Tracking President Trump's Promises to the American People

What has happened · as of August 2026

Southwest border encounters fell to their lowest sustained level in decades within months of inauguration. Three things drove it: a national emergency declared on January 20, 2025, his first day in office, an order shutting off asylum claims for anyone crossing between ports of entry, and active-duty troops sent to the border.

SourcesDHS: 14 straight months of zero releases at the borderCBP Nationwide Encounters dataCBP Southwest Land Border Encounters

What has happened · as of August 2026

Interior arrests rose sharply and the 2025 budget bill paid for a large expansion of detention beds and deportation flights. Removals have climbed hard: 248,739 in FY2024, 319,980 in FY2025, and 356,389 by mid-July of FY2026. That is about 1,255 people a day, which puts the full year near 460,000.

The catch is the word largest. The Obama years still hold the record, and this pace comes close to it without clearly passing it, so the promise is being kept in substance and not yet in the superlative he used.

SourcesCBS News: "the largest deportation operation in the history of our country" (RNC, July 2024)TRAC: Trump administration record on detention and removalsICE Enforcement and Removal Statistics

What has happened · as of August 2026

Biden had ended both policies. Trump restored them by executive action in the first days of the term. People who cross the southern border seeking asylum are again sent back across it to wait for their immigration hearings, instead of being released into the country with a future court date.

SourcesDHS: reinstating the Migrant Protection ProtocolsAmerican Immigration Council: what the Migrant Protection Protocols areDHS press releases

What has happened · as of August 2026

President Trump signed the order on January 20, 2025, his first day in office, exactly as promised. Federal judges blocked it within days, so it never applied to a single child. On June 30, 2026 the Supreme Court struck it down 6 to 3, ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment grants citizenship to nearly everyone born on American soil and that a president cannot change that with an order.

Trump did what he said he would do and the courts stopped him. That is the difference between Blocked and Not Delivered. Doing it now would take a constitutional amendment: two thirds of both chambers of Congress and three quarters of the states.

SourcesSCOTUSblog: Court strikes down birthright citizenship orderNPR: Ruling on constitutional grounds

What has happened · as of August 2026

A national emergency declared on January 20 put Homeland Security and Defense to work on new barrier, and contracts and land waivers followed. Roughly 80 miles have gone up. That is real construction, and it is a small piece of the job: the southern border runs about 1,950 miles. At the pace so far, finishing it is the work of several more years, so the promise is underway rather than done.

SourcesPolitiFact: projects adding over 80 miles of new barrierTIME: what is the status of Trump's border wallCBP border infrastructure updates

What has happened · as of August 2026

The campaign pledge was to "bring back the travel ban" and to bar refugee resettlement from Gaza. A proclamation restricting entry took effect in 2025 and was expanded to 19 countries, up from seven in the first-term version.

SourcesCongressional Research Service: the expanded travel ban effective January 1, 2026American Immigration Council: who the 2025 travel ban affectsPresidential Actions

What has happened · as of August 2026

He moved on this immediately. A day-one order directed the Attorney General and Homeland Security to ensure sanctuary jurisdictions receive no federal funding, and Executive Order 14287 followed on April 28, 2025, requiring a published list of non-cooperating jurisdictions and eligibility checks to keep people in the country illegally from receiving federal benefits. The Justice Department published the list.

The funding cutoff itself did not survive. A federal judge blocked it, holding that ordering agencies to withhold or condition money Congress had already appropriated violates the separation of powers and the Spending Clause, that parts of the order were unconstitutionally vague, and that it violated the Tenth Amendment by trying to force local officials to enforce federal immigration law.

The administration argued to lift the injunction before a Ninth Circuit panel in December 2025. He did what he said he would do and the courts stopped the money from moving, which is Blocked rather than Not Delivered.

SourcesJustice Department: the published list of sanctuary jurisdictionsNBC News: judge blocks the bid to halt federal funding to sanctuary citiesNPR: the executive order and the courts' skepticismNational Constitution Center: sanctuary jurisdictions return to the courts

What has happened · as of August 2026

President Trump suspended the refugee admissions program by executive order on January 20, 2025, his first day in office. A district judge blocked the suspension in February 2025, but the Ninth Circuit overturned that part of the ruling on March 5, 2026, so the freeze on new refugee processing stands. The court did require the government to keep paying for resettlement help already owed to refugees who had arrived. The cap for FY2026 is 7,500 people, the lowest since the program began in 1980.

SourcesPacito v. Trump: Ninth Circuit opinionWRAPS: refugee admissions and arrivals dataIRC: administration suspends refugee resettlement

What has happened · as of August 2026

The State Department now reviews the social media accounts of student visa applicants, and it has revoked visas from foreign nationals who took part in campus protests. Individual removals have drawn First Amendment challenges, since the First Amendment protects foreign students present in the United States.

