Trump’s First 100 Days: Chaos, Outrages and Stunning Incompetence

Donald Trump has been in office 100 days, and he’s been acting more and more like a dictator, creating chaos in the process.

He’s trying to dominate or dismantle practically every institution in America—Congress, universities, the federal bureaucracy, independent federal agencies, the Federal Reserve, the states, law firms, the media and foundations whose activities he opposes.

Ready for the barrage?

• He and Chainsaw Elon are demolishing federal agencies created by Congress firing workers and hacking their budgets, ignoring Congress’s Constitutional “power of the purse.”
• The Trump administration issued demands on Harvard University covering its handling of antisemitism—but also its admissions, hiring and teaching practices, and when Harvard refused to comply, cancelled $2.3 billion in federal research grants and threatened to cancel its tax-exempt status. Harvard sued and more than 200 hundred university presidents signed a letter condemning the administration’s attack on academic freedom. The Department of Education has launched investigations of 50 other institutions’ diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
• The administration is in the process of firing some 275,000 federal employees and replacing 50,000 with pre-vetted Trump loyalists even as it forces universities and private businesses to base hiring strictly on “merit.”
• Trump suggested he might fire Fed Chairman Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates—leading to a plunge in the stock market. Trump then cancelled the threat, causing the markets to rebound, but he was still interfering with the Fed’s statutory independence by telling Powell what to do.
• Trump and his budget director, Russell Vought have asserted that the President is entitled to set policy and hire and fire officials of such agencies as the Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission—all created by Congress to operate independent of the Executive.
• Trump issued executive orders overriding state laws governing elections, environmental regulations and public health policies.
• He has issued executive orders penalizing some major law firms which represented clients opposed to him personally (such as Special Prosecutor Jack Smith) or groups he supported (such as Jan. 6 defendants) or whose DEI programs he is trying to stamp out. The legal profession split in reaction to Trump’s threats, with the Seattle firm Perkins Coie suing to end threats that its lawyers would be blocked from federal buildings and lose their security clearances. The firm represented the Hillary Clinton Campaign in 2016. A few other major firms joined Perkins, arguing that the administration was making it impossible for any firms to represent clients suing the government. But more big firms reached agreements with the government that involved making pro bono contributions totaling $1 billion to charities approved by Trump.
• The administration has launched lawsuits and investigations against several major news organizations and individuals for alleged bias —ABC News (which settled for $15 million), CBS, NBC, the Des Moines Register and journalist Bob Woodward.
• Trump issued a memorandum on Feb. 6 instructing all federal agency heads to review government support for Non-Governmental Organizations and cancel funding for those that do not “align with the goals and priorities of my administration.” NGOs are also being investigated for their DEI programs. Among various agencies that have had funding canceled are the National Science Foundation, which revoked more than 380 grants totaling $233 million, ending research into bird conservation, AI literacy and internet censorship. The Justice Department rescinded grants totaling $300 million to 350 organizations working on violence prevention, gun safety, opioid addiction and aid for victims of violent crime.
• Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate Act Blue, a Democratic fundraising group.
• Apart from domestic actions, Trump is undoing the alliance-based international security structure that’s largely kept the peace since World War II and the (largely) free market world economic system that’s rescued millions of people from poverty over the last 70 years and simultaneously given Americans lower-cost foreign goods and kept the US the world’s largest economy and the dollar the world’s reserve currency. Allies no longer trust the US to defend them in case of attack. And his tariffs are causing chaos in both domestic and international markets.

Trump incorrectly believes that he and his docile Republican Party were given an unprecedented mandate in 2024 (in fact, Trump’s 1.5% popular vote margin ranked 13th among winning presidential candidates since 1972 and his electoral vote margin ranked 42d among winners in US history.)

He’s also claimed that he has a divine mandate, having narrowly survived an assassination attempt last year. In his address to a Joint Session of Congress in March, he said, “I was saved by God to make America great again. I believe that.”

As many Christians were reminded this Easter, however, God and His son, Jesus, were all about love, mercy and forgiveness. Most other faiths preach the same message. But Trump is all about power and retribution.

His power plays and outrages have come at a mind-numbing pace: he’s issued 130 executive orders, more than double the number of any previous president (Joe Biden issued 42 in his first hundred days), nine emergency declarations including a Southern Border Emergency (allowing him to use US military units to police the border, expedite deportations, build detention facilities and restrict asylum opportunities), the International Economic Powers Act (enabling him to impose 10 percent across-the-world tariffs and higher tariffs on countries with trade surpluses vis a vis the US) and a National Energy Emergency (expediting fossil fuel projects and bypassing environmental regulations).

Among Trump’s least defensible recent outrages and chaos-inducing moves grow out of his immigration policies, which we’ll examine in the next installment of Trump Outrage Watch. In the meantime, it’s worth pondering James Madison’s warning that “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judicial, is the very definition of tyranny.”

The GOP “legislative” branch has largely handed its powers to Trump. And he’s hugely expanded the “executive” scope of his job. But so far the “judicial”—at least the lower courts—have not gone along. Of 56 District court decisions, 36 (64%) have gone against Trump. Of 15 cases decided by appellate courts, 10 have gone against Trump (66%). Eight Supreme Court cases have split 4-4.

In the court of public opinion—as recorded in the New York Times/Sienna College poll Saturday, Trump is judged as I’ve been judging him: outrageous.

Sixty-six percent of voters described his second term as “chaotic.” Fifty-nine said it was “scary” and only 42 percent, “exciting.” His job approval rating is 43 percent (the Times’ average of 29 polls puts him at 44%). Only 43 percent approve of his handling of the economy, a major factor in his election victory. He’s even under water on his handling of immigration, the other issue that got him elected. Two other polls, CNN’s and the Washington Post, have him even lower, with just 39% approval. NBC has him at 45%.

Voters said he had “gone too far” on any number of issues—his tariffs, immigration enforcement and firing of federal employees. The Times concluded that “any second term honeymoon for Trump is over.” In less than 100 days.