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President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that he frequently referred to: “The buck stops here.”
The sign reflected the accountability he felt after becoming President of the United States upon the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Truman felt his job was to make the last decision, no matter how painful or costly it was.
He was the one who used his power to end World War II in the Pacific by ordering the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 with nuclear bombs. Just thinking about the weight and burden he must have felt is overwhelming.
Truman had to decide whether the death of 200,000 humans in those cities was less important than ending the war that had cost between 70 to 85 million lives. “Military planners and historians estimated that a full amphibious invasion of mainland Japan (Operation Downfall) would have resulted in anywhere from 250,000 to 1,000,000 American deaths” (usni.org).
The Japanese soldiers had been fanatical during the U.S. invasion of Okinawa. Their devotion to the emperor was a religious duty to their god king. Surrender would bring shame to not only the Japanese soldier, but also to his entire family.
Truman’s order was not a decision I would have relished or wanted.
“On more than one occasion President Truman referred to the desk sign in public statements. In his farewell address, he said: ‘The greatest part of the President’s job is to make decisions—big ones and small ones, dozens of them almost every day. The papers may circulate around the Government for a while but they finally reach this desk. And then, there’s no place for them to go. The President—whoever he is—has to decide. He can’t pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That’s his job’” (usni.org).
Let’s contrast President Truman’s sense of responsibility with President Trump’s comments as quoted in Forbes Magazine on June 17, 2026:
“Trump spoke at the G7 summit on Wednesday to declare the U.S. has “the strongest economy we’ve ever had” and called affordability a ‘fake word made up by the Democrats.’
He also claimed he ‘inherited these prices’ from the Biden administration, but the annual inflation rate and unemployment rate were lower when Trump took office.
The president’s remarks came as the Federal Reserve held its first policy meeting under new chair Kevin Warsh, where the Fed’s Open Market Committee voted to hold interest rates steady but signaled at least one hike will come later this year. His comments also follow a statement from Trump…that he ‘loves the inflation’ caused by the Iran War after federal data showed the Consumer Price Index rose 4.2% annually in May, the steepest rate since April 2023.” (On September 16, 2026, the Federal Reserve raised interests from 3.75% to 4.00%.)
Let’s examine Trump’s reaction to SCOTUS’ 7-2 ruling against using the USPS to disenfranchise millions of voters with its envelope demands. The Supreme Court just read the Constitution, which Trump could have done had he admitted that the states and Congress control elections, not the executive branch:
“The Court System took forever to give, and then blamed it, in part, on no time left to implement a solution to our totally CORRUPT and out of control Mail-In voting ‘disaster,’ which is a laughing stock all over the World,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.”
“The President just had Republicans who met in Texas at a convention he called to take a pledge by raising their right hands and repeating these words: ‘Please raise your right hand,’ said Trump in a clip of the oath obtained by USA Today. ‘I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States that loves us so much he can’t even breathe.’”
I consider Truman to be one of America’s greatest presidents with his ending of World War II, his creation of NATO and the Marshall Plan.
I’ll leave it to you to compare and contrast President Truman’s words and actions with those of President Trump.
Richard Elfers is a columnist, a former Enumclaw City Council member and a Green River College professor.
