Only a short time has passed since former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered, clearly a political assassination. Representative Hortman was admired and respected by all, including her political adversaries.

It’s standard operating procedure during such tragedies for the president of the United States to personally convey condolences to family, friends, and fellow public officials, including the governor. 

That is, it was standard procedure. Is it no longer? Instead of representing the nation, acting with class, Trump had the following to say when queried of his response: “I think the Governor of Minnesota is so whacked out, I’m not calling him ... the guy doesn’t have a clue. He’s a mess. I could be nice and call him but why waste time?”

Is this classless reaction to violent death of political adversaries the new norm? Or is it just a blip? We can’t predict the future but Trump’s classless response sets a new low in presidential behavior. However, considering this president’s inability to feel or express empathy perhaps it’s best that he didn’t make the call.

Some Trump voters agree that Trump personally lacks empathy, common courtesy, and is not a good role model for anybody, especially for kids. But they counter with, “But I like his policies.”

His voters may like his policies, but his policies include clear elements of cruelty, and even the math of his policies doesn’t add up.

Let’s start with Trump’s pledge of mass deportation in numbers never before seen. This was ostensibly to be composed of violent criminals who “make our cities unsafe “and others who “take away jobs” and are “freeloaders on our public services.” Democrats and Trump opponents agree that criminals should go. But Trump supporters convinced themselves that criminals and those considered freeloaders would amount to massive numbers.  

As actual deportations fell below Trump’s pledged targets, ICE went after relatively easy targets. Immigrants following the law, reporting to authorities for routine purposes, some even told they were free to go, were nabbed by masked agents, handcuffed, and sent off to who knows where.

Even these actions, however unlawful, didn’t result in those record numbers promised. Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, read ICE the riot act — no pun intended — accusing them of slacking, ordering them to get to work and get those numbers up to meet his goal of one million by the end of 2025.

Shortly thereafter, public videos showed ICE chasing migrant farm workers who do work that no one else will do through strawberry fields. Oops, with that, along with advice of big Ag Business lobbyists, Trump finally became aware of what anyone who could think deeper than the Platte River in dry season knew all along. Without migrant labor, much of the back breaking labor and drudgery of harvesting and processing food wouldn’t get done. Crops would rot in the fields and reduced supplies would raise prices.

The same goes for hotels, restaurants, and the entire hospitality industry, construction, much of healthcare, childcare, elder care, landscaping, and nannies caring for children of the wealthy. A construction boss in Bozeman, Montana, an idyllic mountain college town where construction is booming, was quoted in The Nation magazine as, “I love Trump. But send me more workers.” Undocumented immigrants, however vilified, are ideally suited for employers in that they won’t unionize and don’t dare complain about low pay and mistreatment.

Trump then comes out with a statement that recognizes the importance of migrant workers to agriculture, hotels, and restaurants, and they would be spared. Upon criticism for this he then retracts. Where is he now? Who knows? But by sparing essential foreign workers, including undocumented, from his promised deportations, he is in a trap of his own making. The numbers don’t add up to that one million by end of 2025.

Nor does Trump’s math add up for the “Big, Beautiful Bill” passed by his lackeys in the House. The alleged goal was to cut $2 trillion of government spending to pay for extending tax cuts for corporations and the nation’s richest billionaires. This would supposedly be accomplished by ending waste, fraud, and abuse, sacking thousands of government workers painted as “unelected bureaucrats,” and eliminating entire government departments.

Trump started by sacking numerous inspectors general whose job is to identify waste, fraud and abuse. The real unelected bureaucrat was the world’s richest individual taking a chainsaw to government. IRS agents charged with stopping tax evasion by the wealthy — after all, that’s where the real money and fraud is — were sacked. Government workers ranging from scientists to park workers keeping toilets usable were sacked by the thousands, their services appreciated only when the work doesn’t get done. Actually, the entire payroll of the federal government work force is a mere 5 percent of government spending, clearly, far distant from DOGE’s trillion dollar initial goal for spending cuts. The numbers just don’t add up.

Therefore, to meet the goal of reduced government spending, it was necessary to go after the big discretionary expenditure, Medicaid, on which millions of people, including in red states, depend. Trump insists that Medicaid won’t be cut. Speaker Johnson insists that only those who “don’t deserve” Medicaid will be cut. But as long as those who depend on Medicaid continue to receive it, and that’s doubtful, the numbers don’t add up. If the final bill going to Trump’s desk contains those promised Republican tax cuts for the wealthy, there will be severe cuts in Medicaid with rural hospitals closing, and huge increases in the public debt, in some combination. For there to be huge tax cuts with no Medicaid cuts, and no increase in public debt, the math simply doesn’t add up.

One can’t predict the future, but this scribe has seen enough to anticipate the following: Even though the math on that “Big Beautiful Bill” with such a huge transfer of wealth from workers to the billionaire class, doesn’t add up, Senate Republicans will make a few marginal changes, just enough to justify its passage with tax cuts making life ever more comfortable for the ultra-rich. A combination of Medicaid spending cuts depriving millions of people of health care and closing rural hospitals will be in combination with further increases of the public debt, the latter never a problem as long as the Republicans do it — claiming that economic growth will pay for the increased public debt allowing tax cuts for the wealthy. Never mind that such math doesn’t add up either.

— John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears monthly in the Monroe Times.