an incomplete right now because you have too many things that are ongoing. However, I will give him a B. Wow, Wow. I will give Trump a B on foreign policy. And here's why. Iran alone

was a great stopgap measure. As long as that regime is in place, it's an extreme Islamist terroristic regime, it oppresses its own people. They are death to us, death to Israel. As long as they exist and are not replaced by something that approximates better, we have an active threat. That said, there's no question that the bombings sent a very strong message to the regime. Their proxies have been beaten down, thanks mostly to Israel, but also American intervention. And their nuclear program has been slowed. Is there more to be done?

Of course. Now, what about everything else? Well, he's thrown so much shit up in the air or against the wall or whatever metaphor you want. The Ukraine war is still going on. Right. But he hasn't made it worse. The Middle East thing is still going on.

Yeah, but he hasn't made it worse. And I think that is he benefiting from a low bar? Yeah. Has he hurt or helped our perspective or how people regard us around the world? Depends who you ask. I depend most on Ian Bremmer when it comes to this because of his exposure, his excellence, his acuity, and because I know him, and he would say that we're not as on good terms because of this strong arm tactics with the tariffs. And the tariffs kind of overlap, domestic and foreign.

But given the low expectations that he was gonna screw everything up and get us in a lot of expectations that he was going to screw everything up and get us in a lot of trouble, he hasn't really, and I give him a B. What do you say about Donald the Dove, as some people refer to him, with the Iran bombing? You know, he's the one saying it's completely obliterated, destroyed, they'll never do this again, and then of course the reports that come out and say, nah, they still got the stuff, like what, I mean that it seems like he was trying to be definitive. I'm not the war guy. I'm going to end this. And now it's like, all right, you set him back a little

bit like, did you need to make this decision right now? Like, look, you can always choose to do nothing. And he has done this before he bombed inside Syria first time he was there. And I think that non-population centers and going at things versus people is much more saleable to him. And Syria, Assad was doing bad shit to his people. They're still doing bad shit to their people in Syria and nobody gives a damn in America. The Druze situation, this ethnic minority, they're technically derivative of Islam but they're not Muslims anymore. They're being cleansed, and nobody gives a shit because it's not Gaza.

So is he a dove? No, he's a pretty hostile guy, and an aggressive guy in general. And this is aura. I don't think he's a dove, but I think he finds foreign intervention low percentage. And what he did was a high percentage move, no boots on the ground, not a lot of money relatively in terms of the investment over time. And it got done what he needed to get done. I think it was a minimalist approach.

Now you could say, oh, you should have just negotiated. There's no negotiating with the despotic regime. What he just did with the equipment that's going to Ukraine and having the surrounding countries pay for it. Yeah, that's very good. Good move getting NATO in. Yeah, good move. It seems like he and Mark Ruta have a really good or not a good but like a pretty Productive at this point. Look, NATO is exactly what Putin doesn't want. The only high ground that Putin has, and I don't think he has any high ground, but the only suggestion of rationale

for any type of use of force would be that he's getting surrounded by NATO and they're gonna try to come at him. Now, I don't believe that that's true. I don't think it's plausible. But Trump just brought NATO in in a way that Biden never did. So he just stuck a thumb in Putin's eye in a way that also goes into my grade of a B. Okay.

You said this is already kind of related. So we'll move on to economy. We have the on again, off again tariffs that seem to change pretty routinely. Then you have the big beautiful bill, which had these giant tax breaks for rich people and all sorts of, you've talked about that before many times in the show about how it's benefiting you, not the average person across the board.

And then you got all the crypto stuff, not only just like Trump's personal family, but the legislation in Congress. They're incredibly crypto friendly in Trump himself with a crypto coin, as we all know. So what's, what's your economic rating? Oh, a D that's a, he's holding up a D. That's a one way from F. And here's why. He inherited an economy that was going the right way. Tariffs are a legitimate negotiating tactic.

He did not use them effectively or well. He was too heavy handed. He had to pull back. He created a freneticism in the markets, chaos in the markets that maybe some people around him cashed in on. Gas prices are down, not for the right reasons. And don't say it doesn't matter. It does.

Why they're down matters because they're reflecting less demand and they're reflecting how much we're bringing in and they're reflecting an overall drop around the world. We don't know how the tariffs are going to settle in terms of our cost structure. There's a lot of uncertainty. There are a lot of people who are selling the US dollar. He did a lot of things in ways that he didn't have to. His fight with Jerome Powell's counterproductive, I give him a D.

