Trump keeps proving Harris and Obama right

The Democratic presidential candidate and the former first lady warned American voters, over and over and with great specificity, what Trump would do if he won the presidency. And it’s all happening.

You want to watch some Trump supporters’ heads spin off in a cyclone of rage? Tell them former Vice President Kamala Harris and former first lady Michelle Obama were spot-on right about Donald Trump and the chaos he would bring.

It’s true. The Democratic presidential nominee and the former first lady warned American voters, over and over and with great specificity, what Trump would do if he won the presidency. And it’s all happening.

In an Oct. 29 speech, Harris said of Trump: “He has an enemies list of people he intends to prosecute. He says that one of his highest priorities is to set free the violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers on January 6.”

Sure enough, the 2021 rioters at the U.S. Capitol have been pardoned, and Trump is now trying to claim that President Joe Biden’s pardons of the lawmakers who sat on the Jan. 6 committee are not legitimate, alleging he’s free to prosecute them for … something. Who knows what?

Kamala Harris and Michelle Obama warned us about Trump

Michelle Obama warned during a Harris campaign event in Pennsylvania that the Trump wrecking ball would swing fast and furious: “And if we fail, it will happen quickly, in concrete ways large and small. From dismantling the Department of Education to gutting the women’s health system to prioritizing those at the top over everybody else.”

And sure enough, Trump has Elon Musk tearing the federal government to shreds, including the Department of Education, with an eye toward saving money to cover tax cuts for the wealthy.

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On women’s health, the Trump administration has, among other things, kept a federal case involving access to the abortion pill mifepristone alive, one that Biden’s Department of Justice had tried to get dropped.

Trump’s DOJ also dismissed a lawsuit filed during the Biden administration that claimed Idaho’s abortion ban violated federal law.

Harris said Trump’s tariffs would raise prices. And here we are.

A recent viral TikTok video stitched together clips of Harris issuing warnings about a second Trump presidency, including: “Tariffs on all imports that he has described would be a 20% sales tax, in essence, on basic necessities for the average American worker.”

The tariffs remain scattershot and confusing, so the “20% sales tax” hasn’t happened, but according to estimates from The Budget Lab at Yale University, Trump’s tariffs will cost the average consumer $1,600 to $2,000 a year and boost electronics prices by 10%, car prices by 6.1% and fresh produce prices by nearly 3%.

So she certainly wasn’t wrong about prices going up.

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Trump’s erratic behavior and the damage it might cause was forewarned

And speaking of Trump’s bizarre, scattershot approach to tariffs – an unpredictability that has dramatically rattled markets – Harris said during the campaign that one reason she felt “a second Trump term would be a huge risk for America” was this: “Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged.”

Bingo!

He’s babbling about annexing Canada and Greenland, he has started trade wars with our closest allies and, on Tuesday, the president posted whatever this mess is about a federal judge who tried to halt his administration’s latest immigration move: “This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President – He didn’t WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!), he didn’t WIN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, he didn’t WIN 2,750 to 525 Counties, HE DIDN’T WIN ANYTHING! I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE, BUT FIGHTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY HAVE BEEN THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR THIS HISTORIC VICTORY.”

Harris was right. That’s unhinged.

In fact, it was so unhinged that U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a wildly unusual statement rebuking the president’s call to impeach a judge.

Obama nailed it. With Trump, there’s ‘no honesty, no decency.’

Former first lady Obama said of Trump during the presidential campaign: “I hope that you’ll forgive me if I’m a little angry that we are indifferent to his erratic behavior, his obvious mental decline.”

She also added that “for Trump, we expect nothing at all, no understanding of policy, no ability to put together a coherent argument, no honesty, no decency, no morals.” 

Yeah, she was right about all that, too.

Coming for Social Security? Siding with Putin? Check and check.

In the viral TikTok clip, we can hear Harris saying: “Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare.”

And here we are, with this headline from The Associated Press: “Musk eyes Social Security and benefit programs for cuts while claiming widespread fraud.”

Harris warned Trump would bow to Russian President Vladimir Putin and side with him over Ukraine. That’s happening. 

Harris knew Trump would come after his political opponents

The former vice president warned that Trump would “weaponize the Department of Justice against his political enemies, round up peaceful protesters and throw them out of our country.”

Here’s a recent NBC News headline: “Trump calls for jailing his perceived opponents in Justice Department speech.”

And another from The Associated Press: “Trump pledges to ‘expose’ his enemies in political speech at Justice Department.”

And this from Politico: “Trump calls his opponents ‘scum’ and lawbreakers in bellicose speech at Justice Department.”

Did Trump voters really want all of this?

As far as protesters go, the Trump administration has already detained and revoked the green card of Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student who was involved in pro-Palestinian protests on campus.

Stuart Karle, an adjunct professor at Columbia told CNN that he’s advising international students “to be really aware that the rules aren’t clear anymore.”

None of this is helping Americans who voted for Trump. It’s not lowering the price of groceries, and it certainly hasn’t been helping the stock market or ushering in the “Golden Age” Trump promised.

But I guess this is what many Republicans and all of Trump’s voters wanted. Chaos. Vengeance against perceived enemies. An end to large swaths of the federal government. Defiance of the law.

It must be. Because you certainly can’t say Harris and Obama didn’t warn them and everyone else about what was coming. They did. And they were absolutely right.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk