The first 100 days of a presidency has, in modern times, become a major benchmark –– allowing the public to gauge how the next four years will go. President Donald Trump has raced to sign executive orders, raise tariffs, deport immigrants without due process, and slash federal jobs in his second term.
According to extensive analysis from the Center for American Progress (CAP), Trump’s administration has adversely affected the economy, areas of immigration, and the structure of the federal government with the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and influence from business mogul Elon Musk.
Many of his “move fast and break things” attitude to governing were policy items outlined in the far-right Project 2025 agenda. An agenda tracker indicates that he’s fulfilled over 90 items so far, including eliminating civil rights and diversity offices, ending data collection on gender identity, rescinding laws that helped to prosecute sexual assault and discrimination cases, and prohibiting the U.S. government from combating the spread of misinformation and disinformation.
Other agenda items that are on the list, like defunding National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), weakening regulations on baby formula, or ending cash grants to small businesses, haven’t been completed just yet.
Inflation and Tariffs
The biggest promise Trump made to his loyal followers was to make groceries cheaper, pass tax cuts for workers, boost American manufacturing, and end inflation nationwide. However, Trump’s grift has taken concerning steps away from accomplishing those goals.
“Core inflation” didn’t increase by much last month, reported PBS NewsHour. But food prices are still spiking, most notably the price of basic items, like eggs.
Besides hiking up people’s grocery bills, Trump and far-right Republicans furiously pushed to cut huge swaths of funding to Social Security, Medicare, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and gut Medicaid in the latest budget. All of which are nonpartisan programs that citizens in red and blue states alike depend on. The administration has also frozen funding to many humanitarian programs, like foreign food aid and Head Start, which is a national child care program for children aged 3 to 4.
Trump’s rampant tariffs have been “economically jarring” at best, reported PBS NewsHour. The tariffs currently include steep 145% tariffs on China, and 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods that are not covered under the North American trade pact. The initial results of these tariffs have meant turmoil in the stock market, a mortgage rate surge, retaliation from other countries, and a steep loss of confidence from voters. PBS’ polling indicates about 49% of U.S. adults have either delayed or sped up buying things while they can. Those figures are higher for Black (70%) and Latino (71%) adults, said PBS.
Threats to immigrants and citizens
Trump has issued a flurry of anti-immigrant orders that use federal agencies, like the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), to detain and strip legal status from Black, Latino, and Muslim immigrants with visas and green cards. Under the outdated Alien Enemies Act, immigrants from Venezuela, aged 14 and older who are suspected of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang, are shipped to Guantánamo Bay without due process.
They’ve also attacked local “sanctuary jurisdictions” like churches, courthouses, and schools to find immigrants to deport.
“The Trump administration, throughout their entire nearly three months and at this point, has been saying that they are taking these actions for the safety and security of the country,” said New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) President and CEO Murad Awawdeh in a debrief about Trump’s presidency so far. “What we are saying is that this is not in fact about safety and security, it’s about creating chaos, panic, and fear across communities, and cruelty is their point.”
Trump’s mass deportation agenda has hit especially hard in New York City, under the compliance of incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, and throughout the state. Among other things, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding for migrant shelters and services was revoked, federal loan forgiveness for those who work in the immigration field was restricted, legal representation for unaccompanied children facing deportation was cut, and Adams announced an executive order to return an ICE hub to Rikers Island (which was technically issued by his First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro).
International college students, like former Columbia University students Mahmoud Khalil, Yunseo Chung, and Mohsen Mahdawi (recently released on bail), with green cards, were targeted and detained by ICE because of their involvement in pro-Palestinian protests. Nationally, more than 1,700 students have lost their student status because of alleged antisemitism, said NYIC. There’s also been a movement toward a “silent ban” on student visas from some countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. And, a restriction on visas from South Sudan and Chad.
These anti-immigrant efforts have culminated in an outright attack on birthright citizenship, which was first introduced in the U.S. Constitution under the 14th Amendment and ratified in 1868. This amendment gave former slaves and free Black individuals birthright citizenship, making them “whole” persons in the eyes of the law. Trump ordered federal agencies not to recognize the U.S. citizenship of children born in the U.S. when one parent does not have permanent status. The Supreme Court is scheduled to argue the case this May.
