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“President Donald Trump has celebrated the 100th day of his second term in office with a campaign-style speech, touting his achievements and targeting political foes. Hailing what he called a ‘revolution of common sense’, he told a crowd of supporters in Michigan that he was using his presidency to deliver ‘profound change’...
“Trump also said opinion polls indicating his popularity had fallen were ‘fake’. According to Gallup, Trump is the only post-World War Two president to have less than half the public's support after 100 days in office, with an approval rating of 44%. But the majority of Republican voters still firmly back the president. And the rival Democratic Party is also struggling in polling.” BBC
The left is critical of Trump’s first 100 days.
“He could have boasted of radically reducing border crossings, but instead insisted on an extremely noisy, court-defying, and not terribly productive wave of immigrant deportations. He might have let the economy reach the ‘soft landing’ of significantly reduced inflation and sustained growth that the Biden administration and the Federal Reserve had prepared for him. [Instead he almost immediately] instituted a worldwide wave of tariffs that all but guaranteed higher consumer prices while destabilizing markets…
“He also might have secured some legislative victories from the Congress controlled by his party… Instead he has brought Congress to a virtual halt in part because he wants to usurp its powers for himself. Now he’s gambling everything on a gigantic and ramshackle budget reconciliation bill that is highly vulnerable to Democratic claims that it’s essentially a bid to cut popular federal programs like Medicaid in order to give his billionaire buddies a tax cut.”
Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine
“Trump promised repeatedly in his campaigns to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, the heart of America’s limited safety net. Yet Musk’s DOGE operatives parachuted into Social Security offices, illegally gaining access to computer systems, calling for shuttering regional offices, eliminating staff, rewriting computerized systems… The result has already led to crashes of the website [and] rising waiting times for phone inquiries.”
Robert L. Borosage, The Nation
“Trump may be counting on his trade war somehow working, but much would have to go right for his popularity to recover. For one, that trade war would have to deliver what Trump promises it will: mass prosperity, an end to the income tax, and the return of well-paying manufacturing jobs—which pretty much everyone, aside from Trump and a handful of slavish loyalists, agrees is impossible…
“He would probably also have to end the war in Ukraine—but in a way that doesn’t give Russia everything it wants, which is Trump’s current, and truly artless, negotiating position… It’s more likely that everything is going to get a lot worse… It’s easy to imagine a near future where communicable diseases are spreading rapidly, Social Security checks aren’t going out, and E. coli outbreaks are common—all while prices are rising and the country is in a recession.”
Alex Shephard, New Republic
“The incompetence has been staggering. Trump’s constant about-faces and walk backs on tariffs have been an international embarrassment. Elon Musk’s DOGE has fired federal workers willy-nilly only to turn around and rehire many after the Musketeers realized they weren’t deep-state bloodsuckers and the work they did was kind of essential, after all—you know, like the people who tend the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile. It can be hilarious to watch. But it [carries] consequences that are no laughing matter.”
Michael Tomasky, New Republic
The right generally approves of Trump’s first 100 days, but is divided about tariffs.
The right generally approves of Trump’s first 100 days, but is divided about tariffs.
“One thing that was clearly established in the first 100 days is that the entry of millions of unlawful immigrants was a choice made by the Biden administration and the Democrats. They could have stopped most of these entries at any time, but elected to leave the southern border effectively open for four years as millions poured over. In a matter of weeks, Trump effectively closed the border. In February, there were just 8,326 southern border encounters, down from 189,913 in February 2024…
“Democrats could have shut down the border, but clearly did not want to. Now with millions in the country, Democrats are calling for ‘pathways to citizenship’ by arguing that there is no way to process so many illegals allowed in under Biden. In the meantime, the public overwhelmingly favors deportations and elected Trump on his pledge to carry out such removals. Polling shows that 83% of Americans support deportations of immigrants with violent criminal records and roughly half support mass deportation of all undocumented persons.”
Jonathan Turley, New York Post
“You know what they say ... a billion here, a billion there, and soon you're talking real money… Just how much work has Elon Musk and his DOGE team accomplished? Let's ask the Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations Committee. They vented yesterday that Donald Trump has frozen over $435 billion in approved spending -- so far… If the Democrats want to post trackers of all the money Trump and Musk are saving taxpayers, so much the better.”
Ed Morrissey, Hot Air
“The liberal media’s take on Trump’s tariff battle is relentlessly and universally negative. Isn’t there anyone who worries that the U.S. is dependent on Chinese industry and pharmaceuticals? Isn’t anyone irate that America’s EU allies put 10% tariffs on U.S. autos while we impose only a 2.5% tariff on BMWs and Volvos? Does anyone see any upside at all to the Trump trade agenda?…
“Pollster Frank Luntz convened a group of some 15 Trump voters recently, taking their pulse on the rocky past few weeks and expecting them to blast their elected leader, especially on tariffs and the stock market downturn. Luntz seemed surprised to find out that the Trump voters remained solidly in the president’s camp… Trump should continue to deliver on his campaign promises. The polling will take care of itself.”
Liz Peek, Fox News
Others argue, “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.”
The Editors, National Review
A libertarian's take
“Yes, anti-Trump animus, as well as how much stress his own administration is putting on these punishing ‘accomplishments’ against immigrants, is doubtless making immigration enforcement nightmare stories more widely reported than they were under previous administrations. This whataboutism doesn't change the fact that Trump's strongly anti-immigrant administration is doing all this awful stuff…
“Trump's anti-immigrant mania bleeds over into abuses of free speech in America, as we see immigrants such as Mahmoud Khalil being tossed into custody during a warrantless arrest essentially for disagreeing with U.S.-supported Israeli attacks on Gaza… Whether or not the victims of this tyranny are citizens, our government just should not have the power to punish or harm anyone merely based on their political beliefs.”
Brian Doherty, Reason