SourcesInside Higher Ed: State Department expands social media screening for student visasTIME: what the new social media screening for student visas requiresPresidents' Alliance: the visa revocation litigationState Dept. visa policy updates

What has happened · as of August 2026

The 2027 lottery registration was postponed in November 2025 and has never opened. In December 2025, after the Brown University shooting and the killing of an MIT professor, the State Department stopped issuing diversity visas entirely while it reviewed how applicants are screened. As of July 2026 none are being issued and no sign-up window has opened. The lottery is still written into federal law, so this is a shutdown by executive action, and the next president could switch it back on without asking Congress.

SourcesFragomen: USCIS suspends diversity visa approvals pending security reviewEnvoy Global: full suspension of the diversity visa programState Dept.: Diversity Visa Issuance Updated Guidance

What has happened · as of August 2026

Chain migration means family-based immigration. One immigrant gets a green card, sponsors a relative, and years later that relative sponsors relatives of their own. The 1965 immigration act built the system this way, so family ties rather than skills decide who gets in. Trump wanted it cut to spouses and young children, and everyone else scored on skills, education, and English, the way Canada and Australia do it.

About 1.3 million people received green cards in fiscal 2025. Family ties account for roughly two thirds of all legal immigration, including 196,740 through the capped family preference categories he named directly.

None of that has changed. Those categories are written into the Immigration and Nationality Act, which means only Congress can remove them and no executive order can. The RAISE Act, the 2017 bill he endorsed to do exactly this, would have cut the family categories and scored applicants on points. It never received a floor vote, and nothing has replaced it since. The State Department is still issuing these visas every month, on the same schedule as before.

That line, between border enforcement and immigration law, explains a record that looks contradictory. At the border he has enormous unilateral power over who enters and who is removed, and he used it hard. Over green cards issued under a category Congress created, he has almost none. Delivering this one always meant getting a bill through the Senate, and that fight has not been picked.

SourcesState Dept. Visa Bulletin: family preference visas still being issued monthlyDHS Office of Homeland Security Statistics: lawful permanent resident annual flow reportsNewsweek: DHS figures for FY2025 green cards, including 196,740 family preferenceMigration Policy Institute: how the U.S. legal immigration system works

What has happened · as of August 2026

The 2025 budget law made the expiring individual rates and the larger standard deduction permanent, and let businesses write off equipment purchases in full in the year they buy them. The Congressional Budget Office puts the cost at roughly $4.6 trillion in added debt over a decade.

SourcesEconomic Club of New York: full transcript of the September 5, 2024 addressWays and Means: hearing on making the Trump tax cuts permanentIRS: One Big Beautiful Bill provisions (Public Law 119-21)

What has happened · as of August 2026

It passed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as a deduction, not an exemption. Up to $25,000 of tip income comes off your taxable income, it phases out for higher earners, and it expires after 2028. Tips are still income and still taxed above the cap.

Here is what that is worth in a paycheck. Take a server on $80,000 a year with $30,000 of it in tips, filing single. Under the 2025 brackets they owed about $9,000 in federal income tax. The deduction takes $25,000 off their taxable income and the bill falls to about $4,500. That is roughly $4,600 they keep, just under $400 a month, on the same wages as before. For a working family that is a car payment. Anyone calling this symbolic has not run the numbers.

Two things keep it short of the promise. The cap is $25,000, so the last $5,000 of tips in this example is still taxed. And this is an income tax deduction only: Social Security and Medicare tax, 7.65%, still comes out of every tipped dollar. It also expires after 2028 unless Congress renews it.

SourcesFederal Register: final rules defining qualified tips and the tipped occupations listCato Institute: the new income tax deductions for tips and overtimeIRS: how to take advantage of no tax on tips and overtime

What has happened · as of August 2026

The pledge was to end "all taxes" on overtime, which would cover income and payroll tax. What passed covers only the premium half of time-and-a-half, caps the deduction at $12,500 (or $25,000 filing jointly), phases out above $150,000 of income, and expires after 2028. Payroll tax still applies to all of it.

Here is what that is worth. Take someone on $80,000 a year working five hours of overtime a week. That is about $38.50 an hour, so time-and-a-half pays $57.70 and a year of it comes to roughly $15,000. The deduction only covers the premium half, the extra $19.20 an hour, which is about $5,000. In the 22% bracket that is around $1,100 back, close to $90 a month. Real money for a shift worker.

It is also a long way from ending all taxes on overtime. Two thirds of that $15,000 is still taxed, payroll tax applies to every dollar of it, and the deduction expires after 2028.

