Donald Trump has completed 100 days into his second term in office, clear differences are emerging with how he fared in his first term as president in 2017.
“Trump, who struggled to create a cohesive cabinet and make progress on bold initiatives like the southern border wall and federal spending cuts, is more confident and prepared this time,” said Matthew Dallek, a professor at George Washington University.
The head of the White House is pushing presidential power to almost imperial limits
“Trump didn’t believe he was going to win in 2016. And I don’t think the people around him thought they were going to win. I don’t think they were very prepared. But now they were very prepared.”
In his second term, Trump has pushed the limits of executive power to dismantle entire government agencies, arrest and deport undocumented immigrants and foreign students, and implement a radical tariff program in an effort to transform the way the US does business with the world, shaking up the global economy.
Dallek says Trump is more “bold” and, after years of investigations into a range of issues, from his business practices to his ties to Russia and the January 6 attack on the Capitol, has focused on “revenge” against his opponents.
“In his first term, he appointed Jeff Sessions, who was a longtime senator from Alabama, as attorney general. And whatever you think of Sessions at one point, he decided to appoint a special counsel, an independent counsel, to investigate Trump’s ties to Russia in the 2016 campaign. You know, Trump said, ‘I’m going to have total control, but even people who have opposed me in the past, I’m going to target them with the great power of federal spending.’”
Trump has used executive orders to sanction law firms that participated in lawsuits against him and has withdrawn security protection from his political opponents. The administration has also detained scores of foreign students and threatened to withhold federal funding for universities over diversity, equity and inclusion programs, climate initiatives and pro-Palestinian protests. Human rights groups have condemned the policies.
Dallek says a key change between 2017 and the start of Trump’s second term has been the use of Project 2025, the 900-page conservative policy plan that many of his top officials were involved in drafting before Trump took office. Trump has used a series of executive orders to enact his proposals and even go beyond them.
“Project 2025, I think, has been quite influential as a plan. We’re seeing it play out now in the administration. In particular, the idea of targeting the federal bureaucracy, dismantling the federal bureaucracy and beyond. USAID, the Department of Education, foreigners are becoming enemies of his administration.”
Since his inauguration in January, Trump and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk, have dismantled the federal government, laying off over 200,000 workers and attempting to dismantle various agencies.
He has signed executive orders, simultaneously using the century-old wartime act to deport immigrants to a mega-jail in El Salvador, while warning that American citizens could be next. Trump has sought a confrontation with judges and imposed a series of penalties on law firms involved in previous criminal or civil cases against him. Among other things, he has also cracked down on the media, which he still calls “the enemy of the people,” and restricted access to the media that covers the White House.
“But politically, I think Trump was more cautious in some ways. I mean, he would back down a little more often in his first term when he came under political pressure. We saw a little bit of that when he put a 90-day pause on these last tariffs, but I think much bolder, more extreme decisions to enact the agenda that he would have wanted many countries to implement for a long time.”
On the foreign stage, Trump has made territorial claims to Greenland, Panama and Canada. Trump is ending his first three months with the lowest approval ratings of any president since World War II, according to a Gallup poll. Many experts say the US president shows signs of the same volatile leader the world saw from 2017 to 2021. The highly-tense clash that made the rounds of the world between him and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, a debate instigated by Vice President JD Vance, alarmed allies who were already worried about his return.
The question now is whether Trump, who at one point called himself “THE KING” on his “TruthSocial” platform, will be willing to give up power?! He recently stated that when he repeatedly mentioned a 3rd term that would challenge the Constitution, “he wasn’t kidding“.
