Yesterday, we published Part 1 of our review of the Trump administration's first 100 days. You can read that here. Today, we are going to cover some of the promises, controversies, and stories we didn’t have space for in Part 1. Then we’ll share some arguments from the left and right, and then Tangle Executive Editor Isaac Saul gives his take on Trump’s first 100 days.
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Other core promises.
Before moving on to covering other actions, reactions and stories from Trump's first 100 days, we're going to dive deep into two more core promises: ending inflation and tax reform.
Ending inflation.
President Trump campaigned extensively on bringing down inflation and prices for consumer goods. In his inaugural address, the president said he would “direct all members of my cabinet to marshal the vast powers at their disposal to defeat what was record inflation and rapidly bring down costs and prices,” then signed an executive order instructing “all executive departments and agencies to deliver emergency price relief” to Americans.
The average year-over-year inflation rate under President Joe Biden was 4.95%, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI). That was meaningfully higher than the rate under any other president since George H.W. Bush. Yearly inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022, the highest increase in 40 years, then gradually fell for the remainder of Biden’s term; when Trump took office, the year-over-year rate was 3.0%.
Inflation has continued to ease over Trump’s first three months in office, dropping to 2.8% in February and 2.4% in March. Prices for common goods and services have risen moderately, but their rate of increase has remained far below levels they reached — and sustained — during most of Biden’s term. For example, the price of meat, poultry, and fish rose 1.1% in Trump’s first three months, while the cost of rent for a primary residence increased 0.62%. New car prices were virtually unchanged, and the sticker price of used cars and trucks rose only 0.2% between January and March. Meanwhile, the average price of retail gasoline has risen 3% from $3.20 per gallon in January to $3.30 per gallon in April; however, the average price of all gasoline types dropped 6.3% in March.
Conversely, egg prices increased approximately 17% and were 60.4% higher in March than the year prior, due in large part to supply challenges linked to the bird flu. Prices have since begun to come down from these highs.
Many Americans continue to say that inflation remains a concern, with 38% of respondents to an April 2025 Harvard CAPS/Harris poll saying inflation remains their top issue, the highest share of any response (a finding that held across party lines). Furthermore, the potential impacts of Trump’s tariff policies loom large; 89% of U.S. adults think the tariffs are likely to result in higher prices on the products they buy, according to an April 2025 Gallup poll.
With tariffs and other economic policies still in their early stages, it’s too early to say whether President Trump has fulfilled his promises to bring down inflation. If current trends hold, he appears on track to keep inflation at low levels, though that would still fall short of his repeated promises to bring prices down and end inflation altogether. What’s more, the current trends do not seem likely to hold — the economic impact of tariffs (or, at least, the uncertainty of their implementation) raises the prospect of increased inflation in the months and years ahead, making this campaign promise one of the most difficult to evaluate through 100 days.
Promise meter: 6 out of 10. Inflation has continued on the downward trajectory that Trump inherited, but voter sentiment remains negative. Plus, Trump’s tariffs are widely expected to lead to price increases.
Tax reform.
The 2018 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was in many ways the centerpiece of Trump’s first term. In 2024, Trump campaigned on extending certain provisions of the TCJA that are set to expire at the end of this year, which mostly concern individual taxpayers and include a 37% maximum tax rate, increased child tax credit, and higher standard deductions. Trump also promised to eliminate all taxes on specific sources of income: tips, social security benefits, and overtime pay.
In July, the official RNC platform proclaimed its alignment with these goals in a narrow agenda — the whole of its section on tax reform reads, “Republicans will make permanent the provisions of the Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that doubled the standard deduction, expanded the Child Tax Credit, and spurred Economic Growth for all Americans. We will eliminate Taxes on Tips for millions of Restaurant and Hospitality Workers, and pursue additional Tax Cuts.”
While “no tax on tips” might have been 2024’s buzziest campaign slogan, as with other elements of Trump’s tax reform agenda, we have yet to see it come to legislative fruition. In the past few weeks, though, the administration has begun to show signs they are putting tax policy back on the docket.