SourcesCNBC: IRS clarifies the no-tax-on-overtime deduction rulesCato Institute: the new income tax deductions for tips and overtimeIRS: how to take advantage of no tax on tips and overtime

What has happened · as of August 2026

Seniors 65 and over received a temporary $6,000 enhanced deduction with income limits, running 2025-2028. The law made no change to how Social Security benefits are taxed. Beneficiaries under 65, including survivors, dependents, and disabled workers, get nothing from it.

SourcesIRS: One Big Beautiful Bill provisions for individuals and workersSSA benefit taxation rules

What has happened · as of August 2026

Consumer prices did not fall. Between January 2025 and June 2026 groceries rose 3.4%, with beef up 12%, coffee up 13%, and fresh vegetables up 9.9%. Energy has risen 13.1%, electricity 8.3%, gasoline 15.2%. Estimates put the added cost at roughly $2,120 per household in 2025, and about $950 for the bottom fifth of earners, more than 5% of their income. Eggs are cheaper than at inauguration; almost nothing else is.

Against Biden the record is much better. Prices rose 21.4% in total across Biden's four years. Inflation, meaning how much higher prices were than twelve months earlier, peaked at 9.1% in June 2022, the fastest rate since 1981. Under Trump that same twelve-month rate was 3.4% in July 2026, with core inflation, which strips out food and fuel, at 2.5%, and the consumer price index up about 4.8% in total through April 2026 against 10.5% over the same stretch of Biden's term. That is about half the pace. It is still a rising price level, and the promise was to bring prices down on day one, not to raise them more slowly.

SourcesBLS Consumer Price Index Summary, July 2026FactCheck.org: Biden's final numbers (21.4% cumulative CPI, Jan. 2021 to Jan. 2025)Texas A&M PERC: inflation, real wages, and unemployment through February 2026CNBC: July 2026 CPI reportCNN fact check: eggs are cheaper, "everything else" is not

What has happened · as of August 2026

Benefit checks were not cut. Nobody on Social Security or Medicare is receiving less money than they were, and no legislation reducing benefit levels has passed. On the promise as most voters heard it, President Trump kept his word.

Two things did change, and a reader should weigh them. The administration cut funding and staffing at the Social Security Administration starting in February 2025, which does not touch benefit amounts but does make the agency slower to reach. And the 2025 budget law ended Medicare eligibility for certain lawfully present immigrants, which is a cut for the people in that group even though it leaves everyone else untouched.

Grading the pledge as stated, benefits are intact. Grading it as an absolute guarantee that nothing about either program would be touched, the record is more mixed than the slogan.

SourcesPolitiFact: no direct Social Security or Medicare benefit cuts under TrumpSocial Security AdministrationCongressional Budget Office: budget and program topics

What has happened · as of August 2026

Reciprocal tariffs were imposed in April 2025 and ran for ten months. On February 20, 2026 the Supreme Court held 6-3 in Learning Resources v. Trump that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize tariffs, because the taxing power belongs to Congress. Importers who had already paid became entitled to refunds, estimated at around $175 billion. The tariffs did not go away, they were re-imposed under different legal authority. Within hours the White House put a temporary 10% global tariff in place under Section 122 of the Trade Act, and when that expired on July 24, 2026 it was replaced with a tariff issued under Section 301. What did not survive is the reciprocal architecture itself, the country-by-country matching of foreign rates that gave the promise its name.

SourcesLearning Resources, Inc. v. Trump: slip opinionGlobal Trade Alert: from IEEPA to Section 122, what changed on Feb. 20, 2026White & Case: U.S. terminates IEEPA tariffs

What has happened · as of August 2026

A 10% universal baseline took effect in April 2025 at the low end of the promised range. The law it rests on has been swapped twice, from emergency economic powers to Section 122 of the Trade Act to Section 301, but a baseline tariff on nearly all imports has been in force continuously and stands at 10% today, with 12.5% for a 46-economy list. The average effective rate is 8.9%, down from a 16.5% peak but the highest since the 1970s.

SourcesTax Foundation tariff tracker: current rates and effective averageCRS: Supreme Court rules against IEEPA tariffs

What has happened · as of August 2026

Rates on China reached 145% during the spring 2025 escalation, well past the promised 60%, then fell to 30% under the truce negotiated in Geneva and announced on May 12, 2025. After the Supreme Court voided the emergency-powers tariffs, the administration rebuilt the same rates out of older trade laws, Section 301 and Section 232. China's average effective rate now sits near 31.6%, roughly half the promised level, though individual goods such as Chinese steel can carry 10% baseline plus 25% Section 301 plus 50% Section 232.

SourcesTax Foundation tariff tracker: rates by country and authorityPolitiFact: 145% rate, then Supreme Court restriction

What has happened · as of August 2026

A tariff is collected at the border from the American company importing the goods, not from the foreign company selling them, and the money goes to the U.S. Treasury. Whoever ultimately absorbs it, the check is written by an American business.

