Which Trump campaign promises did PolitiFact rate as "kept" or "fulfilled" and what criteria did they use?
Executive summary
PolitiFact’s long-running “Trump-O-Meter” and the later “MAGA‑Meter” marked a subset of Donald Trump’s campaign pledges as “Promise Kept” after investigators concluded the administration produced the substantive outcomes the promise sought; across Trump’s first term PolitiFact ultimately counted 25 promises as kept out of 102 tracked pledges, and in the early weeks of his second-term tracking PolitiFact reported six of 75 pledges as kept [1] [2].
1. What PolitiFact actually labeled “Promise Kept” — examples and tallies
PolitiFact’s final tally for Trump’s 2016‑era promises was that 25 were kept, 23 were compromises and 54 were broken, and the organization highlights concrete kept outcomes such as renegotiating NAFTA into the US‑Mexico‑Canada Agreement, freezing or cutting regulations, withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, nominating a conservative Supreme Court justice from his campaign list, and keeping Guantánamo Bay open [1] [3] [4] [5].
2. How PolitiFact decides a pledge is “kept” — the outcome‑oriented standard
PolitiFact assigns a Promise Kept when a pledge is “fulfilled, or largely fulfilled,” meaning reporters judged the real‑world outcome matched the promise, not merely the intent or effort, and they rate promises based on results rather than presidential intentions [3] [6].
3. The formal mechanics: what qualifies for inclusion and how promises are tracked
Only promises the candidate made personally in speeches, interviews, rallies or social media qualify for tracking, and PolitiFact’s reporters research each item and place it into one of several outcome categories — Promise Kept, Promise Broken, Compromise, Stalled, In the Works or Not Yet Rated — after examining legislation, executive action, and implementation [7] [8] [9].
4. Nuance and limits: why some actions that look like progress don’t earn “kept”
PolitiFact explicitly warns that executive orders or initial moves do not automatically satisfy a promise: many orders merely start processes that require legal tests, agency follow‑through, cooperation from Congress, or foreign partners, and such promises can remain “In the Works,” “Stalled” or be downgraded if courts or lawmakers prevent full realization [10] [7] [3].
5. Second‑term tracking and early assessments
When PolitiFact launched its MAGA‑Meter for the 2024 promises, it applied the same outcome standard and early reporting found six promises marked kept out of 75 tracked items in the first 100 days, with many others still “in the works” or stalled — illustrating that the organization treats second‑term pledges with the same criteria and caveats about implementation barriers [2] [9].
6. Alternative readings and institutional context
PolitiFact’s methodology — outcome‑focused, tied to observable policy changes, and constrained by whether Congress or courts cooperate — produces a measurable record but also invites debate: proponents argue it rewards tangible achievements like USMCA and deregulation [4] [3], while critics note that successes often depended on favorable congressional majorities or reinterpretation of promises into narrower policy wins, an implicit agenda‑neutral standard PolitiFact defends by documenting compromises and broken pledges alongside kept ones [1] [3].