He could have done a lot better in this regard and he still can. Well, the biggest issue so many people talked about going into the election was the price of eggs, the everyday stuff. Gas and groceries. Gas and groceries. As somebody who wants to buy a co-op here in New York City,

I'm looking at, you know, interest rates all the time and all this stuff. And nothing has really materially improved since the Biden administration, at least the last few years. And he'll say blame Powell because he didn't lord, but that's not fair. We've put so much money into the economy. We've made so much money and the Fed has to be worried about inflation. Oh, we have inflation under control.

We do not know that. And by the way, it has moved in the wrong direction. Not a lot, but there's so much money in the system. Trump has added to that and he did it in this last one also. And the bill blows our budget. Yeah, trillions. And blows the debt and blows the deficit to reward people with a tax cut that is magical

thinking in terms of trickle-down economics. He gets a D all day long. If Trump were to fire Powell, will that change your grade at all from a D to a D? Because I ask because if you look at the stock market, whenever he talks about doing this, it drops. He's like, I'm not going do it, then it goes back up and it would be a huge deal. I mean, I don't count it as an economy move.

It's a leadership move. And I think that his chaotic approach and his statements and how people around him have monetized his up and downs, him have monetized his up and downs, I think are horrible leadership tactics. And I think getting rid of Powell this way would be a horrible leadership tactic. Would I put it into the economy grade? No, because he doesn't really have control over rates. So that is separate. And how he deals with rates goes into the economy. But what he does with Powell, I see more as a leadership grade. Here's a big one. Immigration in general, you got all this money going to ICE now. He's got the alligator Alcatraz set up and with this new ICE money, they're looking at building

more tent cities and different places to round up immigrants, legal, illegal, or however people are getting sneered in this net. There's the reports, these bad conditions in some of these places, and this is obviously the biggest thing Trump has been running on since Build the Wall, since he, you know, this was his very first speech running for president in 2015 was on this subject matter. So what is your grade thus far? All right. Here's how I'll do it in explaining my grade. Okay.

You're shuffling a lot of papers around. So I'm... So... Yeah. And don't spell a word or something. It has to be... Yeah. Okay.

Immigration should be a grade of A for this administration because they campaigned on it, people wanted the southern border secured, that has happened. So they should have an A. But instead, it immediately drops to B why? Because securing the southern border was the easiest thing to do, okay? He didn't even need legislation to do it. And in point of fact, he has not gotten major legislation, which is absolutely necessary to create the kind of system for immigration that we need in this country. And he chose to do a tax cut bill instead, so that immediately drops him. Then the grade gets lower. Why? Because the idea of deporting everyone who's entered this country illegally is illogical. I don't know that it would be legal. I don't know that logistically it would make sense without almost bankrupting the country in terms of how expensive that

would be. And the message that it sends is un-American. And not that the law doesn't matter, the law does matter, but not everyone who enters illegally is the same. And he knows this. See, this is my problem with people who come at me and saying, you know, with this really facile argument that, look, entering is illegal, right Chris?

Yeah, entering is illegal if you don't come the right way, right, if you sneak across, whatever it is, you overstay your visa, that's illegal. Okay, so that's it, the analysis is over, you gotta go. No, because we have a culture here of allowing people to overstay and be hired and not going after the employers the way we do the employees.

Okay? And all of that bothers me and takes me to a C. And now we're going to go down another level. Here's why. Here's why. And yes, I know that this was a big win for him in the election. I get it. I said it during the campaign. The Democrats fucked this up, I believe, on purpose. The ICE policy has to change. It has to change.

Not just for farmers and hospitality workers. Okay? You've got to take care of the dreamers and you have to distinguish between the people who are bad hombres and who are here making our country better. And the president is not speaking to that loudly enough. He said it, he then had to back off to protect MAGA because you were all pissed off that he was being anything but harsh. And now he's back there again

and they're gonna change their policy. And when they change their policy, I'll change my grade. But I cannot look at what's happening with ICE. And first of all, you're putting the ICE men and women in a bad position where they're paying a price for your policy. I don't like it. Second, you can't look at what's happening in these communities around the country and the fear and getting the wrong people.

And you can say, oh, it's just a few, but there doesn't need to be any. And you know, you're grabbing people, the non-criminal to criminal ratio, well, those numbers aren't exactly the way they're supposed to be. Then report them differently. But what you told us was, hey, we're going to round up all the people who killed Lake and Riley, right, as a metaphor. That's not what you're doing. And when you start doing it the way you promised to do it, which is finding ways to keep the people we need who are doing it the right way, who are building communities, who are born here or brought here instead of trying to get rid of birthright citizenship, which is unconstitutional.

Okay? You want to have a legal battle, fine. But I think you're mucking this up with a harshness and an expediency of extremism and playing to the extreme that is a mistake. And that's why you're barely passing when you should have an A. Yeah, you're holding up the D. What is keeping it from being an F? He secured the southern border.

