In the editorial, President Donald Trump does not mention the government shutdown. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo Amid government shutdown, Trump touts accomplishments in op-ed

As Washington and America moved into the first day of the government shutdown, President Donald Trump extolled the accomplishments of his first year in office on Saturday, pointing to the passing of the GOP's tax overhaul, the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch and the state of the U.S. economy as examples of how his administration is making fulfilling his promise to make America great again.

In the editorial for the Washington Examiner, Trump lays out a number of things he and his administration have accomplished this year. He does not mention the current government shutdown. Trump has blamed Democrats for the shutdown, writing on Twitter on Saturday writing that their party is "holding the military hostage."


As he has in the past, Trump puts a major emphasis on the current economic outlook. It is worth noting that economy performed at a similar pace under President Barack Obama and that some of the positive trends Trump touts began before he took office last year.

"Estimates predict the U.S. economy grew at an annualized rate of more than 3 percent in the fourth quarter of last year – just like it did in the two quarters before that," Trump said. "And the stock market continues to set record high after record high."

Left unmentioned in the editorial are the areas where Trump has failed to match his campaign rhetoric. His often repeated border wall with Mexico is stalled, Republicans failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act in full and the White House continues to delay the release of its long promised infrastructure plan.

For other domestic accomplishments, the president points to the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch and the record pace of confirming federal judges and the record number of uses of the Congressional Review Act, a previously obscure federal law that congressional Republicans and the administration has used to gut Obama-era regulations.

When it comes to foreign policy, Trump emphasizes "new strategies" the military has used in its fight against ISIS and a reconfiguration of U.S. policy for the war in Afghanistan.

"I personally engaged with 150 world leaders at home and abroad, and our great military is executing new strategies that have liberated Mosul and Raqqa, retaken almost 100 percent of the land that ISIS had seized in Syria and Iraq, and lifted restrictions on U.S. forces in Afghanistan to defeat the terrorists and create conditions for a negotiated political settlement," he writes.