President Trump: ‘We will win this, and as far as I’m concerned we already have won it’

President Trump’s plan for paid parental leave

It seems like a lifetime ago now, because 2020 has thrown so much at us in such a short period of time, but just eight months ago, back in February, President Trump was standing before the nation delivering his State of the Union address.

Support for families and paid leave were key topics that night, with the president stating that he was ” proud to sign the new law offering parents in the [federal] workforce paid family leave, serving as a model for the rest of the country.”

Under President Trump’s administration, more than 2 million federal workers gained access to 12 weeks of paid parental leave. This was historic, and is an important building block that future presidents can use in the quest to give the rest of the workers in the United States access to this vital benefit.

Because while 2 million federal workers gained access to paid leave under President Trump in October 2020, there are more than 157 million Americans working across the nation .

The work isn’t done yet, and President Trump’s plan to increase access to paid leave is unclear.

President Trump’s impact on affordable childcare

Childcare is absolutely critical for working parents, but the cost and availability of quality childcare was already a national crisis before the pandemic made it even worse.

President Trump was aware of this before he was even president. Back on the campaign trail in 2016, Trump promised change and noted that “we need working mothers to be fairly compensated for their work, and to have access to affordable, quality child care for their kids.”

The issue of childcare followed Trump from the campaign trail to the presidency and was championed by his daughter and Senior Advisor, Ivanka Trump , throughout his first presidential campaign and subsequent administration.

In late 2019, President Trump promised that the last year of his first term would see quality, affordable child care become more accessible. He doubled the federal child tax credit to $2,000, increased block grants and his administration issued Principles for Child Care Reform that aimed to “improve access to affordable, high quality childcare and support working families by taking steps to increase investment, build the supply of childcare, cultivate the childcare workforce, and improve options for families across a range of high quality settings,” according to the White House.

And then COVID-19 arrived and the childcare crisis deepened. And it’s become so clear that the United States will need affordable childcare to be part of the plan for economic recovery.

In his first term President Trump was able to make changes to childcare affordability through The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and funding increases for the Child Care and Development Block Grant, Head Start programs and the Preschool Development Grant program, and decide how it can build on what has been done.

President Trump was right when he said that working mothers need access to affordable, quality childcare, but his campaign has not presented a clear plan for how he would use his second term to give it to them.

President Trump’s plan for maternal mortality

Mothers in the United States—especially Black and Native American mothers— die far too often from complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows Black women in the United States are three to four times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes.

Fathers are going home from the hospital with a baby and without their partner. Children are growing up never knowing their mothers—and the nation needs to know exactly why so that similar cases can be prevented before they become tragedies.

And so in 2018, President Trump authorized federal funding for maternal mortality review committees when he signed the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act .

The act funds committees that review each mother’s individual case, so that lawmakers can set up specific safeguards to keep moms alive—and keep systemic bias and racism from turning non-fatal medical events into preventable deaths, family tragedies and generational trauma.

Of course, so much more work needs to be done to protect BIPOC mothers in America, but signing this was an important step…unfortunately, we don’t know what the next steps in President Trump’s plan are.

His campaign platform does not address maternal mortality.

President Trump’s plan to address systemic racism

Of course maternal mortality rates are not the only area where systemic racism and bias impact American families. Every day, BIPOC mothers fear for their children’s safety .

President Trump has claimed to have done more for Black Americans than any other president besides Lincoln, but during the final presidential debate he avoided answering a question regarding whether he understands why Black parents in America fear for their children.

His actions and comments during the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020, as well as his previous failure to immediately condemn white supremacy when asked have many Americans challenging his assertion. In the final debate he said he “doesn’t know what to say” to people concerned that his actions have fueled race divisions in America.

President Trump’s plan for health care

Way back in 2015, during an appearance on 60 Minutes, then-candidate Trump made a bold promise to the American people regarding health care.

“I am going to take care of everybody. I don’t care if it costs me votes or not,” he said. “Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.”

That’s a lofty and admirable goal, and one that proved very hard to accomplish in a nation where giving birth can put a person into debt and 5-figure hospital bills are a normal thing that trends on Twitter.

President Trump never got to the point of taking care of everybody before the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic struck about 2.5 million more working-age Americans were uninsured , the Associated Press reports.

This data comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Interview Survey. It shows that in 2019 14.5% of adults ages 18 to 64 were uninsured. In 2018, only 13.3% lacked coverage. The CDC says that those who could not afford insurance are more likely to be in a high risk group for contracting COVID-19.

President Trump wanted to get Americans the health care they need and deserve—he said that a lot—but he was not able to make it happen. His regulatory changes to require hospitals to disclose prices to insurers and individuals have had little practical impact on families dealing with massive health care costs and confusing insurance plans.

President Trump wasn’t able to “take care of everybody.” And when the pandemic hit so many people wished that he had been able to. Recent estimates show millions more are now uninsured thanks to pandemic job losses.

President Trump says if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act he will “come up with” something great to replace it, but we don’t know the details of what that replacement would be, only that it would be a “brand new, beautiful” plan, according to President Trump.