He is doing what he promised, which was to get people out of the country. But he's not gotten legislation. We're not dealing with people being allowed to stay. There's no even discussion of a work visa program. And you're not getting them what they need on the border, which are rule changes about asylum and their ability to process. Alcatraz, alligator, Alcatraz, whatever the hell that thing is called, you know, you need like much, much more capacity to hold people in a humane way, process them in a way that respects the constitutional

due process and move them through the system faster. And you're not doing any of those things because you're doing what's easy and optical, which is let's round them up. Let's find the bad guys. You know, those are the good optics. That's a good. those are the good pictures, the photo ops, I don't judge it that way. And you should have an A, I'm giving you a D.

Change the policies, the grade will change. All right, let's move on to crime and justice. And I kind of have a lot of different things in here because it seems as though they have deprioritized going after like white collar crime. This kind of ties in a lot of the crypto stuff like Justin's son. You have the lawfare, you know, because there was a lot of, you could call it lawfare with the previous administration with going after Trump and, you know, getting him convicted

on all this stuff. But now he's going after Adam Schiff for like mortgage fraud, Letitia James for some real estate deal. Then he got all the Epstein stuff with the FBI and Bongino and all those guys, so, and Pam Bondi, and yeah, crime and justice. It's a pretty broad category. And look, I would argue with the designation,

I don't think it's crime and justice. I think it's lawfare. I think it's payback. So you just call this all lawfare? Oh yeah. And it gets an f-bomb all day long. We have to stop prosecuting our political opponents and he is doing Exactly what the Democrats did and the only people who can't see that are extreme MAGA Everybody else sees that you're doing what they did. They

don't like you. They are suspicious of you. They're going to look and they're going to find something and they're going to prosecute you if they can. You're doing the same fucking thing. It's a distraction from the concerns of the many. What will make this country better and it is just proof of how we got to this bad place in the first place, and I do not condone it. And it's so easy to rationalize what they're doing with Obama. I was the hunted and now I'm the hunter. It's bad.

It's toxic. Oh, no, it's just enforcing the laws. Bullshit. No, it isn't. You want to change the culture, change the culture with your own actions and not going after other people but how you comport yourself instead of cashing in on gentleman's clubs and crypto and all these other things that create a bad standard. Focus on that instead of punishing other

people. So this is your first F? Yeah. Yeah? As far as I know. Okay. So, so far we have on foreign policy, we have a B, economy, we have a D, immigration, we have a D, crime and justice, F. This is not, this is not a good report card so far. If I give this to my parents, they'd be very upset. Well, look, I mean, a lot of these grades are set up against what I think is potential here. And I think especially on immigration, you'd be doing so much better.

Economy's tricky. But in terms of law and lawfare, I mean, that's a layup to get an A. It's a layup. And you gotta work for an F, and that's what he's doing. Well, I said I had 10 categories, and these are kind of quicker ones because there hasn't been a lot of action on some of these.

So next up is infrastructure. I remember infrastructure week was a huge joke during the first administration of Trump because it kept promising all these projects and they never quite happened. He did pull some money from that California high-speed rail program that never really went anywhere.

There was like, what, $7 billion or something like that. There's all the air traffic control issues that's been going on in, especially like Newark near us. And I think they're going to take over the Penn Station project, which they've been trying to revitalize forever. So to me, those are like big picture, like a lot of people are getting around and stuff. Those are some big picture infrastructure things. But what do you give them?

I give them a C because while I think a lot of it is noise, not signal, um, messing with the FAA saying it's the air traffic controller say it was DEI, uh, you know, none of that bore out. It was all bullshit, just playing the prejudice, playing to extremism in our politics. Uh, he wanted to kill the infrastructure bill and the caucus went crazy because Republican, um, constituencies around the country did better under the Biden infrastructure bill than Democratic ones because the need was greater. And so they cautioned him to get rid of it. And so he's left that alone.

He's done some other things that are good from an infrastructure perspective. And so I'll give him a C. I'll give him a passing grade. But he could do better if he gets out of the mindset of trying to negate Biden instead of just focusing on what's better for this country. Kind of along those lines, I've got this category of environment and climate, which I'm sure most people can immediately give a grade on. But there's like ending the support for federal subsidies for like solar and wind power and things like that, wanting more oil and gas drilling and trying to prioritize

those industries over over green ones or once people consider green. This is going to be a surprise grade. Okay, I'm going to give him a C. Wow. Yeah, that is a surprise. And here's why everybody's going to say what are you talking about? He hates the environment. One, I don't know that that's true, but him removing the subsidies, I'm not a fan of the subsidies. Our grid is not where it needs to be. He's not addressing

that but some of his people are, and they want it to be an agenda item. They want it to be a bigger focus. Our power grid can't handle more power. So we're not set up for solar, for wind, for any of these things, and they are highly inefficient, and they are largely subsidized. And I think that on the fuel side, we went too fast. We're not ready for all EVs. How do we make the electricity?