Who ultimately absorbs that cost is the part worth arguing about, and the evidence runs one way. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that American consumers and businesses bore close to 90% of the 2025 tariffs, with foreign exporters absorbing about 6% over the first eight months of the year. A separate paper by Federal Reserve and Columbia University economists put the American share at 94%. Fed researchers tracking shelf prices found close to dollar-for-dollar pass-through: when a tariff raised a retailer's cost by $1, the retail price rose by about $1 within seven months. Core goods prices ran roughly 3.1% higher as a result, and the Tax Foundation put the 2025 cost at about $1,000 per household.

The administration has publicly disputed the New York Fed's analysis. On the specific claim graded here, that foreign countries and not American consumers would pay, the available measurements point the other way.

SourcesCBS News: New York Fed finds U.S. consumers and businesses paid nearly 90% of 2025 tariffsFortune: Federal Reserve researchers find close to full pass-through to consumersRetail Dive: U.S. companies and consumers bear 90% of tariff costsPIIE: Who is paying for Trump's tariffs?CBP tariff collections

What has happened · as of August 2026

The External Revenue Service was announced and customs receipts hit record levels, but the arithmetic never worked: individual income tax raised $2.43 trillion in 2024 against $77 billion in tariffs, a factor of about 32. No repeal proposal was introduced, the income tax is fully intact, and the February 2026 Supreme Court ruling voided the tariffs that were supposed to fund the swap.

SourcesTax Foundation: analysis of the 2024 Trump tax plan, including the tariff-for-income-tax swapTreasury Monthly Statement

What has happened · as of August 2026

Chipmakers, drugmakers, and steel producers announced large new U.S. plants, and the promised 15% corporate tax rate for companies that make their products in the United States was enacted, along with full write-offs for new equipment. Manufacturing payroll employment has been roughly flat since inauguration; the announced facilities carry multi-year construction timelines.

SourcesWashington Examiner: the 15% corporate rate for domestic manufacturersBLS manufacturing employment

What has happened · as of August 2026

A presidential memo directed the trade and commerce agencies to assess legislative proposals, bipartisan bills were introduced, and the International Trade Commission opened a probe into the effects of revocation in February 2026. Most-favored-nation status, formally called permanent normal trade relations, can only be repealed by Congress, and no floor vote has been held.

SourcesPolitiFact: no four-year plan to phase out Chinese imports has been releasedPerkins Coie: trade and national security policy in the second termFox News: GOP leaders move to revoke China's most-favored-nation status

What has happened · as of August 2026

The dollar is still the world's reserve currency. No BRICS currency exists, none has been launched, and India, a founding member, publicly rejected the idea.

President Trump made the threat repeatedly: at a September 2024 rally, again on November 30 after the election, and on Truth Social after taking office, demanding a commitment that these countries would neither create a BRICS currency nor back any other currency to replace the dollar, on pain of 100% tariffs.

How much of the outcome he caused is not measurable. BRICS members were divided on a common currency well before the threats, and economists argued the tariffs would have damaged the U.S. as much as the targets. What can be said is that the thing he promised to prevent has not happened, and he never had to impose the tariff.

SourcesFortune: BRICS, the dollar, and the tariff threatANU Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis: projected effects of the threatened tariffs

What has happened · as of August 2026

Federal leasing, permitting, and liquefied natural gas export approvals were reopened on January 20, 2025, his first day in office.

On production he delivered outright. U.S. crude oil output averaged a record 13.6 million barrels a day in 2025, breaking the 13.2 million record set in 2024, which was itself the highest any country had ever produced. American output ran about 40% ahead of Russia and Saudi Arabia, the next two largest producers. The Energy Information Administration expects roughly 13.5 million a day in 2026 and 14.2 million by 2027.

The half of the promise that failed is the price half. He pledged to cut energy costs in half within twelve months and that did not happen. Oil fell roughly 20% across 2025, but the cause was OPEC, the cartel of oil-exporting countries, raising output into an oversupplied world market, not American drilling. When prices dropped below what it costs to pull a barrel out of the ground, U.S. drilling slowed down. Record production and a halving of your energy bill are two different promises, and only one of them landed.

SourcesEIA: U.S. crude oil production rose in 2025, setting a new recordEIA: the United States produced more crude oil than any other country in 2025EIA energy prices and production data

What has happened · as of August 2026

President Trump ordered the rollback on January 20, 2025, his first day in office, but the regulation itself took longer. The Environmental Protection Agency proposed repealing the tailpipe rules in July 2025, and the repeal was published in the Federal Register on February 18, 2026, stripping out the greenhouse gas standards for new light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles.

