100 Days, A Retrospective

Ed wrote a piece earlier today about his take on the first 100 days of Trump’s second term, and I thought I would throw in my $.02. 

After all, everyone expects the “First 100 days” piece, even though the time period is utterly arbitrary. There is nothing special about 100 days other than it being a round number. 

Still, the concept behind that arbitrary time period is not exactly stupid–presidents don’t have four or eight years to accomplish what they hope to. They have 1 1/2 years or so, and then–aside from foreign policy–all they can generally do is nibble away at problems and perhaps score a modest victory on the domestic front. 

That’s not because of the election cycle, although it mainly is. Just as important is that the entire Washington Establishment takes time to adjust and to put the brakes on any changes they don’t like. Congressmen are a bit more afraid of the president than their buddies in the first months of a term, so presidents must strike while the iron is hot. 

Trump has certainly been striking, and his iron is very hot. He has seized the opportunity to make reforms in a way that he really didn’t in his first term. As much as Trump wanted to “drain the swamp” in 2017, by 2020, he was drowning in the muck as the alligators surrounded him hungrily. 

He certainly learned his lesson. He came in with a hand-picked team instead of relying on denizens of the swamp to help him staff the administration, and he and they went on the attack. 

It was shock and awe, and the swamp didn’t know what hit them. It took them two months to figure out how to fight back–a legal insurrection. The Democrats didn’t have a political leg to stand on–nobody likes them–so they decided that the best way to win was not to play the democratic politics game, but to use the least democratic branch of government to impose their will. 

And this is where it gets complicated and where Trump cannot fight alone. Trump has been doing everything he can using the Article II powers he has as president, but presidents are only one of three branches of government and only the most powerful one in some areas of governance. The Courts and the Congress have a legitimate role to play as well–although the courts seem to be exceeding their power and Congress not using their enough. 

Spending exploded from $4.4T in 2019 to $6.7T in 2024 – a 51.7% surge under Biden’s watch. The real scandal? HHS and Treasury budgets ballooned over $1T each while defense spending grew just 26%. DOGE’s already slashed $160B through contract cancellations and workforce…

— DOGEai (@dogeai_gov) April 28, 2025

Donald Trump–as I wrote earlier today–needs Congress to get off its backside and start backing him up with legislation. They have the power to end funding for agencies that Trump can only reform, to slash funding as the president can’t, to change immigration laws to facilitate deportations and speed up legal processes, and in some cases, they can even limit the power of the courts. 

Most people don’t know this, but the Constitution grants Congress the power to limit judicial review. Known as the “exceptions clause,” there is controversy over how to interpret the clause, and the Supreme Court has made rulings on its use that suggest that it isn’t thrilled to give up its power, but that might be a fight Congress should want to have. Democrats would scream bloody murder, but all their talk about preserving the power of the court is hot air–Chuck Schumer and other Democrats spoke almost daily of stripping funding from the Court, taking revenge for rulings they didn’t like, and the entire Democrat Party spent years attacking the legitimacy of the Court. 

Democrats even called for packing the Court. So in my view, they have no leg to stand on. 

At least a resort to the exceptions clause would be grounded in the Constitution rather than being mere expressions of rage and direct threats towards Justices. 

Massive battles have characterized Trump’s frantic pace in his first 100 days, which he may or may not win in the end. What will determine whether the shock and awe has lasting results will depend on just a few factors: can Trump win the trade battles soon and get the economy moving, and can he convince Congress to execute on and make permanent his agenda. 

Biden managed to pass massive legislation in his first two years, and while every one of those laws was a total disaster, he could rely on Congress to impose his will (or the will of his handlers, actually). Trump needs a Congress that will do the same, or all this strife will be seen as a blip of chaos with a few temporary victories, not the beginning of the new “golden age” he has promised. 

Congress, get to work. 

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