We use fossil fuels to make the electricity that you then want me to charge my car with. So we're not ready, and making those batteries isn't the best thing for the environment either at this point. And the price point isn't right. You got to find a way to better through fossil fuels, okay, while you can, especially natural gas. And I'm okay with that.

I give them an average grade. Here's the thing with solar, there's this great New Yorker report that just came out. I'm showing this at the screen. Oh, hold on. We're gonna cut most of this out, but Chris has some sort of a sump pump problem or something wrong with his boat. So Chris keeps getting phone calls

about you having your boat repaired or something and this guy triggered some sort of alarm or something. And so, isn't it? What's that? What's, yeah. Like government is pain management. It is dealing with problems. Right.

And how you deal with them, dispositionally, is as important as how you do in terms of action or inaction. And this is actually a segue. The reason that some of these grades are reflective of low scores is because the president could be doing a lot better with them. And sometimes it's just attitudinal. It's just how he's dealing with it, how he talks about alternative power, how he talks about migrants, how he talks about different things that are happening in the economy.

Look, the whole Epstein debacle is about hyperbole and about how things are discussed. So these grades, you know, to me, a failing grade is easy to give. Something short of that that shows the potential, I think is a more honest assessment. Potential's interesting, because I want to push back on your grade for the environment and energy stuff, because there's this New Yorker article that came out pretty recently,

and it kind of goes over how well solar is doing, and I'm just scrolling through this, it's like, people are putting up a gigawatts worth of solar panels, the equivalent of power generated by one coal fired plant every 15 hours. Last year, 96% of global demand for new electricity was met by renewables in the US. 93% of new generating capacity came from solar wind and batteries and such.

It goes on and on like this, but it's not like obviously Trump likes all the oil stuff. Do you remember there was like the oil industry was trying to put more stuff in the big, beautiful bill before that went through? It's just the technology seems to be getting much better. And I see your point about it. You can't just switch it on and off, no pun intended. My point is, look, you're right, it's getting better. Then don't subsidize it.

If it's getting so much better, if it's creating so much market share and so much commerce, then stop artificially supporting it and let the market decide. If it's getting so much better, if it's creating so much market share and so much commerce, then stop artificially supporting it and let the market decide. But the market that's controlled by these massive oil companies that have more money than anything, it's like it is incredibly hard to compete with something like that. You know what I mean? It's like, well, we're still making this, we're trying to get this industry up and running

while this other one is just a behemoth. You can't really outrun it. Well, even if that were true Too bad. I mean that's the nature of competition What do you want me to do like give you a ten-yard head start because you just can't beat me in a race No, but I'm saying I'm saying that for a There are other benefits besides. Oh the technology a little bit better. It's like it's also cleaner. It's better for our planet We're not digging up all this shit

We are putting something and You know, Trump doesn't like the way a windmill looks on a golf course. So it's like, Oh, I hate the wind. It's killing the birds. It's like, that's all bullshit. He just doesn't want us in the backyard of his golf course. That is bullshit. And a lot of his resistance may be bullshit. But there's also something to be said about us trying to move in transition before we're ready, certainly before the consumer base is ready, before the economics makes sense, before the productivity of it makes sense.

And I don't think it's as easy as the way the Democrats have made it with their goals and their standards, especially when it comes to EVs. And the obvious politics aside, right? The left loved Elon Musk,, the left loved Elon Musk. Now the left hates Elon Musk and it's all about Trump, right? So you have all these lefties driving Teslas with bumper stickers saying, I bought this

before Elon went crazy. It shows you how much of this is politics versus actually good policy. And I think that the only thing that makes sense is an all strategy. Use your fossil fuels, you try to get them to be cleaner and cleaner technologies and expand your infrastructure and your capacity and your ability to carry higher powered transmissions and where you can get reach of different kinds of power transmission and internet access and different types of access.

