Washington Merry-Go-Round

IMMEDIATE RELEASE 26 April 2025
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
Today’s Events in Historical Perspective
America’s Longest-Running Column Founded 1932
The 100-day clown show is over
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift         
 
WASHINGTON – Based on actual accomplishments versus what he is railing about, Donald Trump has had the worst 100 days of any president. That omits Abraham Lincoln and the beginning of the Civil War 42 days after taking office, and William Henry Harrison who died on the 32nd day from a cold caught at his Inauguration that turned into pneumonia.
By the measures of success he touted in the campaign, Trump has failed at everything except controlling the border. And he erred with that by pushing the boundaries too far, having foreign students with visas snatched off the street and detained, and denying due process to a Maryland man wrongfully deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
His policy on tariffs has undermined the global economy and caused businesses to stop production and prices to spike. Consumer sentiment is at the lowest since those numbers have been tracked. Any first-year economics student could have told Trump that tariffs might be a beautiful word, but their history is not pretty.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell says what Trump has done is worse than Smoot-Hawley, the 1930 tariff act that led to and deepened the Depression.
His campaign promises to end the war in Gaza and the war in Ukraine have so far not come to fruition. Secretary of State Rubio says that if a peace deal is not reached soon, the administration would have to move on. President Zelenskyy is not willing to settle for peace without peacekeepers, and the administration has not yet offered any plan that would reassure Zelenskyy.
Asked by a reporter what concession Russia would make, Trump replied they were making a “pretty big concession” by not “taking the whole country.” In other words, Trump believes Russia can keep fighting until Ukraine is vanquished, and that is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy now that the administration is no longer willing to pay for the war.
The Department of Efficiency (DOGE) promised a trillion dollars in cuts allegedly to reduce the deficit but after 100 days has very little to show for all the chaos. Billionaire Elon Musk invited scorn for the way he literally wielded a chainsaw to show how he was cutting through government waste. Some people had to be rehired, and the mass firings produced very little in the way of savings and much in the way of disruption.
Bottom line: Trump’s accomplishments are meager after 100 days. But he is making or being compelled to make course corrections.
Tariffs are the big one. When Peter Navarro, Trump’s tariff advisor, was out of the room, two billionaires entered. Treasury Secretary Bessent and Commerce Secretary Lutwick got Trump’s ear and persuaded him to pull back on tariffs and “play nice” with China’s President Xi. This came after Musk with good reason called Navarro “dumb as a sack of bricks,” and Trump ally Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal headline read, “Trump Takes the Dumbest Tariff Plunge.”
Trump has toned down his attacks on the courts, saying he will obey court rulings after being scolded by Chief Justice John Roberts and polls showed a strong majority of Americans say rulings should be obeyed.
Trump has gone quiet about threatening Panama with military action or somehow grabbing Greenland. He is no longer talking about annexing Canada as the 51st state. And we haven’t heard more about turning Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East.
Apparently, the falling stock market and saner voices (keep your eye on Bessent the new tariff point man) have gotten through to him, telling him the 100-day clown show is over.
 
See Eleanor Clift’s book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).
              Twitter:  @douglas_cohn
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END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND