Trump repeated 2016 promises in 2024 that he failed to fulfill the first time

In his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump made hundreds of promises about what he would accomplish in the White House. After failing to deliver on his major pledges during his first administration, President-elect Trump resurrected many of the same promises in his 2024 campaign.

On Nov. 7, Ron Filipkowski of the pro-democracy MeidasTouch Network documented 93 promises Trump made on video during this year’s campaign. He made many more on his campaign website, at the Sep. 10 presidential debate, and in a Sept. 5 economic policy speech. 

While many of them focused on right-wing social policy goals such as abolishing the Department of Education and requiring prayer in public schools, several were explicit promises to enact economic policies to benefit working families and to lower consumer costs. 

Ryan Koronowski, the director of special research projects, advocacy and outreach at the progressive think tank Center for American Progress Action Fund, tracked 663 Trump promises from his 2016 campaign.

“I think that for many of the promises that he broke, he was insincere about them or didn’t care enough about them, “Koronowski said in a Nov. 8 interview. “They were political and meant to earn votes, they weren’t actual policy goals, or corporate backers and power brokers actually moved to shut them down, such as when we think about his promise to allow Medicare to negotiate for prescription drug prices.” 

Trump repeatedly said in 2016 that he would authorize the federal government to directly negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower costs for Medicare beneficiaries, saying such a move would save the government $300 billion annually. Once in the White House, Trump abandoned his support for the idea, echoed industry talking points against it, and threatened to veto 2019 legislation that would have made the change.

Trump’s 2016 promises of huge tax cuts and massive growth for middle- and lower-income individuals never materialized. “And we’re bringing it way down to 12.5% for middle income to zero for people that aren’t doing so well but they’ll be making the 12.5 and then they’ll be paying hopefully some pretty good tax someday,” Trump said of federal tax rates in Loveland, Colorado, in October 2016. “But we’ll bring them all down.” In a 2016 debate, he promised 4% gross domestic product growth, saying: “And I actually think we can go higher than 4%. I think you can go to 5% or 6%.” He repeatedly said he would replace the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, with an unspecified “terrific” health plan that would provide insurance coverage for every American. 

Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act slashed tax rates for the wealthiest Americans, but did not come close to the promised cuts for everyone else. GDP under Trump never reached 4% in any quarter until late 2020, when the nation saw a partial rebound from a 31% economic contraction resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. He never revealed any health insurance reform plan, instead backing an unsuccessful bill that would have repealed Obamacare and stripped coverage from millions of Americans.

Other 2016 promises such as rebuilding America’s cities, restoring manufacturing jobs, reducing college tuition, and ending drug addiction were left unfulfilled. 

Trump made many similar or identical pledges during his 2024 campaign.

He promised a “large tax cut for workers, and no tax on tips,” as well as an end to taxes on Social Security benefit payments and overtime income and a cap on credit card interest rates. He claimed to have the “concepts of a plan” for a “better and less expensive” health insurance law. He suggested that boosting tariffs on imported products, an effective tax on consumers, would somehow generate enough money to take care of child care for American families.