On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expressed confidence that the tax portion of a large policy package will be passed by July 4. Bessent and White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett met with senators to discuss the bill, which they claim will permanently extend TCJA provisions as well as take on other initiatives, such as fully expensing new factory builds and lowering the corporate tax rate for manufacturers. “The House is moving things along quickly, and the Senate is in lockstep. We think that they are in substantial agreement,” Bessent said.
However, passing this bill would create a revenue shortfall, which the GOP has proposed to offset with a $1.5 trillion in federal spending cuts targeting social programs like Medicaid, SNAP, and veterans’ compensation. That won’t be enough to cover the gap, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, which released a report estimating that extending the cuts would raise the deficit by about $5 trillion ( long-term estimates reach up to $11 trillion over the next decade). Accordingly, Trump does not seem to have a path to achieving this campaign promise that doesn’t directly conflict with the promise he made during his address to Congress to balance the federal budget.
As he has done for his immigration and campus-reform policies, Trump hasn’t wielded executive actions to achieve his tax goals, let alone at the breakneck speed he promised (“right away, first thing in office,” he said about eliminating tip taxes). And his attempt to address the probable budget shortfall his proposed tax reforms would bring about may impair important government services and incentives, like the IRA’s tax credits for renewable energy, which 21 Republican lawmakers just came out in defense of.
Overall, things are moving, and a date is set. A bill with many of Trump’s tax promises is making its way through Congress, and Bessent seems determined to get it through by Memorial Day.
Promise meter: 5 out 10. The administration is pursuing Trump’s tax reform promises, but we’ll have to wait and see if they can pass meaningful legislation.
Things we missed.
Throughout Trump’s first 100 days, plenty of big stories have broken on issues that were not centerpieces of his campaign. We didn’t know where else to share some of these accomplishments, or controversies, so we decided to cover a few blurbs in a section titled "things we missed.” Where appropriate, we’ll reference promises Trump made related to the story.
Banning trans women and girls from women’s and girls’ sports. President Trump centered criticisms of Democratic policies on transgender people in his campaign’s final stretch, in particular trans women and girls’ participation in sports. In October, Trump suggested that if elected he would take executive action to ban transgender athletes from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity. In February, he fulfilled this promise, signing an executive order prohibiting all participants who do not meet the government’s definition of biological females from competing in girls’ and women’s sports.
Energy production. On the campaign trail, Trump promised to “bring down the cost of energy” and “drill, baby, drill.” Then, on his first day in office, he signed an executive order declaring a national energy emergency and directing department and agency heads “to facilitate the identification, leasing, siting, production, transportation, refining, and generation of domestic energy resources, including, but not limited to, on Federal lands.” Battery storage and solar and wind energy were excluded from the order’s definition of “energy.”
Trump also moved to open up 625 million acres for oil and gas drilling and has overseen the start of production on new oil ventures involving U.S. energy companies. However, uncertainty about the administration’s trade policies has hindered some aspects of its energy agenda. Lastly, U.S. oil prices have decreased over 20% to four-year lows since January 20 amid lower oil demand growth forecasts.
Executive orders targeting DEI programs. President Trump and his campaign surrogates spoke out against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in government, schools, and other areas of U.S. society. Additionally, the campaign planned to reinterpret Civil Rights-era laws to address purported anti-white discrimination and roll back government policies designed to aid minority groups. Broadly, Trump sought to cast his campaign as a rebuke of the left’s social agenda during President Biden’s term, often used interchangeably with “DEI.”
Trump has continued to center this issue in the early days of his administration, signing a slew of executive orders that aim to dismantle DEI initiatives across the federal government. One of his first orders called for the elimination of all DEI-related mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities within the federal government. An order issued on his second day revoked previous executive actions that promoted DEI in federal operations, eliminated affirmative-action requirements for federal contractors, and directed federal agencies to identify corporations, nonprofits, and educational institutions that may be engaged in “discriminatory” DEI practices. Subsequent orders targeted issues like “DEI in the foreign service” and subjects taught in K-12 schools involving “gender ideology” or critical race theory.