And then you evolve that way. That's the intelligent way to do it. We have not had anybody do it that way. Environment and climate gets a C from you. How about healthcare? I feel like there has not been a ton of discussion of healthcare in general, because it's more of a democratic priority,

but there are those giant Medicaid cuts in the big, beautiful bill. But they're trying to go after Medicare and Medicaid, any sort of service like that. And with all this stuff, there's also like the Obamacare subsidies. They're being reduced, I think. And so like the people's premiums are going to go up for next year. And this is the kind of thing that's going to affect many of Trump's own supporters. And then you have a guy like Josh Hawley, who's trying to put out the rescission bill

to like go after the cuts that he just voted for. We have a leadership category coming up, but I'm curious, but yep, there's the F. That's an F he's holding up on healthcare. Absolutely. You're punishing the least fortunate. You're punishing the people who need the most help. And you're doing it for this fantastical notion

that it's about waste. And that's not what it is. It's not that people on Medicaid don't work. This stigma that if you're poor, you're lazy has got to die. And what hurts me is that there's so many people who voted for the president who are going to be affected by this. There's so many rural communities and health hubs that are going to be affected by this and the change in the reimbursement rates. Now, two things are almost

always true at the same time. Have certain states abused the reimbursement rates and done things that they shouldn't have done and paid for things in a way that they shouldn't have covered things that they shouldn't have? Yes. So deal with that. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. And that's extremism. And that's playing with fringe politics. And you shouldn't fuck around with healthcare. And we've done enough of it in this country already. He's done nothing to make it better. He's done things that are going to put more stress on the system. And he's done it for political expediency by playing to extreme ideas and he gets an F. How about education?

I feel like there's not been a lot of coverage of this, but there is the ending to the Department of Education. But you know, living in New York, I feel like as somebody who is like a kid now, it's like, I actually, it's such a confusing mess for me with like, I had to look up on chat GPT yesterday, like I didn't know what a charter school was. And so there's, you hear about the waivers and charter schools and all this stuff. So it's the whole industry and the whole apparatus

is very confusing to me. And so I'm still wrapping my head around it as having not been in the education system for quite some time or no time at all, based on what your viewers think. So what would you, what would you give the education? Well, look, first of all, he didn't get rid of the Department of Education

Okay, he put out does he want to? Yes Should he I'm not sure I'm not gonna give him a grade on getting rid of the Department of Education, but I will give him An incomplete because you have no plan for what to do after that. Or just leave it to the states. You mean like reproductive rights? Which he gets a big fat fucking F on, by the way. Shouldn't have, you know, and then the Supreme Court gets an F, by the way.

But reproductive rights is one of the biggest steps back in this country in a very long time. And I don't feel the same way about affirmative action being erased rights is one of the biggest steps back in this country in a very long time. And I don't feel the same way about affirmative action being erased because I think that there are other mechanisms to enhance or increase, enhance, engender equality in this country than just having to have the legal standard that was in place. But with education, you've done nothing to make it better. Now, I'll give you one thing that he's done

to make it better. The woke thing and what's being put on kids, I believe was exaggerated. I think the book burning was bullshit. I think the trans stuff was exaggerated and was punishing a group that's already targeted and victimized beyond their threat profile. Yes, you don't want a guy who looks like me playing high school basketball against your daughter. I get it. I get it. But

we're talking about such rare, rare instances, but one is too many. Fine. I think he was in the right place on that issue, and culturally. How much of that is part of education? I don't know. But that mattered. And what kids are allowed to be exposed to by the local boards matters. Now, I think that it works against him wanting to get rid of federal oversight.

Because how do you control what happens in some states and not others in terms of what they want kids to pick up on the curriculum? Through federal oversight now you're trying to get rid of it so I don't know that this is about better as much as it is about punishing and While he can be in the right place culturally on one particular aspect of it I don't know that he's made the system better overall. I give him an incomplete Incomplete. Okay. We have two more categories to get through

and they're both combined categories. This one is civil rights and democracy, sending the national guards and Marines to the ICE protests to try to quell those. But they went, they kind of did nothing and then they went back home. They may still be there. Did they go home or are they still there?

Some people have been recalled. But the reports in New York Times of like all these guys just like sitting around the floor playing on their phone and then also this is This time it has into like the media in general and not just like, you know PBS being defunded or whatever But the way that the press has been treated in the in the in the press corps so having like you're putting the podcasters in the briefing room and then the Epstein story comes out and just like they kicked out the Associated Press for not liking the Gulf of America stuff, oh, Journal, you're out because you put out that Epstein thing about that fun little birthday card Trump allegedly wrote his friend Jeff.

I mean, look, this is through a MAGA, most of the grades that I've given are A's. Okay? Because you just wanted them talking about it. And you just wanted your pound of flesh. You just wanted the comeuppance. You just wanted the harshness. I'm about better. And this is an A or a D based on your perspective of what you want the dialogue to be like in this country.

I want leaders who show us at our best. I didn't run for office and I would never run for office for a reason, okay? I'm not a leader. I don't exhibit the virtues and the highest qualities that I can often enough in enough situations I don't exhibit the virtues and the highest qualities that I can often enough in enough situations to see myself as a standard. We deserve that though in our leaders.

