Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Trump’s First 100 Days Changed the Game – the Next 1300 Could Change the Nation

Opinion

Donald Trump

President-elect Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York

Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images

The country has now witnessed and felt the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term. These days were filled with unrelenting, fast-paced executive action. He signed a record-breaking number of executive orders, though many have been challenged and may be reversed. Working with Congress to pass legislation, though more difficult, leads to more enduring change and is less likely to be challenged in court. While certainly eventful, the jury is still out on how effective these first days have been. More importantly, the period of greater consequence - the months following the first 100 days, which should focus on implementation - will ultimately determine whether the president’s drastic changes can stand the test of time and have their desired impact on American society.

The first months of all Presidential terms include outlining a vision and using presidential influence to shift priorities and change governance structures. The media often focuses on polling and popularity, comparing previous presidents and highlighting public perception of the president's handling of specific issues like the economy, immigration, and national defense. Rasmussen Reports' daily Presidential Tracking Poll now shows 50 percent of likely voters approve of President Trump's job performance, but change has never been popular, and he is unapologetically pursuing it in these first months.


The Trump Administration should be credited for impressive planning and execution, transitioning from campaign to elected official, with a rapid roll-out of policy objectives and assembly of nearly his entire cabinet with blinding speed. We should also recognize the level of transparency brought to government spending and operations through publicized data and open sharing of findings of digital investigations into federal agencies. The President has also spurred national dialogue about the role, size, and management of government and public servants (which has forced introspection among government agencies and government-adjacent organizations that support them).

The president’s goals and areas of focus include higher levels of military recruitment, lower numbers of migrant crossings at the southern border, loosening of regulations to increase energy production, increased foreign investment to promote the creation of manufacturing jobs, attempts to reduce or eliminate global trade imbalances, and promoting a merit-based society.

Yet any progress toward achieving these feats will be overshadowed, and President Trump risks being remembered by some for retribution, destruction, authoritarianism, bigotry, and vitriol if his administration doesn’t change tactics soon. The current approach - indiscriminately dismissing public servants, erratic economic policy stances, and strong-arm use of government pressure to reshape social issues in schools, businesses, and institutions - is being challenged by a growing number of people in the court of public opinion, not to mention actual courts with greater jurisdiction across the country.

President Trump has three critical opportunities to strengthen the federal government through smarter personnel management, greater accountability, and improved operational effectiveness.

First, while the administration’s new civil service regulations reclassifying upwards of 50,000 federal employees aim to enhance policy responsiveness, they fall short of addressing the deeper flaws in the federal hiring process. Structural reforms, not just removals, are needed to modernize how talent is recruited and retained.

Second, the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency has sown confusion, fear, and unnecessary duplication. Rather than building a new bureaucracy, the administration should work with existing oversight bodies like auditors and inspectors general with clearer mandates and resources to combat fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement.

Third, the administration must articulate a coherent vision and management agenda, complete with clear performance goals, timelines, and feedback loops. These tools are well-known, effective, and already embedded within the government. What's needed is top-level leadership commitment and empowered public servants to use these mechanisms to their full potential.

His first 100 days and attempts at bold reform underscore that incremental changes in governance are no longer sufficient to address the magnitude of challenges facing the nation, and the country should move beyond improving government to transforming it. The President, Congress, the public, and the public administration community have important roles to play in reshaping government. The next 100 days call for once-in-a-generation leadership typified by respect for people, adherence to the rule of law, and rebuilding institutions that can help reestablish trust and deliver the results the American people deserve.

The next 1,300 days will be important for all of us. The President has demonstrated that the government deeply impacts our daily lives—every person and every community across our country. In the months to come, how we provide care and services to our most vulnerable populations, ensure the economic stability of our markets and individual households, secure our borders, and ensure the safety of our neighborhoods, and learn about our history and our country's traditions will be affected.

