President-elect Donald Trump speaks to reporters at Mar-a-Lago, Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2016, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

PEOTUS Report Card: Trump takes control, challenges Obama

By PAUL BEDARD (@SECRETSBEDARD) • 12/31/16 7:20 AM

This week's report card finds President-elect Trump still active via Twitter and challenging President Obama on foreign and military policy. Grader Jed Babbin describes a president-elect who is obviously eager to get going and shut down Obama and his policies.

Jed Babbin

President-elect Trump got everybody's attention this week with his tweet on modernizing the nuclear arsenal. He wrote, "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes." At about the same time, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin said almost the same thing about Russia's nuclear arsenal.

When Trump appeared on MSNBC, he was asked about the two statements. He answered, "Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass. And outlast them all." Putin can't have expected that, and it may keep him off balance for a while. The Left, especially the dominant media voices, went off the rails. Trump must enjoy that, so his tweets and statements about such things amount to a twofer.

The aftershocks of the U.S. abstention to last week's anti-Israel U.N. Security Council resolution continue around the world. Secretary of State John Kerry's hour-long scolding of Israel left no doubt thatPresident Obama is intent on solidifying the Palestinian position as the U.S. position (i.e., that Israel can't exist outside its pre-1967 war borders) and will continue to attempt this right up to January 20th. Trump made his intent equally clear by tweeting that Israel should "stay strong" and that help would arrive on Inauguration Day.

Trump rebelled at the roadblocks Obama was setting. He — tweeting of course — wrote, "Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks. Thought it was going to be a smooth transition — NOT!"