It’s a relatively short clip, but it’s a devastating one, especially since Donald Trump is barely one-eighth of the way into his second term.
“Love it, like it, lump it,” begins CNN’s youthful and energetic data geek, Harry Enten, as he tees up his weekend segment. “Trump’s remaking the United States of America.” And then this: “I can’t think of a more influential president during this century.”
Love it, like or lump it, I’d argue Trump’s the most influential president this century.
-Tariff rate is way up & highest in nearly a century
-Net migration is way down & may be negative for the 1st time in 50+ years
-He’s signed more exec orders in a year than anyone since FDR pic.twitter.com/59kXcP5qlJ— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) August 3, 2025
Ouch. Imagine how those words hit the dozens of CNN viewers who’ve stuck with the once-proud network through thin and thinner.
Were Enten’s words set to music, it’d be the first minute or so of Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue.” (I thought of rock and country, but couldn’t come up with anything as darkly dramatic, as brooding, as foreboding. Maybe the intro to Floyd’s “Hey You” or Garth’s “Thunder Rolls.” Anyway.)
Enten went on to consider three aspects of Trump’s presidency that reflect on his strength and influence: tariffs, immigration, and executive orders. Numbers are Enten’s bread and butter, and the numbers don’t lie.
First, those tariffs, which the Chicken Littles on the Left have consistently warned us about but which Trump has masterfully used — as was his intention from the get-go — not to permanently punish our global trading partners but to improve their behavior. As our Nate Jackson put it last week, “Trump’s trade wins are blowing.”
Yes, they are. There’s an acronym, a slur of Trump, that the haters have latched onto as a means of coping: TACO. It’s shorthand for “Trump always chickens out” when it comes to tariffs. But Enten immediately denied the deniers even this meager bit of comfort food. “No TACOs for Trump,” Enten announced, adding, “The effective tariff rate — get this — 18%. It is the highest … since the 1930s, up from — get this — just 2% last year. … I can’t think of a more influential president during this century, and it starts here with tariffs. He said he was going to raise tariffs, and despite the claims otherwise, he is in fact doing that.”
Enten then shifted to immigration, which was the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, and which is Trump’s towering strength in terms of polling:
How about net migration into the United States? Get this: It’s down. It’s gonna be down at least 60%. We may be dealing with — get this — negative net migration to the United States in 2025. That would be the first time there is negative net migration in this country in at least 50 years. We’re talking about down from 2.8 million in 2024. So, Donald Trump ran — has always run on tariffs, and he’s running on a hawkish line on immigration. And on both of those issues, we are seeing record-high tariff rates for this century going all the way back, well, back to the early part of the 20th century. And when it comes to immigration, net migration, we are seeing record low levels. … And that is a big reason why, that I’m saying that Trump, at least in my mind, is the most influential president certainly this century and probably dating [a good chunk back] into the 20th century as well.
Wow. I can practically hear that booming voice of James Earl Jones intoning, “This is CNN.” Moreover, I can practically hear his CNN colleagues hissing at him from off stage: Ix-nay on the ump-tray, kid!
Enten closed his segment with executive orders: “Already, 180 executive orders signed by Trump this year. You have to go awwwl the way back to the FDR administration, once again, to find a year in which there were as many executive orders signed as we have this year. … Again, this is why I’m saying … Donald Trump is remaking the United States. Love it, like it, or lump it, he has been tremendously influential to a historic degree.”
This is really bitter medicine for the Trump-deranged, and especially so because it’s coming from a friendly. But that’s who Harry Enten is. He goes where the numbers take him. Thus, he can’t help but be a truth-teller. And there’s nothing the Trump-deranged Left hates more than a truth-teller. Because the truth is, Donald Trump is putting his size-12 into the Democrats’ backside.
Reality bites. Especially when the reality is that the man in this world whom you hate more than anyone is rightly being compared — on CNN, no less! — to your party’s north star, its most colossal and consequential president, three-plus-termer Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
One actually wonders how long Harry Enten will be at CNN. He can’t be good for business, or for the Democrats’ mental health.