The purchase subsidies went faster. The 2025 budget law ended the $7,500 credit for a new electric vehicle and the $4,000 used-car credit on September 30, 2025. The waiver authority that let California set its own rules requiring electric sales was revoked as well.

Kept, with one honest caveat about timing: the mandate was promised gone on day one and the rule was not actually off the books for another thirteen months.

SourcesIRS: clean vehicle tax credits and their terminationCoastal Review: EPA eliminates emission standards for new vehiclesEPA regulatory actions

What has happened · as of August 2026

Signed on January 20, 2025, his first day in office, as Executive Order 14162, for the second time, with the United Nations ambassador directed to file formal notice immediately and climate finance commitments rescinded. The United States now sits outside the agreement alongside Iran, Libya, and Yemen.

SourcesExecutive Order 14162, Putting America First in International Environmental AgreementsCRS: U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, process and effects

What has happened · as of August 2026

The Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, started immediately and did cut federal headcount and cancel contracts, then stopped operating as a centralized entity in November 2025 and reached its mandated expiration on July 4, 2026. Its dashboard claimed roughly $215 billion in savings, a figure independent analysts disputed and about a tenth of the target, and total federal outlays did not fall. No closing report was published. The $2 trillion figure was Elon Musk's, floated at the Madison Square Garden rally days before the election; he later called it a best case and revised the goal to $1 trillion before departing.

SourcesDOGE: formation, claimed savings, and July 2026 shutdownCBO Monthly Budget Review

What has happened · as of August 2026

The 2020 executive order was re-issued and finalized as Schedule Policy/Career, reclassifying policy-influencing career positions as at-will, and agencies began using it. Federal employee unions have challenged it in court.

SourcesFinal rule: Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service (91 FR, Feb. 6, 2026)OPM: Schedule Policy/Career hiring authority

What has happened · as of August 2026

Roughly half the department's staff were laid off, and student loan servicing and several other programs were handed to other agencies. Lower courts ordered the staff reinstated, but the Supreme Court cleared the way for the layoffs 6-3 in McMahon v. New York in July 2025, with the underlying case still live. Abolishing the department requires an act of Congress; no such bill has passed, and it continues to operate, retaining Title I funding, Pell grants, and disability programs.

SourcesCNBC: executive order to dismantle the Department of EducationSCOTUSblog: Court clears the way to shrink the Education DepartmentED press releases

What has happened · as of August 2026

President Trump signed an elections executive order on March 25, 2025 and a second one, Executive Order 14399, on March 31, 2026. Together they ordered documentary proof of citizenship for federal voter registration, tighter mail ballot deadlines, and federal pressure on states that did not comply.

The courts took the center of it apart. Judge Denise Casper ruled that the proof-of-citizenship requirement exceeded presidential authority and violated the separation of powers, because setting election rules belongs to Congress and the states, and she made that permanent in June 2026. Two other federal judges blocked it as well, one of them ruling for nineteen states that had sued.

Not all of it fell. The Supreme Court allowed parts of the mail-in voting order to take effect 6-3 ahead of the November midterms, letting Homeland Security build a federal citizenship list to share with states and letting the Attorney General prioritize prosecutions of state election officials.

He acted, and acted twice. The signature piece was struck down, which is why this is Blocked rather than Not Delivered. Voter ID and paper ballots are set by states, and no president can order them into place.

SourcesWhite House: Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal ElectionsPBS: federal judge bars the proof of citizenship requirementABC News: judge permanently blocks the proof of citizenship orderABC News: Supreme Court allows parts of the mail-in voting order

What has happened · as of August 2026

He made the pledge at the Economic Club of New York on September 5, 2024 and signed the order after taking office. It requires agencies to identify at least ten existing rules, regulations, or guidance documents for repeal for every new one they propose.

The order is in force and agencies are working to it. Whether the ratio is being met in practice is the open question, because repealing a rule takes the same notice-and-comment process as writing one, which means months or years and a court challenge at the end of it. Analysts across the spectrum, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, have questioned whether ten to one is achievable at scale.

The mechanism was delivered exactly as promised. The count is not yet verifiable, which is why this is In Progress rather than Kept.

SourcesSafety+Health: the order directing agencies to cut ten rules per new oneCompetitive Enterprise Institute: can a ten-for-one rule elimination scale?R Street Institute: how ten-to-one is taking shape in financial services

What has happened · as of August 2026

The war did not end in 24 hours, and it has not ended. A revised twenty-point peace plan was discussed in December 2025, and a three-day ceasefire announced in May 2026 collapsed within days, with each side blaming the other. Talks remain stuck on Donetsk, roughly three-quarters of which Russia holds, and on security guarantees. He later called the pledge "sarcastic" and "an exaggeration." A database of his public remarks records at least 53 occasions on which he made it in earnest.

