![\"\"](\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/GetFile-1-3.jpg\")
<\/a>(Susan Walsh\/AP)<\/p><\/div>\n
By Christopher Ruddy
\nNEWSMAX<\/p>\n
Fourteen months into the current administration, CNN anchor Erin Burnett felt compelled to make a startling admission \u2014\u00a0Donald Trump may go down “as a great president.”<\/p>\n
She added, “And there’s no way around that. That is the reality here.”<\/p>\n
Burnett’s assessment was referring to President Trump’s ability to get the North Korean dictator to the negotiating table and solve the 70-year-old problem with the communist regime.<\/p>\n
But there is another factor already pushing Trump into the “greatness” pantheon \u2014\u00a0the economy.<\/p>\n
The first three quarters of Trump’s presidency have been tabulated and GDP growth comes in at about 3 percent.<\/p>\n
The magnitude of this result becomes clearer when one realizes President Obama averaged GDP growth of about 1.5 percent \u2014\u00a0so low it is considered near recessionary.<\/p>\n
Shockingly, Barack Obama is the first U.S. president since the Great Depression to never see a 3 percent GDP rate in any year of his presidency.<\/p>\n
In a short time, Trump has jumped economic growth by almost a 100 percent!<\/p>\n
This is the really big story of the Trump presidency you have never heard on the nightly news.<\/p>\n
Trump critics are quick to deride him and take away the credit he deserves. They tell me he inherited this as a gift from Obama.<\/p>\n
“How so?” I ask. I usually get shrugged shoulders.<\/p>\n
Trump indeed drove economic growth last year.<\/p>\n
It was a massive deregulation program, backing the Keystone pipeline, ANWR drilling, opening liquefied natural gas exports, and bringing in over $500 billion in foreign investment and purchasing deals \u2014\u00a0all while delivering on a massive business and personal tax cut.<\/p>\n
The media harps on his alt-right base, but miss his real base: small business people, entrepreneurs, and corporate America.<\/p>\n
This “business class” love\u00a0Trump and see\u00a0him as one of their own in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n
We see evidence of their support in record business confidence numbers, including Gallup’s small business confidence index hitting records.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake about it, Trump has created a new version of the presidency. I call it “Trump 3.0.”<\/p>\n
Typically a 2.0 version updates the original. But 3.0 breaks all the molds.<\/p>\n
Coincidentally, 3.0 matches that high GDP growth rate President Trump has been overseeing.<\/p>\n
A few weeks ago, I mentioned to the president that his presidency is “Trump 3.0.”<\/p>\n
He liked the idea, but quickly added, “It’s going to be 4.0, and then 5.0 \u2014\u00a0very soon, you’ll see.”<\/p>\n
Always striving and relentless, Trump indicated to me he wants 4 to 5 percent GDP growth rates.<\/p>\n
Most establishment economists scoff at such a goal.<\/p>\n
But Trump has a soul mate in Larry Kudlow, his new chairman of the National Economic Council.<\/p>\n
Kudlow, one of the country’s most respected macro-economists, was a key architect of Reagan’s economic program, one that gave the U.S. hyper GDP growth in the 1980s, reaching over 7 percent annual growth one year.<\/p>\n
Kudlow tells me Trump’s prediction of 4 and 5 percent GDP rates is not off. These benchmarks will be reached, he says.<\/p>\n
So, forget the “smoke screens” the major media are pushing on the American people on a constant basis, non-stories like Russian collusion and Stormy Daniels.<\/p>\n
The big story is about the economic miracle ignited by President Trump.<\/p>\n
In journalism, we have always been counseled to “follow the money.”<\/p>\n
Well, you should too \u2014\u00a0and make your own judgment about the president.<\/p>\n