Constitutional Crisis
Trump has been accused of hiring “sycophants” into key positions, like Kash Patel at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Scott Bessent at Department of the Treasury, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and maliciously slashing jobs to shrink the federal workforce.
Tens of thousands of employees across the federal government have been fired, placed on leave, or taken voluntary buyouts, said PBS. Trump has also tried reclassifying large groups of workers as “Schedule F,” so they’re more easily fired, and targeted the structures that protect federal employees and workers’ unions overall.
The idea is to reshape the federal government as Trump sees fit by eliminating agencies and firing any non-loyal employees. CAP described this as “authoritarianism” and a broader movement toward the executive branch of government seizing unprecedented power in order to create an oligarchy that mirrors a kingship.
This was also detailed in Project 2025’s far-right playbook, and relies heavily on the “misguided” theory that Article II of the Constitution gives presidents virtually unchecked authority and lessens the power of Congress (Article I) and the judiciary (Article III) branches of the federal government, reported CAP, deeply upsetting the ‘checks and balances’ that’s supposed to keep the U.S. from becoming a monarchy.
In CAP’s report, researchers said that Trump’s presidency more closely resembles a political system run by a small group of powerful people and “self-dealing” elected officials in places like Turkey, El Salvador, Serbia, and Hungary. Musk and DOGE skirt the laws. Trump and his allies ignore courts, threaten judges, thwart procedure, and distort the Constitution.
The Response
There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, though.
At first, there was a sense of shock and exhaustion after last year’s presidential election concluded. Black women voters had especially come out in droves to support former Vice President Kamala Harris in her presidential campaign. When she lost, many Democrats dreaded that Trump’s wanton display of disregard for the country would mean the end.
Trump’s actions so far have enraged Democrats and finally reached a portion of Republican voters and electeds –– many of whom are equally impacted by program cuts, job losses, a flailing economy, and immigration profiling.
The federal courts appear to be slowly standing up to Trump where constitutional power grabs are a concern, while at lower levels, advocacy groups and some elected officials have been consistently challenging the administration’s illegal or unconstitutional orders, said CAP.
Lawsuits have been filed over the last three months against DOGE for not complying to Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) transparency rules and illegally sharing private citizens bank information, HHS for deleting of critical health information from government websites, the dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and for attempting to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and against the IRS for unlawfully sharing tax data with ICE, and for removing climate and environmental justice data from federal websites. In New York State, Attorney General Letitia James has filed and joined 15 lawsuits and 22 amicus briefs with state attorneys general across the country.
They’ve pushed back on Trump’s efforts to end birthright citizenship and won a preliminary injunction upheld by the courts. They’ve also sued to stop the freezing of federal funding, block the Trump administration from canceling $600 million in teacher grants, for firing thousands of federal workers without cause, for interfering in local elections, to restore states’ access to school grants, for imposing illegal tariffs, to stop the dismantling of Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the U.S. Department of Education (DEP), and to defend the practice of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion. and Accessibility (DEIA) in schools.
“We will not allow this administration to trample our Constitution, strip Americans of their fundamental rights, and dismantle critical services that millions of people rely on every day,” said James in a statement. “We stopped some of their most unconstitutional policies dead in their tracks, and we are not slowing down. If this administration continues to bulldoze the Constitution and ignore the law, they will find all of us standing in the way every single time.”
And in New York City, in addition to protesters taking to the streets, City Council and mayoral hopefuls have pushed back against Mayor Adams’ subservience to the Trump administration.
On April 15, the City Council filed a lawsuit to block Adams’ executive order for ICE to operate on Rikers Island based on a law from 2014 that bans federal immigration authorities, like ICE, from setting up offices or quarters on NYC Department of Corrections (DOC) property for civil matters, like deportations. Five of the city’s legal defense organizations — The Legal Aid Society, New York County Defender Services (NDS), The Bronx Defenders, Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, and Queens Defenders — also protested the order by invoking the constitutional rights of every client present and future in DOC custody.
Additionally, the City Council passed Resolution 836, which gives City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams –– a candidate for Mayor this year –– the power to defend against the violation of immigration sanctuary laws.