President Trump, straining to maintain the nation's confidence as he completes 100 days in office, is impatient as he strives to deliver on ambitious promises.
Congressional Republicans return to Washington today anxious to show voters they can anchor Trump's policies in major legislation, but that slower moving endeavor will test House and Senate GOP cohesion during their own 100 day sprint.
"We're resetting a table," Trump told Time last week during an interview. "I feel that we've had a very successful presidency in 100 days. ... If you look at all of the years that I've been doing this, I've been right on things. You're gonna have the wealthiest country we've ever had, and you're gonna have an explosion upward in the not-too-distant future."
Democrats on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, predict the public next year will register their less enthusiastic assessment. They predict Americans will recoil from what they view as costly GOP economic wreckage and assaults on the Constitution and the judiciary.
The Associated Press: Trump's first 100 days.
Public opinion about Trump's second term took a dramatic downward turn between February and April, according to the most recent Washington Post-ABC-Ipsos poll of 2,464 adults. Granted, there is a significant partisan split when it comes to Trump. But notably, his approval on the economy, at 39 percent, is only 2 points better than former President Biden's (37 percent) roughly a year ago.
Trump this morning challenged the most recent New York Times and Washington Post-ABC News survey results in a Truth Social statement calling them "fake."
The president's overall disapproval is at 55 percent, according to the Post-ABC poll. None of Trump's policies received majority support in the survey, including higher tariffs (64 percent dislike), the economy (61 percent oppose), looking out for the interests of average Americans (58 percent disapprove), managing the federal government (57 percent dislike) and immigration (53 percent disapprove).
The Washington Post's Dan Balz wrote in his analysis Sunday that the president and his advisers are unlikely to be deterred by some softening in Trump's poll numbers unless the numbers get "materially worse" or "more robust resistance gathers force." Trump "has begun his second term with a zeal for controversial policies and so far has tried to carry them out by bulldozing whatever checks lie in his path," Balz noted.
The Wall Street Journal reported comments from voters who said the president's actions have directly affected their day-to-day lives in a way they can't remember a previous administration doing. Trump's base commends that trait. "I think what he's doing is needed," Doug Wyatt, 71, a retired police officer from Eatonton, Ga., told the Journal. "He's brave enough to do it."
"I CHOOSE": The shock-and-awe pace of Trump's first 100 days was intended to show the world that the promises he made as a candidate would be carried out with assertive executive force. That has been applied broadly across his early moves, from his fights with the judiciary and break from governance norms to bucking diplomatic niceties and hitting allies with steep tariffs.
Not all has gone according to plan, and Trump has pivoted, including with a pause on reciprocal tariffs after his moves sent the financial and bond markets reeling.
But Trump claims victory even during his reboots. "I've made 200 deals," the president told Time when describing offstage discussions about tariffs with trading partners and companies. "The deal is a deal that I choose," Trump said.
"The public hates what they're doing and they know it," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told MSNBC over the weekend when speaking about the summer's legislative drama ahead. "We're going to fight them tooth and nail," he added. "We're going to make every Republican senator … and every Republican House member take vote after vote to show the people just who they are and who they're for and who they're against."
▪ The Hill: House and Senate Democrats held a Sunday Capitol sit-in with livestreaming to protest the GOP's budget blueprint.
▪ The Hill: Republicans dive into a key four-week stretch.
The legislative timeline is another GOP challenge: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) wants a border security, energy, defense and tax bill on the House floor the week of May 19.
▪ The Hill: A simmering controversy that divides Republicans over cutting Medicaid will quickly heat up during a House committee markup scheduled for May 7.
Democratic lawmakers spent the spring recess trying to stoke public opposition to GOP aims, including during town hall events held in Republican congressional districts. Their targets included proposed GOP cuts to federal Medicaid spending and "efficiency" changes at the Social Security Administration.
Trump lashed out at "disruptors and troublemakers" at GOP town halls in a post on Sunday evening, urging Republicans to quickly eject such individuals. "You must allow your audience to know what you are up against, or else they will think they are Republicans, and that there is dissension in the Party. There is not, there is only LOVE and UNITY," the president wrote
Democratic leaders who face divisions within their own party over strategy and policy are trying to band together to exploit public misgivings about Trump's approach to governance.
"If House Republicans push ahead with their plan to gut Medicaid and rip health care away from millions of Americans just to fund another tax cut for their billionaire donors like Elon Musk, Democrats will fight them every step of the way — and we'll make it as painful as possible," Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) told Politico.
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