Do we like Donald Trump?
Our score: 0 out of 10. A jury found him liable over E. Jean Carroll's case (he denies it and is appealing), and his own orders and words target trans people and climate action.
The story that follows him around is E. Jean Carroll's. In 2023 a Manhattan jury found Trump sexually abused her in a department store dressing room in 1996 and defamed her in 2019 when he denied it. A second jury awarded her $83 million over later comments, which he is appealing. The Supreme Court has let the first verdict stand, and in July 2026 a judge cleared her to collect about $5.8 million. Trump has called the allegation false and his lawyers called the case a witch hunt.
The criminal and business record is messier. A Manhattan jury found him guilty on 34 felony counts in the hush money case on 30 May 2024, and as of May 2026 the fight to wipe that conviction was still alive across several courts. In the civil fraud case, an appeals court threw out a roughly $465 million penalty in August 2025, but two of five judges said he was properly held liable and two wanted a new trial. He called it a “TOTAL VICTORY”, and the New York Attorney General said she would appeal further.
On the harm test, start with LGBTQ+ people. Within weeks of his second term starting he signed orders setting federal policy to recognise only two sexes, reinstating a ban on trans military service, limiting federal funding for gender-affirming care for under-19s, and threatening funding for schools that let trans girls play girls' sport. Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign sued over the military order. These are his own acts, not the company he keeps.
On the planet and migrants, it's the same pattern. At the UN in September 2025 he called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”. In February 2026 his EPA finalised the repeal of the endangerment finding, the legal base for most US climate rules. He called it the largest deregulatory action in US history, while environmental groups called it an assault on climate rules. On migration, NPR host Steve Inskeep noted in June that enforcement now reaches people in the US legally.
Then there's the truth problem. PolitiFact has rated 1,182 of his claims: 36 True, 87 Mostly True, 136 Half True, 225 Mostly False, 466 False and 232 Pants on Fire. As recently as 27 October it rated his description of a Michigan Senate candidate as a jihadist Pants on Fire. That's a fact-checker's finding, not ours, but it's a very lopsided scorecard.
The recent news is the Iran war. Trump says talks are productive but rejected Tehran's latest offer, and he has said he expects oil prices to fall after the election without laying out a plan to end the war. NPR's commentator Jonah Goldberg argued in June that Trump is making the party's issues about himself, which leaves Republicans defending an unpopular president. Where you land on the war depends on whether you see a pause for talks or a pause for the polls.