Executive orders targeting law firms. Since February, President Trump has issued a series of orders targeting law firms that he claims have engaged in “conduct detrimental to critical American interests.” The orders suspended security clearance and access to government buildings for lawyers from the targeted firms, and also called for a review of their federal contracts. Some of the firms have responded by making deals with the White House that include a commitment to pro bono work on behalf of the administration and acknowledgements of “wrongdoing.” Others have sued to challenge the orders, and federal judges have blocked large portions of them from going into effect while the cases play out.
January 6 pardons. On the first day of his second term, President Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of roughly 1,500 people who had been charged in connection to the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots, fulfilling a campaign promise. (Note: although Trump specified that he would pardon those “wrongfully convicted,” his pardon did not commute unrelated sentences of those who were pardoned for their January 6 participation.)
Signalgate and controversies at the Pentagon. In March, The Atlantic revealed that Editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg had been inadvertently added to a Signal group chat with Trump administration officials as they discussed impending military operations against the Houthis in Yemen. Goldberg published a partial transcript of the chat with details on military operations excluded, then published the full transcript after the Trump administration challenged his story.
In April, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth — who shared sensitive details about the Houthi strikes in the Signal chat — came under scrutiny after Defense Department officials who had been fired for allegedly leaking sensitive information criticized his leadership. Additionally, The New York Times reported that Hegseth shared sensitive information about the strikes in Yemen in a second Signal chat that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer. These incidents preceded an NPR report that the Trump administration had begun the search process to replace Hegseth, but the White House denied the story. On Thursday, the administration announced National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who added Goldberg to the chat, was leaving his post and would instead be nominating him to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Social Security and Medicare. President Trump consistently promised on the campaign trail and during his first term in office that he would not support any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. However, after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was tasked with identifying “waste, fraud, and abuse” within these programs, the administration has significantly cut jobs at the Social Security Administration.
Additionally, the budget blueprint adopted by House Republicans calls for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid, to find at least $880 billion in savings over 10 years. Although the Congressional Budget Office calculated that those savings would not be possible without cuts to Medicaid, Trump told TIME that he would veto any bill that includes cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. House Speaker Mike Johnson also affirmed that these programs would not be cut, though he did not specify where the proposed budget cuts would come from.
Strikes against the Houthis. Beginning in March, the United States has carried out regular strikes against Yemen’s Houthi rebels, which President Trump said were retaliation for the Houthis’ attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waters. Trump also re-designated the group as a terrorist organization after President Biden removed the Trump-era designation to allow aid deliveries to civilians in Yemen. Trump had previously criticized Biden for carrying out strikes against the group.
Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement and World Health Organization. During his first term, President Trump moved to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement and World Health Organization, and he promised to do so again if reelected (President Biden reversed the removal orders during his term). On his first day in office, Trump followed through on these promises, signing executive orders to withdraw the U.S. from both organizations, which will take effect next year.
What the left is saying.
The left is uniformly critical of the start of President Trump’s term, with many arguing that several worst-case scenarios have already come to pass. Overall, their core critiques focus on the impact of the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) cuts to the government, Trump’s posture toward traditional U.S. allies and adversaries, the administration’s use of executive power, and tariffs.
Commentators on the left say DOGE has been ineffective and chaotic, making frequent mistakes while failing to provide the transparency that Elon Musk promised. In The Nation, Robert L. Borosage highlighted negative effects of DOGE on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, writing, “Trump promised repeatedly in his campaigns to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, the heart of America’s limited safety net. Yet Musk’s DOGE operatives parachuted into Social Security offices, illegally gaining access to computer systems, calling for shuttering regional offices, eliminating staff, rewriting computerized systems, while planning cuts of 7,000 employees and offering buyouts and early retirement to the entire staff of 57,000.” The New York Times’s Maureen Dowd said, “When people begin to realize that their Veterans Affairs office has been closed, or when DOGE is messing with Social Security and Medicare, when it filters down to them, which it’s going to do really fast — it’s cliché to say he’s like the Wizard of Oz, but the curtain is opening.” Some, like Jacobin’s Nick French, also note that “DOGE has failed to make a dent in federal spending.”
