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- [00:00]
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- [00:30]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [01:46]
Isaac Saul
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul. It is Thursday, May 1st. Happy May, everybody. Today we're gonna be talking about Donald Trump's first hundred days in office. This is a special edition, a little mega edition, breaking down all the stories that have kind of been central to the campaign. We're gonna do something that's very tangly in how we cover this, which I'll explain in a moment. Before we do, though, I wanna jump in with some. First up, the United States and Ukraine signed a critical mineral rights deal to give the US Preferred access to Ukraine's mineral resources in return for the creation of an investment fund in Ukraine. The agreement does not require Ukraine to reimburse the US for past military aid, but will count that assistance as a contribution to the investment fund. Number two, a New Jersey judge ruled that activist Mahmoud Khalil can argue his wrongful deportation case in federal court, rejecting the Trump administration's assertion that the Immigration and Nationality act prevented a federal court from hearing the case. Number three, the Supreme Court heard arguments on a Catholic virtual charter school's attempt to become the first religious charter school in the US Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case, and a 44 split would uphold the Oklahoma Supreme Court's ruling blocking the school. And number four, inflation adjusted consumer spending increased 0.7% in March, while the monthly change in the core personal consumpt expenditures, the PCE price index, the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge, was approximately zero. Year over year, PCE rose 2.65% in March. And number five, the Department of Health and Human Services plans to implement a new process for testing vaccines, requiring all new vaccines to undergo placebo testing.
- [04:05]
Ad Voice
We get the latest now on President.
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Isaac Saul
Trump marking the first hundred days of his second term.
- [04:10]
Ryan Reynolds
Well, over the last 100 days, President Trump has moved at a frenetic pace to overhaul the federal government, enact his agenda through a barrage of executive orders.
- [04:18]
Isaac Saul
And test the limits of presidential power.
- [04:20]
Ryan Reynolds
And today, as he touts his accomplishments, he's also facing new questions about how Americans are perceiving his work so far.
- [04:27]
Isaac Saul
All right, that is it for today's quick hits, which brings us to our main story, which is our special edition on Trump's first 100 days in office. Very few things about Donald Trump's presidency could be called normal. He was an abnormal presidential candidate in 2016 when he took the Republican primary by storm. He presided over abnormal times with the Black Lives Matter protests in the beginning of COVID in 2020. He lost an abnormal pandemic election to Joe Biden in 2020, won an abnormal primary by Runaw in 2024, then won an abnormal general election where the incumbent candidate, Joe Biden, dropped out in the middle of the race and in which Trump survived two assassination attempts. Now, as the second ever president to serve a second non consecutive presidential term, President Donald Trump is defying the status quo and breaking norms once again. Even before he set foot in the Oval Office, Donald Trump was already busy negotiating with foreign leaders, bringing tech leaders to heel, and promising to majorly reform the executive branc. Since his confirmation on January 20, Trump's first 100 days have felt like a whirlwind. We've gotten story after story out of the White House of new executive orders, cabinet nominees, legal challenges, trade policies, firings, appointments, restructurings, negotiations and leaks. Then we've gotten the reactions to all those actions in the press, at universities, on the border, in the market and in the halls of Congress all across the globe. It's been legitimately hard to keep tabs on everything the Trump administration has been doing. So how do we cover a presidency that's been as active and, yes, abnormal as Donald Trump's second term? It's a tough challenge, but for us, the answer is pretty simple. We're going to do it by applying the same standard and structure we developed in his presidency the first time throughout President Biden's time in office and in the early days of this administration. Since there's so much to cover, we'll be reviewing President Donald Trump's first 100 days in a two part edition. Today is part one, where we'll be examining Trump's most central campaign promises and the degree to which he kept them. This edition is going to go out to all Tangle listeners and subscribers, and consistent with past reviews of Biden and Trump, we'll be implementing the Promise meter. That's a 1 to 10 scale measuring the degree to which a promise has been kept, with 10 being the best score. This is not an analysis of our judgment on the policy's efficacy. It is only a judgment on the degree to which Trump fulfilled a campaign promise. In other words, this edition will be a more objective overview on what Trump said his goals were and how he has done at achieving those goals. Tomorrow we'll release Part two, where we'll get into a more subjective overview of Trump's terms so far. First, we'll cover some of the things that have happened so far that weren't among Trump's major campaign promises, share some views from the left and right on his first 100 days, and then my take the full version of tomorrow's Friday edition will only be made available for paying Tangle members. A quick reminder that if you want to receive Friday Edition podcasts and you want ad free podcasts, you can become a member by going to readtangle.com membership as always, we're aiming to be as thorough as possible in our analysis, but putting into a single piece all the nuances of an office as vast as the presidency and an administration as active as Trump's, it's impossible. We'll certainly miss some things, but we're confident that you'll come away from our two part edition with a thorough, holistic understanding of the first hundred days of President Trump's second term. And of course, if you disagree with our analysis, you think we missed the mark or want to discuss the piece further, don't hesitate to write in. You can reach our team by writing to staffeadtangle.com we'll be right back after this quick break.