President Trump has an opportunity to truly be transformative and earn a place among the most consequential leaders of our time. In his first 100 days in office, he has attempted to overwhelm opposition and disrupt the administrative state. Still, now his charge should be to implement a positive vision for America that includes everyone, unites a sharply divided country, and rebuilds government as something all Americans can call great again.

James-Christian B. Blockwood is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Read More

Ingrassia Exit Highlights Rare GOP Pushback to Trump’s Personnel Picks

President Donald Trump speaks at a White House press briefing on Jan. 30, 2025.

Credit: Jonah Elkowitz/Medill News Service

Ingrassia Exit Highlights Rare GOP Pushback to Trump’s Personnel Picks

WASHINGTON — Paul Ingrassia withdrew his nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel on Tuesday night after facing Republican pushback over past controversial statements.

While Ingrassia joins a growing list of President Donald Trump’s nominees who have withdrawn from consideration, many who have aired controversial beliefs or lack requisite qualifications have still been appointed or are still in the nomination process.

Keep ReadingShow less
A Revolution in Congressional Decision-Making
low light photography of armchairs in front of desk

A Revolution in Congressional Decision-Making

The dysfunction of today’s federal government is not simply the product of political division or individual leaders; it is rooted in the internal rules of Congress itself. The Founders, in one of their few major oversights, granted Congress the authority to make its own procedural rules (Article I, Section 5) without establishing any framework for how it should operate. Over time, this blank check has produced a legislative process built to serve partisan power, not public representation.

The result is a Congress that often rewards obstruction and gridlock over compromise and action. The Founders imagined representatives closely tied to their constituents—one member for every 30,000 to 50,000 citizens. Today, that ratio has ballooned to one for every 765,000 in the House, and in the Senate, each member can represent tens of millions (e.g., California). As the population has grown, representation has become distant and impersonal, while procedural rules have tightened the grip of party leadership. Major issues can no longer reach the floor unless the majority party permits it. The link between citizens and decisions has nearly vanished.

Keep ReadingShow less
Lasting peace requires accepting Israel’s right to exist

US President Donald Trump hailed a "tremendous day for the Middle East" as he and regional leaders signed a declaration on Oct. 13, 2025, meant to cement a ceasefire in Gaza, hours after Israel and Hamas exchanged hostages and prisoners. (TNS)

Lasting peace requires accepting Israel’s right to exist

President Trump took a rhetorical victory lap in front of the Israeli parliament Monday. Ignoring his patented departures from the teleprompter, which violated all sorts of valuable norms, it was a speech Trump deserved to give. The ending of the war — even if it’s just a ceasefire — and the release of Israel’s last living hostages is, by itself, a monumental diplomatic accomplishment, and Trump deserves to take a bow.

Much of Trump’s prepared text was forward-looking, calling for a new “golden age” for the Middle East to mirror the one allegedly unfolding here in America. I’m generally skeptical about “golden ages,” here or abroad, and especially leery about any talk about “everlasting peace” in a region that has known “peace” for only a handful of years since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Keep ReadingShow less
A child looks into an empty fridge-freezer in a domestic kitchen.

The Trump administration’s suspension of the USDA’s Household Food Security Report halts decades of hunger data tracking.

Getty Images, Catherine Falls Commercial

Trump Gives Up the Fight Against Hunger

A Vanishing Measure of Hunger

Consider a hunger policy director at a state Department of Social Services studying food insecurity data across the state. For years, she has relied on the USDA’s annual Household Food Security Report to identify where hunger is rising, how many families are skipping meals, and how many children go to bed hungry. Those numbers help her target resources and advocate for stronger programs.

Now there is no new data. The survey has been “suspended for review,” officially to allow for a “methodological reassessment” and cost analysis. Critics say the timing and language suggest political motives. It is one of many federal data programs quietly dropped under a Trump executive order on so-called “nonessential statistics,” a phrase that almost parodies itself. Labeling hunger data “nonessential” is like turning off a fire alarm because it makes too much noise; it implies that acknowledging food insecurity is optional and reveals more about the administration’s priorities than reality.

Keep ReadingShow less