Michael Goodwin: Trump is already hitting the ground running as his first 100 days in office are off to a historic start
A headline last week focused on what Donald Trump could get done in his first 100 days.A better focus would have been on his first 100 hours. There’s hitting the ground running, and then there’s Trump 2.0.
No president in modern history has come to the Oval Office better prepared and more determined to get big things done fast. No sooner had he taken the oath than executive orders, pardons, appointments, speeches, public meetings and press conferences began piling up. The flurry included an historic gathering on artificial intelligence where private firms promised investments of $500 billion! All that and more happened before Trump took his can-do show on the road Friday for visits to the disaster areas of North Carolina and California. All along, he was more available to the press in one week than Joe Biden was in a year. Much of the early activity centered on Trump’s No.1 priority: closing the border and rounding up and deporting criminal migrants. He also delivered a video speech to the Davos Economic Forum, where he offered business elites a deal: produce your goods in America, or get hit with big tariffs. The dramatic contrast between the two presidents featured a large executive order Trump signed on his first day.
It revoked about 80 Biden orders and covered everything from the border to DEI to green mandates. The scope alone demonstrates Trump’s determination to change the nation’s direction right out of the gate. The tone was also striking, starting with “The previous administration has embedded deeply unpopular, inflationary, illegal, and radical practices within every agency and office of the Federal Government.” He promised to “restore common sense to the Federal Government and unleash the potential of the American citizen.” In his visits to western North Carolina, which had been devastated by Hurricane Helene, and fire-ravaged Los Angeles, Trump was both consoler-in-chief and persistent citizen advocate. In North Carol...