By Newsweek Staff Newsweek World
To some it may feel like a lifetime, for others the time will have flown by. Yes, that's right President Donald Trump's second administration is now 100 days old. Some of Newsweek Opinion's top writers have sent in their thoughts about these hectic three months. See what they have to say below—and have your say with our poll and comment form below.
Steve Cortes—Trump's Already Done What Biden Couldn't
President Donald Trump, predictably, begins his second term with a flood of activity and consequential reforms. The most significant, by far, is securing the U.S. southern border. He accomplished what President Joe Biden had claimed was insurmountable, and in only a matter of weeks—through resolve, leadership, and effective personnel. This return to immigration law-and-order was the foremost promise of his 2024 campaign.
Unleashing American energy represents the second most consequential reform that will benefit our nation long-term.
His challenge remains the economy, where he inherited the true mess that was Bidenomics. So far, his transformative rebalancing of international trade sputters, though long-term, the benefits of onshoring can be truly historic.
Steve Cortes is former senior adviser to President Donald Trump, former commentator for Fox News and CNN
Paul Du Quenoy—A Resounding Triumph!
President Donald Trump's first 100 days have been a resounding triumph. The two major issues Trump campaigned on—immigration and inflation—have both already been tackled. The southern border is secure, with near total erasure of the illegal border crossings that were rampant under President Joe Biden and the deportation of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who have committed additional crimes. The farce of "catch and release" is over, and the highly successful "Remain in Mexico" policy is back in force.
Trump's economic policies have realized the first decline in consumer prices in three years, while crippling Biden-era inflation has begun to drop. Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has reported $160 billion in savings, fired or suspended hordes of useless federal bureaucrats, and identified and canceled scads of un- or anti-American DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs that poisoned our government. Following the April 2 "Liberation Day" announcement on tariffs, 130 countries that need the United States far more than we need them have begged for new trade deals, with preliminary talks suggesting that future trade relations will be much more favorable to American exports. At the same time, Trump has secured over $1 trillion in foreign investments, which will return manufacturing and production jobs stateside, and secured billions in domestic investment for strategic industries like microchips. Abroad, Trump has started the first meaningful negotiations toward peace in Ukraine, crushed the Houthi radicals in the Red Sea region, brought Iran back to the negotiating table after years of derision and mockery, and motivated our European allies to devote resources to their defense and NATO obligations. At home, Americans are prouder, with about 34 percent now saying the country is on the right track, compared to an appalling 20 percent just three months ago.
Paul du Quenoy is president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute
David Faris—Days of Horror
President Donald Trump's first 100 days have been such a carnival of horrors that one hardly knows where to begin. But there's a throughline between abducting students for the crime of writing op-eds, disappearing innocent dads into a Salvadoran gulag, cruelly and arbitrarily detaining visitors from Europe and targeting law firms and even individual citizens with executive orders, which is a total contempt for the civil liberties of anyone who isn't a servile Trump loyalist. Your rights now depend on the grievances of one petulant old man and his shameless enablers. God only knows what the next 100 days will bring.
David Faris is an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics
Darvio Morrow—Paying the Price of Overreach
Politicians get into trouble when they let their party's diehards misread their mandate. President Donald Trump's first 100 days show what happens when you overreach. Voters sent him to fix the federal government, not gut it; to deport criminals, not American citizens; to rein in so-called "DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion)" excesses, not overturn decades of civil rights precedent. Many Americans, me included, supported using tariffs to bring back American manufacturing. But that, too, has been undermined by political overreach, with unpredictability repeatedly rattling the markets. As a result, Trump's poll numbers have collapsed to the lowest ever recorded this early in a presidency. There's still time to reverse course—but only if he starts listening to the people who want him to succeed, not the ones who only tell him what he wants to hear.
Darvio Morrow is CEO of the FCB Radio Network and co-host of The Outlaws Radio Show
Barbara A. Perry—More Consequential Than FDR's First 100 Days
Nine decades have passed since President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the benchmark for judging presidential performance in the initial 14 weeks of an administration. By serving nonconsecutive terms, President Donald Trump earned a second chance at his first one hundred days
FDR encouraged the electorate to watch what he and Congress could accomplish in their first three months to ameliorate the Great Depression's ravages. Signing 15 pieces of New Deal legislation into law from March to July 1933 set the standard for all succeeding presidents.
Trump's most recent first hundred days have been even more consequential than FDR's. The 47th president experienced a trial run as the 45th. He and his followers had four years, multiple advocacy groups, unprecedented money, and Elon Musk to plan and launch their assault on the Constitution, government agencies and programs, foreign alliances, and the American economy.
Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III's recent opinion for the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, requiring due process in deportation cases, provided the antidote to the incumbent president's chainsaw massacre of our regime's foundational principles. Whether the Supreme Court will try to rein in Trump as they did Roosevelt remains to be seen.
Dr. Barbara A. Perry is J. Wilson Newman Professor in Presidential Studies at UVA's Miller Center. Follow her on Bluesky @BarbaraPerryUVA
Matt Robison—Signs of Hope After 100 Bad Days
The last one hundred days felt like Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude—entombed in a steamy, surreal, toxic Trump jungle. We remain endlessly stuck on the horns of the Trump dilemma. Focusing on his torrent of outrages oxygenates his pathology and risks reinforcing the sense of chaos and disillusionment that helps authoritarians. But ignoring them is fiddling while Rome burns. It is the Princess Bride problem: no choice is good, both are filled with poison. There is hope stirring though. President Donald Trump's problems are mounting, and even his voters are souring. The Signalgate saga seems to have revived the media. Democrats are engaging. The fight is on.
Matt Robison is a writer, podcast host, and former congressional staffer
Jonathan Tobin—Trump Has Struck a Blow Against the Deep State
The first hundred days of the Trump 2.0 administration have been a rousing success. Not everything has gone perfectly and—as is to be expected with some inexperienced figures being placed in positions of responsibility—there have been a few bumps in the road. Additionally, the negotiations with Iran—have been disappointing. Those things aside, the energy, determination and focus of the Trump team have been remarkable.
Its most important accomplishment is scrapping the power of the unelected and unaccountable administrative state composed of left-wing bureaucrats via Elon Musk's DOGE and Secretary of State Marco Rubio's reorganization of the State Department.
Alongside that, President Donald Trump has made a bold effort to topple the rule of left-wing ideologues and the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) over American education, which tolerated and encouraged the surge of antisemitism since Oct. 7, 2023. Woke leftism is part of the left's war on Western civilization and the values of the American republic and constitutes the single greatest threat to the country's future. Trump's willingness to take it on is a historic turning point and his finest moment, so far.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS.org and a senior contributor to The Federalist. Follow him @jonathans_tobin
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This story was originally published April 29, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