SourcesCFR: War in Ukraine conflict trackerState Department briefings

What has happened · as of August 2026

A ceasefire was agreed on January 15, 2025, five days before he took office. It was built in three stages: first an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners, then a wider Israeli withdrawal and further releases, then reconstruction. The first stage brought 33 Israeli hostages home.

A broader deal followed in late 2025. Every living hostage was released and Trump signed a peace agreement alongside other leaders. On the hostages, the promise was kept outright.

What is not settled is who governs Gaza now and whether the terms survive contact with that question. Peace in the region is the larger half of the pledge, and it is still being negotiated.

SourcesCouncil on Foreign Relations: guide to the twenty-point Gaza peace dealNPR: Israel and Hamas agree to a Gaza ceasefireAxios: the White House launches phase two of the ceasefireWhite House briefings

What has happened · as of August 2026

The United States struck Iran's nuclear sites in June 2025, then fought a 40-day war alongside Israel from February 28 to April 8, 2026, opening with a strike that killed Iran's supreme leader. That ceasefire crumbled in July 2026 and strikes resumed. Military action was also ordered in Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Nigeria, and Venezuela. None was authorized by Congress. In a June 2026 NBC interview the President said he had never guaranteed no new wars and that as a candidate he "didn't promise anything," a claim contradicted by the campaign record.

SourcesBritannica: 2026 Iran warCNN: US-Iran ceasefire crumbles as fresh strikes hit the regionNPR: Trump on Iran and the no-new-wars pledge

What has happened · as of August 2026

Iran held 440.9 kg of uranium enriched to 60% when B-2s struck Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan on June 21, 2025. Iran then stopped cooperating, and inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency lost track of where much of that uranium went. The Cairo Agreement restored inspection procedures in September 2025; Iran terminated it that November. A second joint campaign with Israel ran from February 28 to a Pakistan-brokered ceasefire on April 8, 2026, and a June memorandum set a 60-day negotiating framework. Limited inspections have resumed at some sites, but the IAEA still cannot access the enrichment facilities and cannot account for the stockpile. The President has said Iran is denuclearized and also that Iran "can change their mind." Absent verification, the promise is not closed.

SourcesISIS: analysis of IAEA Iran verification and safeguards reports, June 2026House of Commons Library: US-Iran ceasefire and nuclear talks in 2026NPR: dispute widens over Iran nuclear inspections

What has happened · as of August 2026

Maximum pressure was reimposed by memorandum on February 4, 2025, with the stated aim of driving Iranian oil exports to zero, and reaching shipping, insurance, and port operators handling that trade.

SourcesNSPM-2, Imposing Maximum Pressure on the Government of IranTreasury OFAC actions

What has happened · as of August 2026

A day-one executive order directed the designations, and on February 20, 2025 the State Department designated eight groups (six Mexican cartels, Tren de Aragua, and MS-13), unlocking sanctions and authorities since used against trafficking networks.

SourcesPBS: eight Latin American cartels designated as foreign terrorist organizationsAS/COA: which cartels and groups were designatedState Dept. FTO list

What has happened · as of August 2026

On the campaign trail he called it an Iron Dome for America, after the Israeli system that shoots down short-range rockets. In office the project was renamed Golden Dome and formally announced on May 21, 2025.

Funding so far is $25 billion in the tax bill against a stated price tag of $175 billion over three years, and he said it should be fully operational before his term ends in 2029. The cost estimates have since moved a long way apart. The program office put the figure at $185 billion in March 2026. Two months later the Congressional Budget Office estimated $1.2 trillion to build, deploy, and run it over twenty years, roughly six times the Pentagon number.

The gap is mostly one component. Interceptors based in space account for about 70% of the acquisition cost in the CBO analysis, and no country has built them at anything like this scale. That layer is what the promise rests on, and it does not exist yet.

The design depends on interceptors based in space, which no country has built at anything like this scale. As of this review nothing has been deployed.

SourcesCongressional Budget Office: cost of a Golden Dome style missile defense, May 2026NPR: CBO puts the Golden Dome at $1.2 trillionCongressional Research Service: the Army and the Golden Dome programCRS defense primer: Golden Dome for America

What has happened · as of August 2026

During the campaign Trump wanted allies spending at least 3% of their national income on defense. After the election he raised the number to 5%.

Trump got the 5%. At the NATO summit in The Hague on June 25, 2025 the alliance agreed to reach 5% by 2035. Every member signed except Spain, which was granted an exemption. That is more than he asked for as a candidate.