- [08:27]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [08:45]
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- [08:59]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [09:36]
Isaac Saul
With that, we're going to get into the core promises of the Trump administration. First up is the border, immigration and deportations. Trump campaigned heavily on immigration in 2024, making a few specific promises related to the southern border deportations and immigration policy. In particular, he vowed to perform the largest domestic deportation operation in American history, which in its early stages would focus on violent criminals and ultimately lead to the deportation of millions of people here illegally. He also promised to seal the border, resume construction of the border wall, hire 10,000 new Border Patrol agents and deploy active duty troops to the border, and aim to crack down on drug traffick gang activity across the border. In order to achieve his goals, Trump said he would reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy, revive the public health measure title 42, and restrict asylum eligibility. He also promised to terminate Biden era initiatives like the CBP1 app, and deport students who were involved in pro Palestinian protests that gripped college campuses across the country in the wake of October 7th. Finally, he promised to end birthright citizenship, a right granted to the children of unauthorized migrants laid out in the 14th Amendment. To achieve all these promises, Trump said he would focus on exercising his executive power rather than waiting for Congress. And he expressed confidence that he would succeed thanks to his reshaping of the judiciary in his first term. On the whole, Trump is moving fast to implement his immigration agenda despite a few hurdles, and he can claim some early successes, most notably with border encounters. Customs and Border Patrol tracks every encounter it has with unauthorized migrants at the border, a very useful metric for measuring border security, and the numbers since Trump took office are the lowest on record. In March, encounters with unauthorized migrants at the southern border fell to around 11,000, down from 96,000 in December, the last full month of the Biden administration. Trump has nearly brought catch and release to an end, though he hasn't been able to detain every migrant because a lack of detention space. So far, Trump's progress on deterring illegal immigration has been perhaps the crowning promise kept of the Trump administration. Immigration was key to both his 2016 and 24 victories, and securing the border has been a major focus in his first hundred. Conversely, Trump's mass deportation effort is much more of a mixed bag. Trump did declare a national emergency at the southern border on his second day in office, and according to the White House, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested more than 150,000 unauthorized immigrants and deported over 139,000 so far under Trump. That's a higher number of arrests than Biden's monthly average in 2024, but fewer deportations than Biden's mark of 57,000 per month. The White House has claimed that 75% of the people deported have had criminal records, though CBS learned that only 25% of the 238 migrants sent to a Salvadoran megaprison had criminal records in the United States. At this rate, Trump's goal of deporting 15 to 20 million people looks unattainable, which is not surprising. Immigration experts were skeptical he could bring a program of that scale into existence, and Trump is predictably running into bottlenecks with the capacity at detention centers. He's also running into a lot of legal trouble since Trump tried to stretch his executive authority through invoking a national emergency, designating members of foreign gangs as members of terrorist groups and claiming he can deport them as participants of an invasion under the Alien Enemies act, he has been stymied by the courts. Cases of American citizens being deported, detained or interrogated have also ramped up public and legal criticisms of his actions. On some of the smaller scale promises Trump is following through, he has shut down the CBP1 app, reinstated remain in Mexico, implemented a broad asylum ban, instituted ideological screenings at ports of entry, and ordered 1500 active duty soldiers to the border. ISE is also conducting workplace raids across the country. He has not re implemented Title 42, but the combination of his executive actions and policies are largely having the same impact on other smaller scale promises. The administration is attempting to follow through, but running into some roadblocks for instance, Trump has attempted to deport several students who participated in pro Palestinian protests, as promised, though some of those cases are also tied up in legal challenges. He has also ordered more border wall construction, but, as happened during his first term, has faced land acquisition and funding disputes. Finally, Trump signed an executive order to end birthright citizenship on his first day in office, but the administration was immediately sued and the order is now before the Supreme Court court. As for the drug trade and gang activity, Border Patrol has boasted major fentanyl seizures, and the lower number of crossings have also reduced the amount of drugs seized at the border. The New York Times also did a deep dive into how Trump's crackdown has struck fear into cartel leaders, some of whom have gone into hiding and shut down drug labs. So on Trump's promise meter, we give him an 8 out of 10. Trump is largely pursuing his immigration agenda how he said he would, and most of the hangups are tied to legal challenges. Next up is Trump's promises on spending and waste. As part of his agenda, Trump favored cutting federal costs through impoundment or underspending the budget Congress approves for executive departments. This turned into a new federal initiative on efficiency, which Donald Trump