For others, Trump’s foreign policy has been the most alarming part of his first 100 days. In The Philadelphia Inquirer, Trudy Rubin wrote that Trump has turned “democratic allies, from Canada to Europe to Australia, into reluctant adversaries who distrust and fear the U.S. president. All while aiding our true adversaries, Russia and China, with policies that display weakness and incompetence, and undercut U.S. security at home and abroad.” David Rothkopf echoed this sentiment in The Daily Beast, writing, “The U.S. has switched sides in Ukraine, becoming a propaganda arm and errand boy for the Kremlin. We are no closer to a lasting end to that war than we ever were; rather, we have strengthened the aggressor and made the world more dangerous.”
The president’s use of executive power to target individuals, businesses, schools, and others lead some on the left to say that he is behaving like a dictator. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch wrote, “The vast powers of the U.S. executive branch — to investigate or spy on people and prosecute them or audit their income taxes or bring civil cases — are not new… Still, Americans believed there were guardrails that included public opinion, congressional resistance, judicial rulings, and investigative journalism. Those were the four pillars that took down Nixon in 1974, and all of these tools have been activated with Trump in 2025. But rather than surrendering to political gravity, Team Trump seems determined to pretend none of this is happening and turn the knobs of dictatorship up to 11.” In a roundup of the start of Trump’s term from New York Times columnists, many also noted the White House’s dismissal of government watchdogs, defiance of court orders, roundups of student protestors, and sweeping orders to eliminate federal agencies all point to an unchecked executive branch. The Guardian’s Sidney Blumenthal added, “Trump’s crusades have been made possible by his invocation of emergency powers. But his executive orders declaring emergencies are rooted in fictions. There is no real war to justify his use of the Alien Enemies Act… rather than staging an intervention to assert their rightful constitutional authority, the Republicans have allowed Trump carte blanche for his rampage.”
Perhaps the largest target of criticism from the left is Trump’s tariff agenda and associated economic policy. The New Yorker’s John Cassidy called the first 100 days “an unprecedented economic fiasco,” writing, “In the period before Trump suspended his reciprocal tariffs, and again before he backpedalled on his attacks on Powell, stocks, bonds, and the currency fell in unison—a phenomenon more commonly associated with developing countries experiencing capital flight.” In CNN, Stephen Collinson argued that Trump has “deliberately and singlehandedly adopted policies that are almost certain to spike prices even more; that could lead to shortages; and that have CEOs and small businesses dealing with chaos and the possibility of a recession.” In The Guardian, Robert Reich said Trump’s tariffs pose an existential threat to the United States, and argued the next 100 days of Trump’s term will be even more destructive if they take effect. “We have witnessed what can happen in just the first 100 days. I’m not at all sure we can wait until the 2026 midterm elections and hope that Democrats take back at least one chamber of Congress. At the rate this regime is wreaking havoc, too much damage will have been done by then,” he wrote.
Finally, some writers like New York Magazine’s Ed Kilgore say Trump has already squandered his “honeymoon” period. “It’s now Trump’s unsatisfactory economy; Trump’s executive power grabs; Trump’s disorderly world; Trump’s despised and privacy-violating federal government; Trump’s arrogant, wealthy elites; Trump’s contempt for the struggles of working people — it’s Trump who’s in the news each morning, to the point that he can no longer embody the chronic hunger and thirst of the American people for change. And that’s very bad news for his party in both 2026 and 2028,” Kilgore said. In Newsweek, Tom Rogers suggested Trump could even lose support among his base as tariffs begin to take effect.
What the right is saying.
As has been the case with many key issues through the first three months of President Trump’s term, the right is mixed on the president’s first 100 days. On one side, longtime supporters of Trump reflect positively on the start of his term, praising his administration’s preparedness to hit the ground running. Conversely, some conservatives approve of elements of the president’s agenda but express concern about his expansive use of executive action and rollout of tariffs.
For many on the right, Trump’s administration has been a crowning success, demonstrating a mix of preparedness and aggressive pursuit of goals. The Daily Signal’s Jarrett Stepman wrote, “Trump 2.0 has been one of the most successful early presidencies since FDR… Whereas Trump’s predecessor was a virtually comatose upholder of an old regime, one that had become quite radical in its aims and tyrannical in its operation, Trump is a disruptor. He is pushing the envelope to an extent far beyond even his first term in office. This is Trump’s populist counterrevolution.” Blaze Media’s Christopher Bedford advanced a similar viewpoint, writing Trump has already ushered in “the long-overdue conservative revolution.”
