Saunders: Far fewer voters now believe Trump keeps his promises

The big change is the number of voters who believe Trump keeps his promises. In February, 62 percent of voters believed Trump kept his promises. That is, even his critics believed the GOP president would stick to his campaign rhetoric. Two months later, 45 percent of voters say that about Trump.

You can credit shifts on substantive issues that brought Trump closer to mainstream Washington. Candidate Trump said NATO was obsolete. This month, President Trump declared NATO is “no longer obsolete.” Candidate Trump pledged to direct his treasury secretary to declare China a currency manipulator. President Trump now says the Chinese are not currency manipulators. Candidate Trump wanted to terminate the Export-Import Bank. President Trump wants to keep it.

Washington insiders see this as proof that Trump is learning in the job. Whether you agree or not, Trump had solid reasons to change his opinion. It’s the little stuff that is harder to justify.

Take golf. Trump criticized President Barack Obama for playing too much golf when America faced so many problems — which would lead the reasonable person to believe Trump would stay away from the links. Not so. Politifact compared how much time Trump and Obama spent playing golf after entering the office. Obama did not hit the green until April 29. In his first 90 days, Trump has played golf 14 times.

Promises, consequences

In 2015, Trump said he would release his tax returns. In January 2016, NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Trump if he would release his tax returns. Trump answered, “I have very big returns, as you know, and I have everything all approved and very beautiful and we’ll be working that over in the next period of time, Chuck. Absolutely.”

On April 15, anti-Trumpers held demonstrations to demand the president release his tax returns. They were motivated by the same suspicions that led GOP critics to deride Hillary Clinton’s homebrew email server. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., declared, “Donald Trump is hiding something.”

Trump rightly can argue that the law does not require him to release his tax returns. He knows that the opposition is insistent that he release his tax returns because they want to use the information found in them against him. Trump didn’t get where he is by making it easy for others to attack him.

But there is a price.

Friday, Trump said he plans to roll out his tax reform package this week. Critics can use their imaginations to estimate the billionaire president’s likely windfall.

Also, while no reasonable voter expects a candidate to keep every campaign promise if elected, no reasonable elected official should think he can walk away from his promises without consequences.