Historic and controversial changes at breakneck speed: Inside Trump’s first 100 days

Delivering the longest inaugural address in history in January, newly inaugurated President Donald Trump made clear he had little time to waste. “From this moment on, America’s decline is over,” he said, before adding: “All of this will change starting today, and it will change very quickly.” One hundred days later, Trump has found mixed success fulfilling the pledges in his speech to return “faith, wealth, democracy and freedom” to a beleaguered nation. Americans have grown increasingly skeptical, and his 41% approval rating in CNN’s latest poll is the worst for any president at his 100-day mark – including himself, in 2017. Yet few would argue he hasn’t met his promise of speed. Despite only signing one piece of legislation in a ceremony at the White House, Trump has ushered in the most dramatic change of any president in decades, transforming the nation’s economy, foreign policy, federal workforce and immigration enforcement in ways that left his opponents gasping. Working at breakneck pace and awake to lessons from his first term, he has pursued almost all of his agenda through executive actions. But in some areas, including deporting undocumented migrants and striking foreign deals, Trump has privately fumed his team isn’t working fast enough, according to people familiar with the conversations. And in the weeks ahead of his 100-day anniversary, two issues came to frustrate the president and stymie his ambitions for quick deals: the ongoing war in Ukraine and stalemated trade talks with China. Trump’s top advisers have long predicted the president would have a short timeframe upon taking office to truly effect change. In the early weeks of his second term, and even in the weeks leading up to it, his team privately acknowledged Trump needed to ram through his core policy priorities in his first two years in office, sources familiar with the discussions told CNN. “Of course it’s something we’ve discussed. These first two years are the big years,” a senior White House official said, explaining the rapid pace of change in the period ahead of congressional elections in 2026. Work on major legislation is expected to ramp up in the coming weeks as Republicans rush to pass new tax cuts. And one White House official argued the condensed timeframe the president is operating under is even more imperative for implementing Trump’s agenda abroad: “Once the midterms truly ramp up, the buy-in on foreign policy aspirations will likely wane,” the official said. A more disciplined operation that’s no longer immune to chaos The discipline in executing on his agenda is derived, in part, by Trump’s experience during his first term. He has regretted not working more quickly, people familiar with the matter say, lamenting some cautious former aides who told him to operate with more calculation. This time, there is no waiting for the right moment; everything has come all at once. Trump and his team once hoped to avoid getting bogged down by the strident leaks and infighting that consumed his first administration. Yet behind the scenes the White House and Cabinet have in recent weeks assumed some of the same chaos and discord that colored much of his first term. Screaming matches, staffing purges and scrambles to be the last adviser in Trump’s ear have all returned, applying a fresh layer of disorder to a presidency that has rocked the federal bureaucracy, the stock market and foreign capitals. Powerful advisers, like deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, operate with wide remit to push through sweeping change, much of it challenged in court. Elon Musk, the billionaire campaign donor assigned to revamp government, has infuriated some Cabinet members with his cuts to their agencies – though ahead of his expected departure as a special government employee next month, the budget reductions have fallen well short of his initial $1 trillion promise. Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles, whom the president often refers to as “the most powerful woman in the world,” continues to wield significant influence from her corner West Wing office. Despite rarely speaking in public, she is a formidable force at the White House, described by multiple Trump administration officials as the person who Trump listens to the most. But her influence has not always served to restrain a president now mostly unencumbered by the so-called “guardrails” much discussed during his first term. Amid a market meltdown, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has urged caution, but hasn’t attempted to dissuade a president intent on plowing ahead with a trade war. Empowered to conduct US foreign policy is Steve Witkoff, the president’s longtime friend and fellow real estate developer who is now attempting high-wire negotiations with Russia and Iran. Somewhat less so is national security adviser Mike Waltz, whom Trump argued made a “mistake” by inadvertently adding a journalist, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, to a private Signal chain in which top Cabinet and administration officials discussed sensitive plans to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen. Waltz was later forced to fire members of his staff after a far-right activist told the president they were disloyal. Revelations of another Signal chat deepened scrutiny over Trump’s controversial Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, although Trump has declined to part ways with either of them. Trump himself spends a large portion of his workdays in public, conducting the presidency in front of cameras. He has traveled infrequently, mostly for weekends at his properties in Florida and New Jersey, though he’ll visit Michigan on Tuesday to formally mark his first 100 days. He has found time to oversee major White House renovations, including plans to pave the Rose Garden, erect two 100-foot flagpoles on the North and South Lawns and redo the Oval Office in gold. Trump’s drive for quick foreign deals is tested On both trade and the Ukraine war, Trump has privately told advisers that reaching a deal is proving harder than he initially expected. China is dug in, apparently willing to wait Trump out as the pain of his trade war becomes felt among American consumers. And Russia’s President Vladimir Putin seems to be similarly playing for time, in no rush to end his bombardment, despite Trump’s growing irritation. “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along,” Trump complained about Putin on Saturday after meeting Ukraine’s president inside St. Peter’s Basilica ahead of Pope Francis’ funeral. The week of his 100-day mark in office will prove critical for the Ukraine war, as Trump and his advisers determine whether their efforts to end the war are bearing fruit or wasting their time. Trump’s inner circle never took seriously his campaign promise to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza on the first day of his presidency (Trump himself told TIME last week “it was said in jest”). But they did expect to have tangible results to point to by the 100-day mark, sources familiar with the discussions told CNN. Trump had originally selected Saudi Arabia for his first stop abroad of his new term, and will visit there next month. But when Pope Francis died those plans changed, and instead Trump made his first foreign stop in Europe, a continent he’s railed against frequently. Foreign policy has been an area that Trump has focused much of his efforts on in his second term, the sources said, because he views his role in ending wars abroad as being one of, if not the, most defining aspects of his legacy. “They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize,” Trump bemoaned in February during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office. “It’s too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.” As part of that push, Trump has hosted a series of foreign leaders, from Jordan’s King Abdullah II to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele. Netanyahu has come twice – once when Trump made headlines for suggesting the US should “take over” Gaza and turn the enclave into the “riviera of the Middle East” – and again in April as the president looks for a deal to end the Israel-Hamas war after a US-negotiated ceasefire deal fell through. The White House insists it’s not fazed by Trump’s declining approval numbers at the 100-day mark. “Media polls have always consistently underestimated President Trump’s support. We will not get bogged down by polls and we will continue to focus on everything the President is doing to deliver on his campaign promises,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to CNN. But with 2026 looming, those closest to the president have referred to the first 100 days as the primary period for which he will have the most leeway to push through major policy – and that the closer the administration comes to the midterm elections, the closer Trump will be to becoming a lame duck – especially if Republicans lose the House. “You lose the House, you lose the ability to do a lot of the key things you need to do,” one person close to Trump said. But it’s not only the outcome of the 2026 elections that jeopardizes Trump’s ability to act decisively. His top advisers also predict that once the midterm elections are over, the focus will quickly shift to the battle over who will succeed him. That’s not a conversation Trump much enjoys. It’s one of the reasons he flirts publicly with running for a constitutionally prohibited third term.