Stephen Colbert Says Trump Really Is Like FDR
For better or worse, both presidents made a huge impact in their first months in office, the “Late Show” host said.
Stephen Colbert compared Donald Trump to Franklin D. Roosevelt—and it wasn’t because of Trump’s musings about running for a third term.
Roosevelt’s record inspired the concept of judging a president’s performance based off their first 100 days in office, and as the Late Show host noted Tuesday night: “FDR’s extraordinary productivity set a first 100-day standard against which all future presidents would be measured.
“And I think it’s appropriate to compare him to FDR because Trump is well on his way to bringing back polio,” the late-night host quipped.
Since Trump’s return to office, his chaotic tariff rollout has raised the risk of a U.S. recession to 60 percent, according to J.P. Morgan Research; he’s signed just five bills into law, despite his party controlling the House and Senate, fewer than any president in his first 100 days since Eisenhower, according to NBC News; and he’s slashed billions from medical research and public health organizations.
Under Trump Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. has found itself in the midst of a steadily rising measles epidemic, with 884 cases reported across 29 states, including Alaska, California, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, and Texas.
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Stanford University researchers have predicted that if vaccination rates continue to dip as a result of the health secretary’s waffling on vaccines, measles could become entrenched, leading to hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths.
Colbert added: “So, in 100 days, how would the American people grade Donald Trump? Well, according to a new poll, while only 23 percent would give him an ‘A,’ 45 percent would give him an ‘F.’
FDR’s first 100 days in office were so extraordinary that they became the standard by which every subsequent president has been judged, Colbert said.
Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
“The remaining 32 percent want to kick him right in the ‘D.’ Yeah. And it’s not just this poll. Even Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal is piling on, saying that when Trump has a popular policy, he still goes way too far, writing, ‘the White House motto seems to be that if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing too much.’ Coincidentally, that’s also the motto of Pizza Hut’s meat lover’s pizza,” he added.
Despite Trump’s insistence that the dire polling numbers are “fake news” and the economy is actually booming, the president’s view is not one shared by most Americans.
A major poll by Axios released on Tuesday showed an outright majority of Americans now believe the president is a “a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy,” including a growing number of Republicans.
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