Donald Trump has set a new standard for a president’s first 100 days. From now on, potential successors will presumably promise to replicate his frenetic activity, affecting the trajectory of U.S. policy on all fronts, in the cause of their own priorities.
What we’ve gotten from Trump so far is, not unexpectedly, a mixed bag.
He instantly brought to a halt the leftward lurch of the federal government, and he has set about reversing as much of Biden’s agenda as can be reached by counter-executive actions. Within days, he ended a historic crisis at the southern border that had built through the Obama administration, continued at times during his first term, and truly spiraled out of control under Joe Biden. He’s been a force for sanity in the transgender debate, especially when it comes to female sports. His moves against DEI and other race-conscious policies have been far-reaching, consequential, and brave. All of this is something to celebrate.
A theme of the first three months, though, has been an emphasis on speed over care and an impatience with rules. This can feel as though it’s creating instant results — and sometimes it really is — but also can be self-defeating.
DOGE is the foremost example. It started out of the gate with the kind of verve that only Elon Musk can lend to a project, and its goal of rationalizing government and cutting bloat was a righteous one. But it was beset by over-promising — it was never going to balance the budget or save $1 trillion — and its chaotic mode of operating got pushback even from high-level Trump officials. Congress is preparing to vote on nearly $10 billion in so-called rescissions, which is all to the good, although the drama hasn’t matched the results.
The same could be said of the administration’s deportations of alleged gang members to El Salvador. This, too, was done in a rush after the president invoked the Alien Enemies Act. The White House has now made it a matter of high principle that everyone deported to a prison in El Salvador stay there, even though it clearly made mistakes in identifying gang members and its legal position is tenuous at best. These high-profile fights are no substitute for sustained worksite enforcement to deny illegal immigrants jobs here and convince them to self-deport.
The administration’s war with Harvard, too, was launched in haste and (by the administration’s own account) with an ultimatum letter sent by mistake. Although Harvard is an institution that has been corrupted by politics and would be well served to voluntarily adopt most of Trump’s demands on it, the university has a good shot at prevailing in a legal fight on the grounds that Trump failed to follow the necessary statutory process.
If the initiatives above have been worthy but lacking in execution, Trump’s wide-ranging attacks on law firms he doesn’t like have been untoward and probably unconstitutional, if successful in wringing pro bono work out of many of the targets. He’s also gone after individuals for purposes of sheer revenge.
What hangs over the first 100 days the most, however, and has led to a dip in Trump’s polling, is the “liberation day” tariffs. Trump arrogated to himself the authority to impose sweeping tariffs on the entire world, a power that properly belongs to Congress, and has caused turmoil throughout the economy; many economic indicators are now pointing in the wrong direction. The state of the economy and Trump’s political standing in the medium term will be largely determined by whether Trump can Houdini his way out of a tariff straitjacket of his own fashioning.
In foreign affairs, Trump’s grade has to be incomplete and uneven. He has spoken with moral clarity in defense of Israel’s justified war against Hamas while at times treating Ukraine as the aggressor in its heroic defense against Russian invasion. Despite his boasting of a quick resolution once he took office, both conflicts remain active.
During this period, Congress has been almost entirely AWOL, except for its slow progress on putting together a tax-and-spending bill that will probably pass later in the year. Perhaps most disturbing in the first 100 days has been Trump’s penchant for personal rule achieved by stretching grants of power by Congress to their limits and beyond. In this, he is only building on the precedents of his immediate predecessors. If Congress had any self-respect, it would scour the federal code and remove anything that Trump or future presidents can use to govern via unilateral fiat.
As always, Trump is buoyed by his firm grip on the GOP and the noxious and juvenile nature of his opposition. The left initially reacted to its election defeat last year with confusion and recriminations, but the last couple of months it has waged a war on Elon Musk’s car company, including with violent attacks. Democrats have taken to using the f-word more and are looking for leadership, once again, in an 83-year-old socialist, Bernie Sanders, joined this time by a 35-year-old socialist sidekick, in the person of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Mostly forgotten is one Kamala Harris, and for that, we should remain grateful to Donald Trump, even if it’s been a rocky ride with many more ups and downs ahead.