And there's so many people who do check those boxes that the president talking down to the media, except when they kiss his ass, sending in the military. Look, I could argue that that made sense. The way he did it, no. But the need for it, yes. Protest versus riot, yes. Making people know that they can't destroy their communities just because they're upset about policy? Yes. But the way he talks about it, I don't think is constructive. I think it's punitive, it's

harsh, it's aggressive, and that doesn't make us better. But if you're MAGA, I'm sure you love it. I'm sure you love it. A all day long. So what am I saying? I'm not MAGA? Fuck no, I'm not MAGA. I would never join a political party. I think they're the problem. I think we have to get rid of them. But I just, in fairness, I don't think we get to a better place with the way he deals with the media. I don't think we get to a better place with the way he deals with dissent.

So sending the military in, yeah, sure. You're gonna have less community destruction. Good. God forbid they kill somebody and you have a legal issue about why they were there in the first place because the governor didn't ask for them, which is the way you're supposed to activate it. Otherwise, you risk posicomitatus.

Posicomitatus. Yes. Is that an insult? That's an STD. Posicomitatus is, you never want a posicomitatus, by the way. Yeah. And what was that ass thing you were talking about earlier? Posicomitatus means that a group that is formed to enforce the law,

you do not use the military for that. Remember in the cowboy days, round up a posse. Yeah, from my cowboy days. Yeah. I'm looking at that shirt. That's not a cowboy shirt. I don't think a cowboy would wear this. And what about the audio audience? They can't they can't see this. But I'm sure that the MAGA would give a lot of these categories

A's. Well yeah I mean I'm asking you for your opinion, your ranking, yes MAGA they're going to give all these A's except for maybe the Epstein stuff. Yeah look these are also not even interim grades and I think that he could do and could score really good grades on just about every category you've talked about except in the way he addresses things verbally, because his messaging, look, he said something once that was very awkward, but is actually really true. The president once said, I don't know if he was president at the time or if he was just citizen Trump,

but he was responding to somebody's eloquence and saying, well, I can say that, I know all the words, I know all the best words. And it was, of course, you know, mocked. But he does know how to sell anything to anybody. I believe that, and I'm not saying it as a criticism, I'm saying it as a compliment. And he could talk to the country

and attach to the majority if he wanted to. He absolutely could. He is making a choice to play to the fringe and to play to extreme ideas. And that's his choice, but I do not think it leads to a legacy of greatness for a president because it's never before. The last category actually ties into this

is leadership and governance. And I kind of put Doge in here because I feel like he brought this whole thing in to analyze the government. Let's find waste, fraud and abuse. And instead, in some weird way, it actually ended up being waste, fraud and abuse on its own. And then you have like the actual leadership of Trump, which is like, he's very similar as he was as a previous president, which is the way he treats social media and speaks to people in the past few days.

Have you seen that snake video he put out there? It's like, he's just kind of wasting people's time. And then I think of the immigration memes that are coming out and using like AI to sort of laugh at people who are going to alligator Alcatraz and things like that. Like, it's a really weird way to use your platform. And it's like a performative cruelty.

And again, I'm sure if you're listening to this, like, okay, liberal assholes, like, no, no, no. I'm just saying like, if you look at the things they're putting out and yeah, at Trump's direction, I would imagine. I don't like harshness as strength. I don't like bullies. I was bullied as a kid.

I learned to fight, to fight back against bullies. I would often pick fights I was gonna lose. It has not changed to this day and I'm still, I'm way too old to be putting hands on people because they deserve it in a moment. But it's another reason I'm not a leader and I don't run for office. But look, it's an F all day long in terms of him being a unifier.

It's an F all day long. It's not even a close call to me, especially because he's capable of so much more than he is. But I'll tell you what, I will give him a C in the category that you were referring to a little bit earlier, which is a little bit crazy, which is I give him a C in terms of his discussion of things that matter in America. Sometimes he hits on something where people in the majority are. And the media, special interests have distracted us from it. And so why do you just give him a C? Why don't you give him a B or an A?

Cause he could do better. That's why. But at least he's doing it. So I give him a C. On leadership and governance. On leadership and governance. I give him a C, I could give him a B. I'll give him a B.

I'll give him a B. You're giving Trump a B on leadership and governance. You're changing your grade. And I'll tell you why. You're give him a B. I'll give him a B. You're giving Trump a B on leadership and you're changing your grade. And I'll tell you why. In terms of... Here's how I break it down. No, I'm just trying to keep track of all this. Oh, that's fine. Yeah, no, no, it's fine. In terms of governance, I'll give him a B.