first discussed publicly in a conversation with Elon Musk that was live streamed on X on August 13, 2020. I think we need a government efficiency commission to say, like, hey, where are we spending money? That's sensible. Where is it not sensible? Musk said, adding, I'd be happy to help on such a Commission. On November 20, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy announced in an op ed in the Wall Street Journal that they would lead the new Department of Government Efficiency, or doge, primarily aimed at cutting the size of the federal government and cutting costs. Since taking his second oath of office on January 20, Trump has pursued federal cost cutting by directing DOGE to cancel wasteful contracts and the Office of Personnel Management, or opm, to cut the size of the federal workforce. So how have those initiatives fared? Let's start with the Department of Government Efficiency. Shortly after Trump was inaugurated and Ramaswamy dropped out of running DOGE to pursue a bid for Ohio governor, one of Trump's Day One actions was to sign an executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency to implement the president's Doge agenda by modernizing federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity. The initiative listed $55 billion in savings through canceled contracts and grants and now claims to have cut $160 billion in federal spending. However, DOGE has had to revise its goals several times. And while it's still too early to accurately quantify its total savings, it appears to be well short of even its revised target. Musk first set Doge's cost savings goal at $2 trillion a year. Then he lowered it to $1 trillion, then to $150 billion. Of the $160 billion the initiative currently says it has saved, an analysis from BBC has found that only $61.5 billion has been itemized and only $32.5 billion has been detailed with a receipt. What's more, a separate analysis from the Partnership for Public Service has found that Doge has actually cost the federal government $135 billion. Doge has also run into legal trouble with its methods. Most notably, 19 Democratic attorneys general sued Doge after it gained access to Treasury Department data. A federal judge temporarily banned Doge employees from accessing Treasury Department data, and now one employee is able to read that data if completing a mandated training. The initiative to cut the federal workforce, meanwhile, started in earnest in January with an email from OPM asking federal employees to commit to working in person from federal offices and a culture of restored accountability. OPM offered full pay and benefits through September to workers who couldn't commit to the new standards and agreed to resign by February 6th. Then, in February, Musk posted on X that federal employees must respond to an email from OPM asking for five things they accomplished in the previous week or risk being fired. Requirements to respond to those emails have since been dropped or ignored by many agencies. The Trump administration says 75,000 people have taken its buyout offer, but the number of federal employees currently on leave may be fewer. Separately, the administration has also laid off tens of thousands of probationary employees and defunded entire federal departments, notably including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Many of the employees dismissed by the federal government have since either been reinstated in their positions following successful legal challenges. Others have been rehired, as was the case when the Department of Health and Human Services fired 10,000 employees in early April. Taken together, the impact of Trump's focus on making the government more efficient is on track to fare much more poorly than past initiatives. President Clinton's Reinventing Government program of the 1990s consolidated over 100 agencies and cut over 250,000 federal jobs, and only about 25,000 of those came through an OPM buyout. The Clinton administration delivered a deficit reduction of $476 billion and four straight years of deficit cuts. Meanwhile, Trump is ahead of Clinton's pace on eliminated federal jobs at an estimated 121,000. But he may not have cut any spending and simultaneously has led a Republican Senate to pass a budget that will increase the deficit. In sum, Trump did establish DOGE as a task force to combat government efficiency and waste. He did put Musk in charge of it, and he has directed the executive branch to reduce the size of the federal government and workforce. However, he has not resolved inefficiencies or delivered savings anywhere close to the scale that he and Musk have suggested it would. On the contrary, he is overseeing an expanding federal budget and growing deficit, though notably, Trump did not actually campaign on a promise to balance the budget. Meanwhile, efforts to downsize the workforce have resulted in the dismissal of hundreds of thousands of federal employees. But the effort has been sporadic, disorganized and often stymied in court. So here on our promise Meter, we give Trump a 3 out of 10. He's attempted to implement the programs he promised to implement, but those programs have either been blocked or maximally ineffective at accomplishing their stated goals. All right, next up is 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 cabinets to marshal the vast powers at their disposal to defeat what was record inflation and rapidly bring down costs and prices. Then he 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, the CPI, that was meaningfully higher than any 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 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. Price increases for common goods and services have risen moderately but remain 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 March. However, the average price of all gasoline types has actually dropped 6.3% in March. Conversely, egg prices increased approximately 17% and were 60.4% higher in March than the Due in large part to supply challenges linked to the bird flu, prices have begun to come down from these highs. Now, I know I'm throwing a lot of numbers at you here, but we're going to keep going. Many Americans continue to say that inflation remains an issue, with 62% of respondents to a February 2025 CBS YouGov poll reporting an impression that prices are going up, while 77% say their income is not keeping up with inflation. Furthermore, the potential impacts of Trump's tariff prices loom large. 