Two things cut against it. The deadline is 2035, a decade away and long after he leaves office. And the 5% is split: at least 3.5% has to be actual military spending, while the remaining 1.5% can be things like roads, cyber defenses, and factories. Counted the strict way, the commitment is 3.5%, not 5%.

SourcesThe Hague Summit Declaration, NATO official textCRS: NATO's June 2025 summit in The Hague

What has happened · as of August 2026

President Trump signed Executive Order 14155 on January 20, 2025, his first day in office, starting the one-year notice the WHO constitution requires. The United States formally left on January 22, 2026, ending its membership, its seat in the organization's governance, and its funding contributions.

This is the second time he ordered it. The first attempt, in 2020, was reversed by the Biden administration before it took effect. This one ran the full clock and completed.

SourcesHHS: fact sheet on the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health OrganizationNPR: the U.S. begins the process of leaving the WHOLawfare: the withdrawal orders from international organizations and treaties

What has happened · as of August 2026

Proclamation 10887, signed on the first day of the term, commuted the sentences of fourteen named individuals to time served and granted full, complete, and unconditional pardons to every other person convicted in connection with January 6, roughly 1,500 in all. That is broader than the campaign's suggestion that violent cases might be excluded.

SourcesFederal Register: Proclamation granting pardons and commutations for January 6 offensesJustice Department: text of the clemency proclamationLawfare: Trump pardons or commutes the terms of all January 6 rioters

What has happened · as of August 2026

An executive order titled "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" directed Title IX enforcement against schools allowing male athletes in women's competition, and governing bodies changed their eligibility rules in response. On June 30, 2026 the Supreme Court upheld the Idaho and West Virginia bans, ruling unanimously that they do not violate federal civil rights law and dividing 6-3 on the constitutional question, with Justice Kavanaugh writing that the Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women's sports.

SourcesChristian Post: the Salem, VA rally pledge, Nov. 2, 2024SCOTUSblog: states may exclude transgender athletes from girls' and women's teamsPresidential Actions

What has happened · as of August 2026

The executive order that followed directs agencies to produce policy recommendations for protecting access and reducing out-of-pocket costs. It does not make in vitro fertilization free, mandates nothing of insurers, and appropriates no money. Congressional Republicans rejected a proposal to extend coverage to servicemembers. Costs to patients are essentially unchanged.

SourcesKFF: will the announcement expand access to IVF?CNN: Trump promised no-cost IVF for all, and it is still a long way off

What has happened · as of August 2026

A January 2025 executive order directed declassification of the JFK, RFK, and MLK files, and roughly 80,000 pages were posted by the National Archives in March 2025. He made the same pledge in his first term and left about 3,000 records redacted; this time the release was far more complete.

SourcesForbes: what he said on the trail about releasing the remaining JFK filesNational Archives JFK CollectionFox News: Trump signs order to declassify the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassination filesWhite House fact sheet: declassification of the JFK, RFK, and MLK files

What has happened · as of August 2026

On August 11, 2025 President Trump placed the Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control and deployed an initial 800 National Guard troops, declaring a crime emergency in the capital. He said he would do this repeatedly through 2024 and he did it.

Crime fell over the following year. The FBI reported nearly 15,000 arrests under the operation and overall crime dropped between 2025 and 2026.

How much of that drop the takeover caused is disputed. Violent crime in the District had already fallen to a 30-year low in 2024, before he returned to office, so part of the decline was underway regardless. The Center for American Progress argues the Guard deployments did not reduce urban crime at the cost involved. What is not disputed is that he promised a federal takeover of the capital and delivered one, and that it is now planned to run through January 2029 at an estimated $1.4 billion.

SourcesWashington Post: key moments in the D.C. federal takeoverNewsweek: what one year of D.C. crime data showsNPR: results of the 2025 National Guard deployments were unclearCenter for American Progress: the deployments and urban crime

What has happened · as of August 2026

President Trump signed the order on January 29, 2025. It bars federal money from K-12 schools teaching critical race theory or what it calls gender ideology, and gave the Education and Defense secretaries 90 days to produce a strategy for ending what the order describes as indoctrination.

The order is real and the strategy was produced. What it cannot do is reach most classrooms. Federal law forbids Washington from dictating curriculum, federal money is only about 8 to 10% of K-12 funding, and there are roughly 13,000 school districts to monitor. The leverage is real in high-poverty districts that depend more heavily on federal dollars and thin almost everywhere else.

The order was delivered in full. The effect on what is taught is far smaller than the promise implied, which is why this is Watered Down rather than Kept.

SourcesThe Hill: order bars federal funds for schools teaching CRT and gender ideologyChalkbeat: can he actually withhold school aid over these lessons?Education Week: the funding threat and the strategy it ordered

What has happened · as of August 2026

President Trump signed the order on January 28, 2025. It declared that the federal government would not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support gender transition for anyone under 19, and moved to cut off federal money for puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgery, along with research and education grants to hospitals and medical schools that provide them.

Families, PFLAG, and GLMA sued within weeks. In February 2025 a federal district court issued a nationwide restraining order barring agencies from withholding federal money on the basis that a provider offers this care to patients under 19.

He signed what he said he would sign, on the timeline he promised, and a court stopped it from taking effect. That is Blocked, not Not Delivered.

SourcesGlobal News: the order restricting gender-affirming care for minorsLambda Legal: federal judge blocks the orderNBC News: families and advocacy groups sue over the orders

What has happened · as of August 2026

President Trump said this in the inaugural address and signed the order the same day. It directs every federal agency to recognize two sexes, bars using gender identity as a basis for federal categorisation, freezes funding for programs the order calls gender ideology, and rescinds the Biden-era guidance that treated gender as distinct from sex. A second order on February 5, 2025 applied it to women's sports.

The declaration stands and agencies are operating under it. Several specific applications are not. In June 2025 a federal court ordered the State Department back to its previous passport policy, including the X marker, while litigation continues. A separate order blocked moving transgender women into men's federal prisons and required medical treatment to continue there.

The Supreme Court did let the military service ban take effect by staying the injunction against it.

The policy was declared exactly as promised. It is not being applied everywhere it was written to apply, which is why this is Watered Down rather than Kept.

SourcesWhite House: Defending Women From Gender Ideology ExtremismHolland & Knight: how the order is being applied across agenciesACLU: Orr v. Trump, the passport marker case

What has happened · as of August 2026

He acted on this immediately. A day-one executive order directed the Attorney General to resume federal executions and to seek capital punishment wherever the severity of the crime allows it. Pam Bondi lifted the Biden moratorium on federal executions and, reviving a 2018 policy, told prosecutors to use drug trafficking statutes to pursue the death penalty where they apply.

The promise itself cannot be delivered by executive action. The Supreme Court has held that the death penalty is unconstitutional for crimes that do not result in a death, so selling drugs is not eligible no matter what a president or an attorney general instructs. Changing that requires Congress and then a Supreme Court willing to revisit its own precedent, and neither has happened.

Federal executions have resumed for crimes that do qualify. Nobody has been sentenced to death for selling drugs, and under current law nobody can be.

SourcesDeath Penalty Information Center: the day-one order on capital punishmentJustice Department: restoring and strengthening the federal death penaltyStateline: the death penalty push meets resistance in some red states

What has happened · as of August 2026

This one was never his to sign alone, and he said as much: the pledge was to sign the bill, not to create the policy by order. A president cannot make a Texas carry permit valid in New York by executive action.

The Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act cleared the House Judiciary Committee in March 2025 and has been waiting for floor time since. It has not been debated, has not passed the House, and has not reached the Senate. No bill has reached his desk, and there has been no executive action on carry permits.

The bill is alive and moving slowly, so this is In Progress. If the term ends without a floor vote, it becomes Not Delivered.

SourcesPolitiFact: the reciprocity bill's progress in the HousePolitiFact fact check: reciprocity has not been expandedFox News: House Republicans push nationwide concealed carry

What has happened · as of August 2026

Something real passed. The 2025 budget law created the Education Freedom Tax Credit, a dollar-for-dollar federal credit of up to $1,700 for donations to organisations that award school scholarships. It is the first national school voucher mechanism of its kind.

It is not universal, and it is not yet operating. The credit does not take effect until January 1, 2027. It works through donations to scholarship organisations rather than giving money directly to families. And it is opt-in by state: 23 states had joined as of late 2025, meaning families in the other 27 get nothing from it, including in some of the largest states.

A capped, delayed, opt-in tax credit is a long way from every parent in America being empowered to choose. Real progress, much smaller than promised.

SourcesDepartment of Education: Education Freedom Tax Credit fact sheetHechinger Report: ten things to know about the new voucher programPolitiFact: the school choice tax credit and what it does not do

What has happened · as of August 2026

He signed it hours after the inaugural address, on January 20, 2025. Executive Order 14149 bars federal employees from acting to limit lawful speech, prohibits taxpayer money being used to do it, and directs the Attorney General to investigate the previous four years of federal contacts with platforms.

The order names what it is reversing: pressure applied to social media companies over COVID-19 claims and over the Hunter Biden laptop story. Several platforms have since dropped or narrowed their fact-checking programs, Meta among them.

This one is Kept on the plainest reading. What the order cannot do is bind private companies, which remain free to moderate as they choose, so the promise reaches government conduct rather than speech online generally.

SourcesBallotpedia: Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal CensorshipFirst Amendment Encyclopedia: what the order does and does not reachLawfare: analysis of the speech and censorship order