As our readers most likely know, Donald Trump became only the second President in US history to serve non-consecutive terms after Grover Cleveland in 1893 when he was sworn in on 20 January 2025.

Here’s a little warning from history: in the 1894 midterm election, President Cleveland’s Democratic Party was absolutely wiped out, losing 105 seats in the House. That is a record for most House seats lost in an election to this day. President Trump’s Republicans, evidently, are in a lot better shape going into the midterms this year.

But just how good of a shape are they in? To find that out, let’s compare the content and promises of President Trump’s second inaugural speech to how the first year of his second presidency has transpired thus far.

Weaponization of Justice

The first major theme President Trump stressed in his inaugural was lawfare, declaring: ‘The vicious, violent, and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department…will end.’ That is understandable, since he had been targeted by the opposing party’s Justice Department like no other President in US history, having been charged with a combined 91 felony counts in four separate indictments during his four years out of office.

Three of his cases—the one for election interference in Georgia, and his federal cases involving the 6 January Capitol riots and the handling of classified documents—have been dismissed, although his J6 case was done so without prejudice, thus in theory it could be reopened after he leaves office. Trump’s ‘hush money’ case in New York City, New York had already adjudicated with a guilty verdict. His sentencing, however, was delayed until after the election, and President-elect Trump got an ‘unconditional discharge’—in other words, nothing: no fine or jail time.

That was all very predictable after President Trump’s election victory in 2024. However, some of his supporters are not happy with his Justice Department run by Attorney General Pam Bondi. They feel that she has not been effective enough with her prosecution of those they view as criminals on the other side of the aisle.

For instance, New York Attorney General Leticia James, who was infamously eager to hit President Trump with lawsuits from her office, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Virginia for alleged mortgage fraud in October 2025. However, that indictment was eventually thrown out by an appellate court since the interim US attorney prosecuting her was not properly appointed. The Justice Department tried to get a second indictment by a grand jury with a different prosecutor, but that time, the jurors came back with a no true bill.

President Trump has also been constantly pressed for a lack of promised transparency about information related to the deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. So, while political lawfare against right-wing political actors—and those include everyday people such as Catholics protesting against abortion, not just high-profile figures—predictably stopped, there is still frustration in this aspect among President Trump’s base.

Border Security and Deportations

On this front, however, there could be no complaint by President Trump’s voter base.

As he promised in his inaugural speech: ‘All illegal entry will immediately be halted’ on the Southern border. This is effectively delivered. Illegal border crossings dropped by 94 per cent year-on-year in President Trump’s first full month in office, February 2025, and have stayed at record low levels since.

As promised, the Trump administration has also ramped up deportation efforts. An incentive scheme for self-deportation has been put in place: the administration calculates that the $3,000 offered for voluntary exit is still cheaper than the cost of forced removal. These have accounted for the bulk of the about 2.5 million illegal aliens removed during the second Turmp admin, as claimed by the Department of Homeland Security as of December 2025: 1.9 million self-deportees, and another 600,000 removed by force.

The impressive efforts by ICE to rid the US of illegal aliens have also caused tensions, most notably, in the state of Minnesota.

Energy Policy

‘The inflation crisis was caused by massive overspending and escalating energy prices, and that is why today I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill,’ President Trump announced to the world at the Capitol Rotunda a year ago. This is another area where he objectively delivered, without any reasonable doubt.

The national average cost of gas dropped below $3 a gallon, according to AAA, in December 2025, for the first time since May 2021. It has stayed under that symbolic $3 mark ever since, for about a month and a half now. This is in large part, as promised by the President, due to the increased domestic crude oil production in the United States. It has risen to 13.15 million barrels a day in 2025, compared to the 11.16 million barrels per day in the first year of the Biden administration.

Peace through Strength

The incumbent POTUS famously claimed during his campaign that he would end the Russo–Ukrainian war in a day—something that, evidently, was not achieved. In his inauguration speech, however, he was wise enough not to mention the Ukraine war specifically. Instead, he spoke of peace in more general terms, saying: ‘My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.’

From the broader perspective, Trump has had some major results in his global peace efforts, most notably in Gaza. His 20-point peace plan for the embattled region was accepted by Israel and Palestine in September 2025, which resulted in the release of all living Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity shortly after.

In addition, President Trump has brokered ceasefire deals between India and Pakistan, and Thailand and Cambodia as well.

Expansion

This is a very apparent contradiction in tone for President Trump. While he is committed to solving foreign conflicts, he has also shown that he is quite willing to stir up some conflicts to get what the US has not gotten since the end of World War II: more territory.

In his speech, he mentioned the Panama Canal specifically. Greenland was not spoken of, but the Danish territory has become the President’s focus most recently. In the meantime, the US has regained access to military facilities located in the Panama Canal zone, something that has gone largely uncovered in mainstream media.

DOGE

On 20 January 2025 at the Capitol, President Trump announced that ‘We are establishing the brand-new Department of Government Efficiency.’ DOGE, for short, was run by world's richest man Elon Musk. If you asked Musk himself, he would probably say that the agency has not achieved enough. Frustration over cutting government waste has led to a blow-up between him and Trump. However, by now, the two have reconciled.

It is true that DOGE could not reduce the federal government's deficit: in fact, it increased in 2025. However, it was still very potent in exposing USAID as a taxpayer-funded international woke propaganda machine, rather than a foreign aid agency. As a result, through a rescissions package passed by the US Congress in July, USAID was completely defunded.

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