Trump Is Already Claiming Credit For Biden's Accomplishments

After taking office in 2017, Donald Trump proceeded to claim credit for many of President Obama's accomplishments. Now he is doing the same thing to President Biden (and he's not even waiting to take office before he's doing it).

Here's how Dana Milbank describes it in The Washington Post:

“We are going to make this country so great again, and we’re going to do it fast,” Donald Trump would say during the campaign. “We’re going to do it really fast.”

Promise made, promise kept.

The president-elect doesn’t take over for another six weeks, but — magically — he has already made America great again.

• He has solved the border crisis. Mexico’s president “has agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border,” Trump tells us. “THIS WILL GO A LONG WAY TOWARD STOPPING THE ILLEGAL INVASION OF THE USA.”
• He has brought peace to the Middle East. “Former NATO chief says Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire a ‘direct result’ of incoming Trump admin,” was the headline Trump posted on his social media site on Monday.
• He has scored a breakthrough against the opioid epidemic. He announced that he had secured the “commitment” of the Canadian government “to work with us to end this terrible devastation of U.S. Families.”
• And he has already turned the U.S. economy into the envy of the world. “The Stock Market Just Recorded Its Best Month This Year in the Wake of Trump’s Landslide Victory,” proclaimed the headline of another Trump social media post.

Members of the reality-based community might have noticed that Trump did not do any of these things but rather is claiming credit for the Biden administration’s accomplishments. Illegal crossings along the southern border are now lower than they were at the end of Trump’s first term. (And Mexico’s president, contrary to Trump’s claim, said, “We reiterate that Mexico’s position is not to close borders.”) It was the Biden administration that brokered the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel. Opioid deaths have been dropping at the fastest rate ever and are at or below levels seen at this point in Trump’s first term. (And Canada’s public safety minister describes the country’s offer to Trump to boost border security measures as a “reassurance exercise” because “we believe that the border is secure.”) As for the stock market, the S&P 500 hit 47 record highs this year before Election Day.

Trump’s quick post-election pivot away from calling America a “failing nation” was inevitable. He spent the past couple of years selling the country a load of bull. Now, he’s inheriting a stronger economy and a safer country than the one he left Joe Biden, with the border more secure and crime rates lower, and inflation tamed to below 3 percent. Contrary to Trump’s apocalyptic campaign claims, the world isn’t on fire and the U.S. military is not dominated by woke drag queens.

So what’s a defrocked doomsayer to do? Declare victory!