As President Donald Trump tells it, when someone criticizes him it is a “con job” or “fake news.” At a cabinet meeting last week, Trump told struggling American families that they are not struggling, that affordability is a “con job” and a “Democratic scam.”
Average Americans know that inflation has gone up recently and that tariffs have increased the price of many consumer goods. If you shopped for groceries last week or if you are facing growing health care or housing costs, you know just as much as the experts.
Trump has good reason to deny the truth or pass the blame, since Republicans lost across the board in the most recent elections. A November AP poll of voters in New Jersey, Virginia and New York showed that voters’ top issues included the economy, higher prices, fewer jobs and health care costs.
But, since Trump brought it up, there are other issues that may qualify as “con jobs.”
Trump has targeted Venezuela as a source of illegal drugs that make it into the United States, and he has authorized attacks on suspected smugglers’ boats, killing their crews. There are eight warships off the Venezuelan coast, and 15,000 military personnel are deployed to the area.
But, amidst all the tough talk about stopping narco-terrorists, Trump just pardoned an imprisoned genuine narco-terrorist, the former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted of accepting bribes to allow 400 tons of cocaine to pass through his country and into the United States.
According to testimony at another drug trafficker’s trial, Hernandez once said, “We are going to stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses, and they’re never even going to know it.”
Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine called the Hernandez pardon “so counter to the president’s stated priorities that it’s difficult for me to fathom any reason why this would happen other than someone in the administration was benefiting from it.”
Trump often expresses support for law enforcement, but his actions betray his words. It is beginning to sound a lot like another “con job.”
On the first day of his second term, Trump pardoned nearly 1,600 people for their participation in the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol. More than 600 of them were guilty of assaulting or obstructing police officers, and 170 had used deadly weapons.
Two months later, Trump told a gathering of law enforcement officials, “With me in the White House, you once again have a president who will always have your back.” Then he cut $500 million in federal funding for local policing, victims services and juvenile programs.
America’s farmers are beginning to smell the con. In his three runs for president, Trump’s support among farmers increased every time, topping out at 78% in the 2024 race. A November Conversation investigative article described how things are different now.
“A new round of administration policies now cuts deeper into farmers’ livelihoods — not just squeezing profits but reshaping how farms survive — through renewed tariffs on agricultural products, visa restrictions on farm workers, reduced farm subsidies and open favoritism toward South American agricultural competitors.”
One definition of “con job” is “an act or instance of lying or talking glibly to convince others or get one’s way.” There is plenty of that going around, but the big question for Americans this: Who’s conning who?