89% of US 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 the early stages of implementation, it's just too early to say whether President Trump has fulfilled his promise 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, has raised the prospect of increased inflation in the months and years ahead, making his campaign promise one of the most difficult to evaluate through a hundred days. That being said, for now we're giving Trump a 6.5 out of 10 on the promise meter. That's because inflation has continued the downward trajectory that Trump inherited, but some common goods have gone up and sentiment remains negative. Plus, Trump's tariffs are widely expected to lead to price increases. Next up is manufacturing and tariffs. In February of 2023, Donald Trump posted his plan to leverage tariffs as tools to encourage domestic production. Rather than raising taxes on American producers, President Trump will impose tariffs on foreign producers through a system of universal baseline tariffs on most imported goods, the post on Trump's campaign site Agenda 47 said. In addition to universal baseline tariffs on most foreign goods, President Trump's plan will reclaim our economic independence from China. President Trump will revoke China's most favored nation trade status and adopt a four year plan to phase out all Chinese imports of essential goods, everything from electronics to steel to pharmaceuticals. Elsewhere on the Agenda 47 website, Trump has promised to impose reciprocal tariffs with any country that currently has levies on US Imports. If India, China or any other country hits US with 100 or 200% tariff on American made goods. We will hit them with the same exact tariff. In other words, 100% is 100%. If they charge us, we charge them an eye for an eye, a tariff for a tariff. Same exact amount, trump said in a video detailing the strategy. Trump also promised to impose tariffs at several other times on the campaign trail. In an interview with Fox Business's Larry Kudlow in 2024, Trump expressed support for a 10% global tariff. I do like 10% for everybody, he said. But the problem with 10% is that some countries are much bigger abusers than others. Trump also repeated this objective several times at rallies a month before the election. Trump said that he would renegotiate the United States, Mexico, Canada trade deal, saying that he would consider imposing tariffs in excess of 100% on vehicles made by Chinese companies manufactured in Mexico. In short, Trump has been promising to widely impose heavy tariffs consistently for a long time. On February 1st, President Trump signed an executive order announcing new tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada, specifically 10% on all Chinese imports and 25% on all Mexican and Canadian imports except for Canadian energy imports, which would be taxed at 10%. The tariffs were then paused, but Trump threatened additional tariffs on Canada, Mexico, Europe and Venezuela before announcing his global tariffs and reciprocal tariff plan on April 2. The reciprocal tariffs were then paused for 90 days, but the 10% global tariffs remain in effect. Chinese imports, meanwhile, are currently being taxed at 145%, though the white House has exempted many tech products from the heightened rate. Ultimately, Trump has pursued almost exactly the tariff strategy he said that he'd pursue as president. He has implemented a 10% global tariff, pursued aggressive reciprocal tariffs, and has taxed imports from China in excess of 100%. He has only failed to deliver in some detailed aspects of this promise. For instance, the reciprocal tariffs weren't based on what the US Is charged by foreign countries, but instead calculated off the trade deficit the US has with each country individually. However, the tariffs also come with major asterisks. First, Trump has paused the reciprocal tariffs since they were first announced, and it's unclear if they'll ever be fully instated. Second, Trump's rollout of the tariffs has been unpredictable and sporadic, and the goals he's communicated for them are contradictory. So while he's made progress toward delivering on tariffs, it's not clear if he's on track towards his campaign promises. The only promise Trump has not made any progress toward is removing China's most favored nation trade status, which is defined by the World Trade Organization and not within the president's unilateral ability to control. On the Promise meter, we give Trump a 7 1/2 out of 10. He talked about imposing tariffs repeatedly while campaigning, and outside of a few details, he is pursuing the strategy he said he would. However, his commitment to his promises seems unsteady. We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [27:12]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [27:45]
Isaac Saul
Endless onboarding it bottlenecks, admin requests but what if things were different? Monday.com is different. No lengthy onboarding, beautiful reports in minutes, custom workflows you can build on your own. Easy to use prompt, free AI huh? Turns out you can love a work management platform. Monday.com the first work platform you'll love to use. Foreign Next up is ending the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. During the campaign, President Trump said in no uncertain terms that he would end foreign wars in the early days of his administration, remarking in his speech at the 2024 Republican National Convention, quote, I will end every single international crisis that the current administration has created. On the Ukraine war, he was even more explicit, saying, before I even arrive at the Oval Office, I will have the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine settled. Since taking office, however, the Trump administration has struggled to make meaningful progress toward a peace deal. Trump did speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss a potential ceasefire in his first month, which was followed by a meeting between US And Russian officials in Saudi Arabia, kicking off formal ceasefire discussions. During that time, the administration was also in contact with the Ukrainian government to negotiate a mineral rights deal as part of a ceasefire agreement. However, Trump grew increasingly critical of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, culminating in a tense Oval office meeting on February 28. Since then, Trump and Zelenskyy have taken some steps to smooth relations, meeting in Rome on Saturday in what the White House has called a very productive discussion, and Ukraine accepted In principle a 30 day ceasefire proposal by the United States. Putin similarly accepted the proposal on conditional grounds, suggesting that more discussions were necessary. Despite some early headway, though, the prospect of a lasting peace deal remains as remote as it was in December. On April 18, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US would halt its efforts to broker a ceasefire if the two sides would not make progress in the near future. President Trump has also expressed frustration with Zelenskyy and Putin in the last week, criticizing the former for his refusal to accept a U.S. proposal that included significant land concessions to Russia and the latter for a Russian airstrike on Kiev that killed 12 people. Last week, Trump appeared to walk back his campaign promise to quickly end the war, telling time, I said that figuratively, and I said that as an exaggeration. While stressing that he was still working on a resolution, Trump took a less explicit stance on the war in Gaza, vowing at the Republican national convention in July 2024 to broker a peace deal but declining to give a specific timetable. Instead, then candidate Trump urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war by the time he entered office, calling on Israel to get it over with while affirming his support for their campaign against Hamas. The administration took a significant step toward this goal when it announced a ceasefire deal brokered in coordination with the Biden administration between Israel and Hamas days before Trump took office. The agreement was structured into three phases, the first of which held from January 19 to March 18. Israel and Hamas completed several hostage and prisoner exchanges, and Israel initiated an incremental withdrawal from Gaza. However, the sides were not able to reach an agreement on the second phase of the deal, and Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza March 18. Since then, President Trump has continued to press both sides to come to terms on a peace deal, but has not outlined what that deal would entail. While hosting Netanyahu at the White House in April, Trump said, I'd like to see the war stop, and I think the war will stop at some point. That won't be in the too distant future. The president explicitly promised to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza in the early days of his administration, and thus far he has failed to follow through. While negotiations are ongoing with the parties involved in both conflicts, the timetable for peace deals remains uncertain, though he did make some progress recently by coming to terms on a mineral rights deal with Ukraine on Wednesday. At the end of the day, President Trump has already blown past his promised timeline, and he's begun to temper expectations that an end to either war is imminent. So on the promise meter, we give him a 3 out of 10. Trump promised to end these wars on day one repeatedly, which sets him up for a failing grade here, but he gets credit for bringing the sides together and striking a mineral rights deal with Ukraine. Next up is Trump's Promises to Reform Universities Donald Trump made promises to initiate reforms on universities in several places. First, the official Republican party platform listed 20 commitments that a Republican president and legislature would pursue, including two campus reforms. Commitment 16 reads quote, cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children, while Commitment 18 promises Republicans will deport pro Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again. Furthermore, on his campaign site, Trump promised to reclaim our once great institutions from the radical left. I will direct the Department of Justice to pursue federal civil rights cases against schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination, he said. And schools that persist in explicit unlawful discrimination under the guise of equity will not only have their endowment taxed, but through budget reconciliation, I will advance a measure to have them fined up to the entire amount of their endowment. Additionally, Trump promised to revise the standards for college accreditation in his first 100 days. Trump has taken several actions to pull back federal funding to private universities. The initiative started on February 3, when the department of justice announced a joint task force to Combat antisemitism with the Department of Education and Health and Human Services to root out antisemitic harassment in schools and on college campuses. In March, the Department of Education sent letters to 60 universities warning of potential penalties from pending investigations into alleged antisemitic discrimination and harassment. On March 7, the Trump administration announced it would cut $400 million in federal funding to Columbia University for allegedly failing to protect Jewish students from harassment. Then, on April 15, the administration announced it would freeze $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard University after the school refused to comply with the government's requirements to address alleged antisemitism and racially discriminatory practices. The administration has also slashed funding to other universities, including Cornell, Northwestern, Brown and Princeton, and asked the IRS to revoke Harvard's tax exempt status. Although Harvard and other schools have challenged the administration's decision in court, the funding freeze is likely to stand at least into the summer. As we clarified in a previous listener question, federal funding to these universities is administered through individual research grants. It does not fund undergraduate teaching or go toward private endowments. Additionally, the Trump administration has begun to deport students it claims have violated the terms of their visas by supporting Hamas terrorists. In March, former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for his participation in pro Palestinian protests. The administration claims that his continued presence in the United States has serious adverse foreign policy consequences. Separately, Tufts University graduate student Ramesa Ozturk was arrested in Somerville, Massachusetts for engaging in activities in support of Hamas. Lastly, on April 23, President Trump signed an executive order directing the Secretary of Education to realign accreditation with student focused principles. The order aims to promote intellectual diversity in universities through promoting increased competition in the accreditation process. Instead of pushing schools to adopt a divisive DEI ideology, accreditor should be focused on helping schools improve graduation rates and graduates performance in the labor market. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said Trump made university reforms a consistent feature of his presidential campaign. He said he would use federal funding as a tool to instigate reforms on DEI policies, would deport students on temporary visas involved with what the government has deemed pro Hamas protests, and would reform the college accreditation system. While it's too early to say whether these initiatives will achieve their attendant goals of changing the culture of college campuses, Trump has followed the exact strategies he laid out while campaigning on the Promise Meter. We give Trump a 10 out of 10. He's actively pursuing all the major policies he said he pursue to reform universities and campus culture. Next up is tax reform. The 2018 tax cuts and Jobs act 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. 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 a slightly narrower agenda. The whole of its section on tax reform reads, quote, 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 Bessant expressed confidence that the tax portion of a large policy package will be passed by July 4th. Bessant and White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett will meet 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 corporate tax rates for manufacturers. The House is moving things along quickly and the Senate is in lockstep. We think that they are in substantial agreement, bessen said. However, passing this bill would create challenges for other Republican governing priorities, namely a balanced federal budget. The Joint Committee on Taxation released a report estimating extending the cuts would raise the deficit by about $5 trillion. In contrast, Biden's biggest bill, the Inflation Reduction act, was projected to add $1 trillion over a decade. To offset this revenue decrease, the GOP is proposing $1.4 trillion in federal spending cuts that target programs like Medicaid, SNAP and Veterans Compensation compensation. Considering the $5 trillion cost estimate only represents the short term, blow, estimates reach up to $11 trillion over a decade. Trump does not seem to have a path to achieving his campaign promise that doesn't directly conflict with the promise he made during his address to Congress to balance the federal budget. So the red marks here as he has done for his immigration and campus reform policies, Trump has not wielded executive action to achieve his tax goals, let alone in the breakneck speed he promised right away. First thing in office, he said about eliminating tip taxes. And in his attempt to address the probable budget shortfall his proposed tax reforms would bring about, his proposed budget cuts 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 the green checks, I guess, are that a bill with many of Trump's tax promises is making its way through Congress and Bessant seems determined to get it through by Memorial Day. In other words, things are moving and a date is set with this administration pursuing its agenda mainly through executive actions, leading it into hundreds of lawsuits and conflicts in court. Any advancement on proposed legislation is significant. So on the promise meter, we give him a 5 out of 10. The administration is pursuing Trump's tax reform promises, but we're just going to have to wait and see if they can pass any meaningful legislation. All right, that is it for part one of our review of Trump's first 100 days. Tomorrow we're going to release part two. A reminder in part two we are going to cover many of the stories we missed. In this section, we're going to share some opinions from the left and the right, and then I'm going to give my take. So we'll see you then. Have a good one. Peace. Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Zahl, and our executive producer is John Lowell. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman with Senior Editor Will K. Back and Associate Editors Hunter Casperson, Audrey Moorhead Bailey Saw, Lindsay Knuth and Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website@retangle.com.
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Ryan Reynolds
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