And here's why. Because the grade is not about the outcomes. It's about the effort. And he is doing a lot and he's doing a lot of what he promised he would do. Some things he's not. Epstein transparency, I hear you, I hear you. But he's doing a lot of things. He's very active. In fact, in terms of leadership, leadership I fail him because he can do better than dividing us. And he really does have the facility and the skill set to do it. Now, in terms of effort.

An A for effort, okay. I mean, the guy is on 24-7-365. He does it, yeah. The guy, the president is on it 24-7-365. Yes, he golfs his ass off. I don't have any problem with that. If he was a golfer, if he was a lifter, if he was a tennis player, if he was a surfer, if he was a boater, a fisherman, a bush, do it.

Live your life. Live your life and just be available and be thinking about it. I don't want you locked in a fucking box 24 seven. You're not gonna be at your best. You gotta move, you gotta breathe, you gotta eat, you gotta sleep, you gotta think, you gotta fuck, you gotta do all these things. You gotta be a man in full.

You gotta be a woman in full. You gotta be a person in full. And that's what we should want in our leaders. I want them to enjoy his family. I want them to in our leaders. I want them to enjoy his family. I want them to enjoy nights out. I want them to live his passions. And look, I mean, this job kills, this is the only guy I know who doesn't look 50 years older

after he was president. Now, he's got a lot of coloring done to him. Like makeup, inches and inches. I mean, these guys, this kills them, this job. But he's not a real looking person. Yeah, like Obama goes gray, okay, this man's been like... But it still stands as fact that he doesn't look as bad after being president the first time. I don't know those guys do. He looks kind of the same. He's got that paper mache head, you know what I mean? You pull some of that back. But be that as it may, he looks

kind of like he did when he came in, which is rare because they usually look like their own father by the time they get out. But I give him an A for an effort because the man is absolutely all over the place. Now I've always found this to be a very so-so metric, mushy metric, let's say. Yeah, like I don't give a fuck how hard you're trying. We're not grading here on that. But if what you're trying to do is bad, what do I care how much effort you're putting into it? But I do realize that there is something to being energetic.

And I think Biden did remind us of that, that, you know, I lived it with Reagan, but I was young, I wasn't on the job yet, which is, you know, we can't have a president who's not, you know, anywhere near their best. You can't have that. Well, there's that old report that Trump believes that exercise doesn't do anything because the body is like a battery. And so you have a limited amount of energy. It's one of the craziest things he says. So you don't believe that.

I don't believe it. I know that's bullshit. And by the way, you know who else knows it? Every one of his kids, every one of his kids is incredibly physical and athletic and active. So unless they all want to die real soon, obviously they believe in a different thing called science. This is just, I don't spend a lot of time on Eric's socials. Is he like a golfer too? Like does he swim? Yeah, they're all athletes. I don't know about- I don't know about- I don't know about points his gun at the, you know, that polar bears or whatever. I don't know about the young one, but Don Jr. is- Well, Barron should be playing basketball or Asian.

I don't know that he does, but- He could. He's sporty. Ivanka is a fitness person. Her husband's a fitness person. Eric's a fitness person. His wife is a fitness person. That's interesting, I don't know Eric's a whole, yeah.

You know, Don, I mean, you know, the grandkids are sporty. Tiffany, we forgot Tiffany. I don't know Eric's whole, yeah. You know, the grandkids are sporty. Tiffany, we forgot Tiffany. I don't know her as well. I don't know her life, but the, I'm just saying this is one of the craziest things that comes out of it. Yeah, the battery theory of life. Is the idea that don't exercise

because you have a finite amount of gas in the tank. All right, so I have, you have a final grade you wanted to give at the very end hold on Wait, let me give you each of your grades that you've gone through so far foreign policy B economy D immigration D crime and justice F infrastructure C

environment and climate C health care F education incomplete Civil rights and democracy you gave it an A or a D depending on if you're MAGA or not. Leadership and governance, you gave a B. This all sounds right to you? Yeah. What would your overall grade be before I tell you what it actually is?

I'll tell you what. Well, I can tell you what it is in terms of the averages. I know, I'm just trying to do it for the show here. Overall, I'll give them a C. And now, mathematically, arithmetically, that doesn't come out that way. No, it's a D according to Chad GPT. Yeah, but I'm gonna give you a C, and here's why.

Because you have been much more active, you have a lot more going on than most administrations. Now, you can argue that as a virtue or vice. I see it as more virtue than vice. And I believe that you are capable of doing much better than you have to this point. I think that there could be a renaissance and I get that people hate him and hate who he is. I am not in that number.

