From foreign policy and tariffs to immigration changes and targeting of DEI, here's a look back at some of the major moves made in the past 100 days of President Trump's second administration.
President Trump arrives to speak on his first 100 days at Macomb County Community College Sports Expo Center on April 29 in Warren, Mich.aimed at, among other things, creating DOGE, his government-slashing informal Department of Government Efficiency, erasing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, getting rid ofHe's moved aggressively to implement tariffs on imported goods, restructure the federal government and tighten his grip on power, carry out deportations, reposition the United States on the world stage, and punish perceived political enemies.
of federal workers and cuts to programs and agencies, and the billionaire leading his government restructuring effort, Elon Musk, has grown increasingly unpopular. The public reaction toward Trump's trade wars, in particular, hasn't been positive, leading to a plunge in his poll numbers, according to areleased this week. A slim majority now even disapproves of his handling of immigration, which had been a relative strength. Trump has moved aggressively to tighten his grip on power and decrease accountability. He fired inspectors general across various agencies, purged leaders perceived not to be"pro-Trump," has moved in friendlier news media and decreased access for traditional journalists and threatened them with lawsuits and subpoenas. The Trump administration has also fired thousands of federal workers across multiple agencies, offered a form of a buyout to thousands of others, cut or proposed cutting funding for congressionally authorized programs, for such things as science research, Head Start and low-income heating, among many others. It has dismantled or begun dismantling entire agencies, such as the USAID, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Department of Education. The cuts represent a tiny fraction of the budget, but that may not be the point. Russ Vought, Trump's budget director and co-author of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, which the said before Trump won that he wanted federal workers to feel"trauma." That has certainly been the case for many, who haven't known what to expect from one day to the next — whether it will be a Reduction in Force email in their inbox or a cryptic request to write about five things they did at work in the past week. The cuts haven't been made with a scalpel, but an axe — or, rather a chainsaw. The man wielding that chainsaw — literally on stage at a conservative political conference in late February — has been Elon Musk, the world's richest man, CEO of Tesla and founder of SpaceX. Musk ingratiated himself with Trump by donating millions for his presidential campaign. And Musk has been a fixture in these first few months of Trump's second term, leading efforts to restructure the federal government through his informal Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Musk spoke in the Oval Office by Trump's side, wore a"Tech Support" T-shirt to a Cabinet meeting and appeared in a joint interview on Fox News — with the president of the United States.Republicans faced angry constituents at town halls, upset with Musk and his"DOGE bros," who have been inserted at many federal agencies and accessed sensitive personal data of millions of Americans, including at the Social Security Administration.in a Wisconsin judicial race, spending millions on it, but the conservative candidate lost handily. Questions started to mount about whether Musk's days were numbered.Trump said during the campaign that he would focus on getting"criminals" out of the country. But lots of other immigrants without legal permanent status have been caught up in raids, detentions and deportations — from college students on visas, who spoke out against the war in Gaza to parents of children who are U.S. citizens, to people like Kilmar Abrego Garcia. And they've been sent to a U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a maximum security prison in El Salvador, and detention centers in Panama and Costa Rica without any due process. Trump has even mused publicly about sending"homegrown" criminals, meaning U.S. citizens, to El Salvador, as well. Abrego Garcia's case has gained tons of attention in recent weeks. He was born in El Salvador, has lived in Maryland for more than a decade after crossing the border illegally when he was 16 because of gangs threatening him and trying to recruit him. He had a standing order from 2019 not to be deported to El Salvador because of that. The U.S. government admitted he was deported by mistake due to an"administrative error." But the Trump administration has since doubled down, contending that he is a gang member. A judge handling Abrego Garcia's case says the evidence against him is flimsy. He has no criminal record in the U.S. or El Savador, is a father and is married to a U.S. citizen. But the Trump administration is refusing to try to bring him back despite a Supreme Court order requiring the government to"facilitate" his return. The Trump administration argues that the Supreme Court also said the courts should not interfere with the president's foreign policy and that El Salvador does not want Abrego Garcia returned. It's not the first time that the Trump administration in these three months has come ever-so-close to a full-blown Constitutional crisis. It has walked lines with thin justifications and reached deep with seldom-used laws and defying lower-court rulings with judges launching contempt investigations. Trump is testing the limits of his power and banking on a friendly, conservative-majority Supreme Court to have his back. The next several months will show just how far the courts allow him to go when it comes to deportations.All presidents start out with a degree of political capital — some more than others. And they usually spend it early on in their presidency on one big policy priority — and with a limited amount of time to get it done.way, to reclaim a vague notion of what he considers American greatness. "A lot of people are tired of watching the other countries ripping off the United States," Trump said in 1987 in an interview with then CNN host Larry King. He added,"They laugh at us. Behind our backs, they laugh at us because of our own stupidity." That was a reaction to Japan and later China's increase in manufacturing and imports into the United States. Trump has been singing the same tune for almost 40 years on tariffs. But his effort to actually implement those has led to chaos and volatility – with trading partners, allies and global markets.Trump's trade wars have taken a toll on his political standing — and getting through something like tax cuts now will be more of a slog than it would have been if he chose to use his political capital to secure those first.Internationally, Trump has