Bedford and other commentators point to the crackdown at the border, the moves to dismantle certain federal departments and agencies, executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and efforts to reset global relationships as the hallmarks of Trump’s first 100 days that have set him up for success in the years ahead. “The avalanche of orders, actions and proposals reveals his biggest and most important accomplishment — Trump is continually expanding the outer limits of what a president can hope to achieve. His comfort with the power and prestige of the office allows him to unmask conventional wisdom as a paper tiger. Tell him that something can’t be done, and he takes that as a challenge. That is his defining difference,” Michael Goodwin said in The New York Post.
Trump’s supporters on the right tout the president’s immigration actions, in particular, as a core campaign promise already fulfilled. “Here’s a statistic you won’t hear on ABC: The Trump administration has reportedly only released nine illegal aliens between January 20 and April 1,” The Daily Caller’s Natalie Sandoval wrote. “Biden’s administration released 4,832 illegal aliens into the country on a single day in 2023.” In The Federalist, M.D. Kittle added, “100 days in, the border has effectively been closed down to illegal immigrants, as Trump pledged on the campaign trail.” Finally, The Washington Examiner’s Tiana Lowe Doescher noted that the administration has fulfilled its promises on shutting down the border and halting controversial parole and asylum programs despite legal challenges to their immigration actions at nearly every turn.
Others remain supportive of Trump’s tariff agenda, viewing it as a bold step toward rebalancing global trade. In The American Conservative, Charles Benoit called the initial tariffs rollout “the first steps toward the golden age of America,” writing that Trump must now “cajole Congress into cementing his revenue and protection tariff actions.” Blaze Media’s Bedford similarly praised the potential of the tariffs but added “stabilizing the tariff regime and isolating China in a way that’s sustainable for the U.S. economy must rise to the top of the to-do list.”
Conversely, many writers representing traditional conservative and small-government schools of thought have been more critical on Trump’s first 100 days. The Wall Street Journal editorial board was especially pessimistic about the outlook for the president’s term, arguing that Trump “needs a major reset if he wants to rescue his final years from the economic and foreign-policy shocks he has unleashed.” The board added, “The execution hasn’t matched the promises. That would seem to apply to DOGE, which we’ve supported but has been so frenetic it isn’t clear what it is achieving.”
National Review’s editors said Trump’s term was more of a mixed bag, applauding his executive orders to “halt the leftward lurch of the federal government” but suggesting the speed at which the administration was moving could prove self-defeating. On the recent El Salvador deportations, “The White House has now made it a matter of high principle that everyone deported to a prison in El Salvador stay there, even though it clearly made mistakes in identifying gang members and its legal position is tenuous at best.” The New York Post’s Goodwin, who otherwise praised the start of Trump’s term, echoed this point with regard to tariffs, which he called “rocky” and “dispiriting.”
The Washington Examiner’s Doescher also noted the economic uncertainty raised by the president’s policies, pointing to the bond market, inflation, and gross domestic product as core areas that could be harmed by tariffs. Finally, libertarian writers like Reason’s Jeff Luse called out the effect of Trump’s trade policies on energy policy, writing, “Despite the president's steps to open up oil and gas development, the industry has seen a turbulent 100 days under Trump. The president's back-and-forth trade policies have sparked industry-wide uncertainty and sent oil prices tumbling.” Furthermore, Luse noted, “Nearly $8 billion worth of other clean energy projects were canceled or downsized in the first quarter of 2025 because of Trump's tariffs and federal funding freezes.”
Overall, the right views Trump’s immigration actions, efforts to streamline the federal government, and executive orders targeting DEI programs as positive steps toward fulfilling his campaign promises. However, tariffs — and the associated economic uncertainty — have yielded mixed reactions.
My take.
I distinctly remember the first time Trump won over part of my heart in 2015. It was during an exchange with Jeb Bush at one of the Republican debates. After being booed down by the live audience, Trump told viewers at home that the people they heard booing were donors who bought tickets to the debate, letting them know that Trump supporters weren’t able to get seats.
