We are now 101 days into President Donald Trump’s second administration. The pace has been relentless. No president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has reshaped the federal government so fundamentally. The days of tinkering around the edges are over. The long-overdue conservative revolution has finally begun.
Cementing these gains will require discipline and focus. The next 100 days will be critical.
The clock is ticking.
The president faces major battles in Congress. But the more immediate fight lies within the executive branch itself. And beyond that loom the courts.
The legislature
Congress will be the main battleground over the next 100 days. The House and Senate must secure the president’s legislative agenda — and that agenda hinges entirely on the budget reconciliation bill.
Taxes, border security, deportation capacity, defense, energy — all of it is packed into the budget. Executive orders and existing funds can only take the administration so far. Customs and Border Protection urgently needs more detention space and more beds. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does too.
Making the president’s first-term tax cuts permanent remains critical. The administration’s aggressive moves to realign global trade could trigger the necessary deflation our economy desperately needs. Americans will need tax relief to weather that adjustment. Small businesses also need clarity now, not in a last-minute Christmas Eve deal, to plan for 2026 and beyond.
The clock is ticking. The sooner the tax cuts become law, the sooner the country can reap their full economic rewards. And that’s before tackling newer campaign promises, like “no tax on tips” — or codifying major parts of the Department of Government Efficiency’s achievements.
Next up: the House Judiciary Committee. Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), we’re looking at you. Democrats have spent years turning the courts into a blunt instrument against this White House. Meanwhile, the GOP-run committee has done little more than issue sternly worded press releases.
Enough. Subpoenas should be flooding out. Start dragging these judges into public hearings. Make them answer for the lawless overreach they’ve embraced. Oversight isn’t optional — it’s long overdue.
Then we have the matter of nominations. The Senate cleared the first batch but left 30 critical appointments languishing on the floor — all out of committee, all ready for a vote. These aren’t ceremonial posts. They include key roles like assistant secretary of defense and ambassador to the United Kingdom.
The Senate’s response? Shrug and punt until August. That’s absurd. The administration can’t function with half a bench. The country can’t wait for lawmakers to finish their summer travel plans.
More on this slow-rolling disaster in Friday’s Beltway Brief.
The executive
The president needs more men. Hiring has slowed, with blame to spread around. It’s excellent to be thorough — and essential to keep the sort of people who sabotaged Trump 45 out of positions of power — but there is a limiting factor to Twitter inquisitions. Personal recommendations from good people should go a lot farther, and with them, bygones ought to be bygones.
Plenty of groups have their hands in this effort — from the DOGE to the Presidential Personnel Office to the departments themselves. Current staff members are doing excellent work, but many are putting in seven-day weeks and risking burnout. That pace isn’t sustainable.
Personnel remains policy. The president’s ambitious agenda requires a fully staffed government to carry it out.
A foreign policy breakthrough would help consolidate early gains. Trump’s renewed negotiations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this past weekend offer a promising sign. The president’s hardball approach may finally be forcing reality into a war that desperately needs it. An end to the conflict — and a path to peace — would mark a defining victory.
Then there’s the trade war. Trump’s first hundred days showed a clear willingness to break stale conventions in pursuit of fairer global trade. But both the policy framework and long-term goals still need definition.
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. And the messaging matters. Americans need to understand the “why” behind these moves — and the costs of failing to act.
If the White House has any chance of retaining control of this narrative, it will need to explain both the costs and the goals of these moves — and do so quickly. Again, the clock is ticking.
The judiciary
Much hinges on the courts. Chief Justice John Roberts has been unexpectedly wobbly on executive power — a place many court-watchers expected him to come in strong. Court-watchers had hoped for a decisive ruling against the abuse of nationwide injunctions — far-flung judges issuing sweeping orders on federal policy at the request of a handful of plaintiffs. That reckoning still hasn’t come, and it may never.
Right now, a battle is unfolding between an increasingly activist judiciary and a White House determined to govern. Democrats and their allies on the bench claim the Constitution grants federal judges the supreme power in American government — an interpretation that flatly rejects the vision of the Founders.
Roberts has long tried to preserve the court’s reputation by keeping its actual power restrained. But he’s now playing a dangerous game. This White House has signaled it will push back hard, and at some point, it may start ignoring the worst judicial overreaches altogether. In a government of coequal branches, both authority and respect must flow both ways.
But don’t forget birthright citizenship! That fight comes before the court in just two weeks, on May 15, and the eventual decision could reshape American immigration policy for decades to come.
And that’s only the beginning. From retooling the economy to advancing global peace, the ambitions of Trump’s second term remain immense. But early wins won’t hold without follow-through. The shock-and-awe phase is over. Securing those gains demands sustained focus and political courage.
Make no mistake: The long-promised conservative revolution has begun. Now comes the harder part — seeing it through.
The Spectator: A mammoth 100 days of Trump’s America First foreign policy
Glenn Beck: What I saw in the White House changed my view of Donald Trump
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Opinion & analysis, Politics