repositioned the U.S. away from the long-held, post-World War II bipartisan stance championing democracy and human rights abroad. Instead he's cozied up to strongmen, like Hungary's Viktor Orbán and Russia's Vladimir Putin — or at least in the case of Putin, to not take sides even when all of the U.S.'s allies are standing with Ukraine. "You don't have the cards," an irritated Trump, who is trying to strike a peace deal to end the fighting in Ukraine, told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in their disastrous Oval Office meeting in February. That's very different than any past president would have acted toward a pro-Western, democratic ally that was invaded by a larger, autocratic regime. Trump has parroted Russian talking points in blaming Ukraine for"starting" the war and implied that Zelenskyy isn't the rightful leader of the country. He has publicly tried to cajole territorial and natural-resource concessions from Ukraine, while asking little of Russia except to stop fighting. Trump has pushed to make lots of other deals – unsuccessfully to this point – between Palestinians and Israelis over the war in Gaza and with Iran on nuclear weapons. And that's to say nothing of Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, his continued calls to acquire Greenland, take the Panama Canal Zone back, make Canada the 51st state, take over Gaza to make it into the"Riviera of the Middle East," and browbeat allies over trade. During the presidential campaign, Trump promised to seek retribution against those he felt wronged him. "WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again," he wrote on his."We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON'T! Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country." As president, he is following through. He pardoned all of those convicted for their actions during the siege at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, even violent white nationalists, who plotted and planned for the day. He has fired and is investigating those who investigated and indicted him. He stripped security clearances from former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he ran against in 2024 for president. He also took them away from former Republican members of Congress Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who have spoken out against him. And he also took them away from retired Gen. Mark Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who called Trump a"fascist," as well as former national security council staffer Alexander Vindman who testified against Trump in his first impeachment and is now a member of Congress. He's gone after law firms and the Associated Press and stripped the security clearance of his former head of cybersecurity, Chris Krebs, who said the 2020 election was properly conducted, and of Krebs' employer. He also called for an investigation into his time as head of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. He also took away Secret Service protection for Biden's children – even though Biden left it in place for Trump's."We're in a time and place, where, I don't know, I certainly have not, I have not been here before," said Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski earlier this month."And I'll tell you, I'm oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real – and that's not right, but that's what you've asked me to do, and so I'm going to use my voice to the best of my ability."Besides immigration, little has animated Trump and the MAGA movement's culture war more than the targeting of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, as well as the rights of people who are transgender. There have been multiple executive orders seeking to eliminate DEI or limit or eliminate the rights of transgender and nonbinary people in government jobs and the military but also in private life, businesses and schools, including universities, across the country. Trump has signed executive orders, and his administration has sued states and universities, taken down photos of renowned black historical figures from government buildings and websites, scrubbed websites of content it opposes and banned certain books from agency libraries, archives and military service academies. Trump took over the Kennedy Center, because he did not like the types of artists who performed there and said that the venue was in"disrepair." Even the Smithsonian, home to the free museums in Washington, D.C. that millions visit every year, are being transformed through. The Trump administration argues that historical exhibits shouldn't"inappropriately disparage Americans" and people shouldn't be made to feel bad about the country's history. While Trump argues that a revisionist movement has cast the nation's history in a"divisive, race-centered ideology," the MAGA movement wants a white-washed version of history presented.For all of the things Trump himself has done, this flashpoint began with top members of his administration's handling of sensitive military operation details — and adding a journalist to a group chat on the messaging app Signal. But the scandal was compounded by the administration's reaction, especially by his Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who shared the most sensitive details. Hegseth lashed out at the media and denied that the information shared was"classified." It was later revealed that Hegseth was copy-pasting the details from a secure government channel put in by the head of U.S. Central Command., not just with key Trump administration officials, but also in a second group chat on his private phone – with his wife, brother and personal attorney. Trump has stood by Hegseth, even denying that he did anything wrong at the outset. In the aftermath, Hegseth has become increasingly isolated at the Pentagon. Several aides, who were previously close to him, left or were fired. One even penned an op-ed – with his name on it – describing a month of chaos at the Defense Department. The whole scandal has raised questions about how Trump's team handles this kind of sensitive information, record-keeping and for what exactly congressional Republicans would hold the administration accountable. Answer: not much, if anything. One of the only GOP members to speak out was Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who said, if he were president, he would not tolerate Hegseth's behavior and said it shows the Defense Secretary to be"an amateur person."Domenico Montanaro is NPR's senior political editor/correspondent. Based in Washington, D.C., his work appears on air and online delivering analysis of the political climate in Washington and campaigns. He also helps edit political coverage.Two San Diego nonprofits are poised to lose promised environmental justice grants — but the EPA has yet to tell themSan Diego County releases dashboard compiling on South County sewage
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