Evaluating Trump II’s First 100 Days
Documenting a presidency unlike any other.
I have sometimes struggled to explain the second Trump presidency to my students, most of whom have little to compare it to. Indeed, Trump II’s first 100 days — the time period by which we traditionally evaluate presidents — have been unique in so many ways that, as Seth Masket observed, it should really be called “an Upside Down First Hundred Days.”
In a recent talk I gave at my university with my colleague John White, I tried to put Trump’s second term in context and identify a few ways that his presidency has been unlike any other, at least in modern times. First, I showed a table comparing Trump’s 100 days in office to those of other recent second-term presidents, looking specifically at lawmaking, executive orders, nominations, and public support.
* as of April 27
As can be seen, Trump has been highly productive when it comes to nominations, but this isn’t very surprising, since he has more positions to fill (replacing individuals appointed by Biden) and the GOP-led Senate has an incentive to approve his nominations quickly. What really stands out in the table, besides his comparatively low popularity, are the enormous number of executive orders he has signed, many of them under the guise of resolving a “national emergency.” It is this remarkable tendency towards unilateral action – even though Trump’s own party has a majority in the House and Senate – that distinguishes Trump from other presidents.1
Second, I wanted to demonstrate that some of what Trump has done comes from his own personal agenda, while other policy proposals are shared with Republicans in Congress or with outside thinkers. So, inspired by Christina Pagel’s Venn diagram categorizing the president’s authoritarian, anti-democratic actions (a topic also explored by Jennifer Victor),2 I made a quick diagram of my own that identifies policies proposed or desired by Trump, policies that are important to congressional Republicans, and proposals from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.
I made this relatively quickly, and I expect that some will disagree with where I have placed some of these proposals. (I’m open to suggestions!) Nonetheless, I think this exercise helps us understand not just where the Trump White House’s agenda has originated from, but also what may come of it in the months ahead.
Proposals that are most likely to be carried out, mostly through unilateral action, are those that fall within the top (Trump) circle. But it is those that overlap with at least one other circle that are most likely to “stick” (assuming they are held up by the courts). This is especially the case for proposals that are also within the congressional GOP circle, meaning Congress has an incentive to implement them through legislation (or at least not stop Trump from doing them on his own).
Project 2025 has been an important source of policy proposals for the White House, but hardly the only one. And some Project 2025 ideas are not likely to turn into actual policy because they are unpopular with Trump, congressional Republicans, or both.
Congressional Republicans’ agenda includes items that Trump does not want, or at least is ambivalent about, and the reverse is true for Trump’s agenda (protectionist tariffs being a prime example). Though Republicans in Congress have been remarkably supine towards Trump, these differences could be a source of future resistance, since congressional Republicans – unlike the term-limited Trump – are democratically accountable.
Finally, something that I think makes Trump’s first 100 days especially unusual is the extent to which he has tried to undermine, eliminate, and/or reshape long-standing political institutions and regimes. The figure I presented in our talk illustrates four of these institutions.
I can think of no modern president who has tried a multi-front assault like this. It might be possible for Trump to use his executive authority to successfully undermine the neutrality and reliability of the bureaucracy, whether for its own sake or to reshape the administrative state into a tool for conservative policy-making. But it will be much harder for Trump to durably strip Congress or U.S. states of their constitutional powers, not to mention rewrite the international order.
In short, in contrast to previous presidents, Trump has spent his early months acting unilaterally to implement bold policies (some that are traditionally conservative, some that are uniquely Trumpian) and to systematically undermine other political institutions and regimes.3 It represents an audacious effort to turn our country from a federalist system of checks and balances with two equally competitive parties into a unitary, presidency-centered regime that imposes the policy preferences of one party — if not one person — on the entire country.
Since Trump’s second term is non-consecutive, one might argue that a better comparison would be with other first term presidents. But the average number of executive orders signed by first term presidents is still far lower than Trump’s. For example, Biden signed 42 executive orders in his first 100 days, and other presidents signed even fewer.
I also encourage readers to see the many great Venn diagrams by Matt Glassman.
To be sure, there are other unique aspects of the Trump presidency, such as its aggressive attempts to weaken civil society, undermine democracy, and challenge the authority of federal courts over immigration; Trump’s questionable cabinet choices and decision to give governmental access to the richest man on Earth; and the enormous number of lawsuits filed against the White House.