Okay. Now, my one hedge is I don't hate anyone Okay, I don't invest that kind of power in someone else over me All right, because I see what it's like when people have allowed someone to persuade them about me in a way and the power it gives Me over them in terms of their thoughts their feelings. I don't give that power to anyone. And I don't believe, you know, one of my big beefs with this bullshit Coldplay cam thing is, my God, we have gotten way too lustful of other people's misery.

And if you don't think that that makes you sick, if you don't think that's gonna come back on you, not because of some bullshit magical thinking like karma or something like that, but just the more you reinforce that we wanna get other people and bring them down all the time, you're gonna get your fucking turn, I promise you that. And, well not me, I don't do that.

Oh good, it's nice to meet you, Jesus, because you know, even he made mistakes. Okay? Here's my point. There's a renaissance potential here. ICE, these policies don't work this way, not for America. We've got to be more inclusive. There's got to be mercy. There's got to be grace. There's got to be efficiencies. There's got to be balancing of punishment, but also productivity. And I think Trump knows that. Will he act on it? I don't know. I think there's a chance that we can get the Middle East and Ukraine to a better place.

And I think that he wants that. And I think that there's a chance it happens. I think that there are other policy areas that he has a chance of doing the right thing on them. And so I am giving him an average grade because he's doing a lot of things, whether you like him or not. And I think that there's a chance for better. And well, maybe that's a rationally optimistic and he's Hitler and they're Nazis. I don't accept that assessment.

I don't believe he's not going to leave. I don't believe he's an autocrat. By the way, change the facts, change the feeling. I'm telling you right now, I am the type of person that if someone were to try to destroy our democracy and stay in power, I would fight. Okay? There is absolutely no question in my mind that there are things that matter to me enough to allow my family to know that it was worth putting my life, my freedom on the line for those things.

Now, it's easy to say when I haven't had to do it. I did not join the military like many people in my school did. Why? Because I was a pussy. I didn't have the commitment that they did. I didn't have the heart. I didn't have the values that they did. They were better than I am, than I was. Maybe now I'm in a different place. But I take that very, very seriously. And if my opinion changes,

my approach will change. And if that means I leave this because I got to join a resistance, then I would. And if that means I leave this because I got to join a resistance, then I would. Anybody who tries to destroy how we are here and what our national religion and code is, which is our laws, I'm here for it. I'm here to fight that fight. But that's not where we are as far as I'm concerned. And that is not how I perceive this president. Could I be wrong? Yeah.

Does that mean I'm a jackass? I'm a fool in this? That's on you. And as soon as you take that step, you become what you oppose. And so many of you who hate Trump have made this mistake. You've made the mistake of allowing yourself to hate and being blind to anything but his downfall. And you can say, yeah, because he's the Hitler and I'm this and that. I think you're exaggerating it. I think you're exaggerating it to make yourself right, to satisfy yourself. And I don't think it gets us to a better place. And I think it's why he beat your ass, by the way.

That's why you lost. It is. No, it wasn't rigged. It wasn't rigged when he lost. It wasn't rigged when you lost. And the majority in this country speaks when it does for a reason. And I think that we can do better.

And I'm really hoping this president does, because that's what the country needs. Well, I think we'll have to check in again in, I don't know, maybe six months again, or maybe a year from now, to see how your grade has changed over time. I am sure that every single person that voted for him gives him better than a C. And even if they're Epstein people, they will balance out the F that he deserves on Epstein with other things and net up his grade.

If you didn't vote for him, I would be shocked if you would give him a C or better. I would believe they all D or F him. They hate him. He is hated in a way I have never seen another politician be hated in this country. I think he makes it easy to latch on to reasons to dislike him. Yes. And I think some of it's on purpose, by the way. And that is the expediency of extremism. It has created a passion and a galvanization of his base, unlike anything I've ever seen in this country either.

So live by the sword, die by the sword. Thank you for doing the report card. You gave him a C. I gave Gregory Ott an A. I get an A. Chris gets an A. Trump gets a C. And the thumbnail gets an F, because I think it'll get more clicks. I get a C. I gave Gregory Ott an A. I get an A, Chris gets an A, Trump gets a C, and the thumbnail gets an F, because I think it'll get more clicks. I get a B. You get an A.

My friends, thank you for subscribing and following here at The Chris Cuomo Project. Thank you for checking me out on NewsNation every weekday night, 8 Eastern and 11 Eastern. Appreciate you, appreciate you paying to be on the sub stack. That's how I regard your comments. That's how I get your questions asked to the people I do in alive every week. And that's how we make some money so that we can crowdsource some contributions to worthy causes like getting people who can't afford it long COVID treatment. The problems are real. We know the approach that'll get us to a better place. Let's get after it.

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