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Trump’s 100-Day Wins the Media Will Downplay

President approaches benchmark with several victories despite historic obstruction, hostile press

By Jim Stinson, LifeZette:

President Donald Trump started taking heat for his first 100 days’ performance several weeks before the symbolic deadline even approached.

It seems to matter little to pundits that no one expects much from anyone in the first 90 days of anything. But when the number hits triple digits, new presidents endure their first judgment. The arbitrary benchmark became tradition when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took power in March 1933 and began enacting his New Deal agenda.


“[Trump] picked an originalist, conservative justice who was so squeaky clean that [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell didn’t take much flak for using the nuclear option to get him confirmed.”


Usually, presidents don’t see many legislative accomplishments passed so early, mainly because they have to work with Congress.

For Trump, his 100th day comes on Saturday. The president will commemorate the benchmark with a rally in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania is also where Trump announced his plans for his first 100 days. Like most presidential candidates in history, Trump overpromised and underestimated the sluggishness of Congress.

The 100-day focus has given liberals reason to justify their hysteria. The American republic is almost at end and Trump has already failed, despite his not being even one year into his four-year term, one Indianapolis journalist wrote.

“Three months in, the Trump presidency is worse than even many of its biggest critics predicted it would be,” wrote Matt Tully, the Indianapolis Star’s top columnist, in a recent cry for help on the pages of the once-conservative paper. “Three months in, Donald Trump has already done great damage to the country, its level of discourse, and the office of the presidency … He has failed America.”

Yet sober and non-liberal political observers see something entirely different: a conservative president who is overseeing an economic surge, slapping down enemies of humanity, and who successfully seated a respected jurist to the Supreme Court.

In fact, if you ask Trump, many of his supporters, and a slew of political observers they will agree his top accomplishment involves a once-obscure name: Neil Gorsuch.

Neil who?

Gorsuch was a federal judge in Colorado when Trump picked his name from a list he created during the 2016 presidential campaign. Someone from the list was to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016.

The Republican-led Senate’s refusal to replace Scalia on the Supreme Court until the 2016 election concluded raised the stakes, and made history.

Trump made the announcement in the East Room on Jan. 31, in his first appearance before the media in that historic room where peace treaties had been signed.

Gorsuch was recently confirmed after a failed filibuster, which also changed the rules of the Senate on Supreme Court nominees for good. Gorsuch is only 49, meaning he could be on the court for decades.

“The confirmation of Justice Gorsuch is an obvious and hopefully enduring accomplishment,” said Dan Holler, vice president of Heritage Action.

Cal Thomas, the longtime conservative columnist agreed, listing it as a top accomplishment.

“Gorsuch, because it could return law to the constitutional standard,” Thomas said in an email to LifeZette.

“Trump’s top accomplishment in the first 100 days is appointing Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court,” said Eddie Zipperer, an assistant professor of political science at Georgia Military College. “He picked an originalist, conservative justice who was so squeaky clean that [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell didn’t take much flak for using the nuclear option to get him confirmed.”

Restoring a Lethal Reputation to the U.S. Military

Some observers said a second crucial accomplishment was attacking a Syrian air base that had launched chemical attacks on civilians.

“Punishing Assad promptly and decisively,” said Robert Kaufman, a professor of public policy at Pepperdine University. “This signals the end of eight years of apology, unreliability, diminishing military capability, and strategic incoherence.”

Political observers agreed the U.S. military has had its velvet gloves taken off by Trump.

“The president also seems inclined to let military leaders exercise their judgement to advance our nation’s established security priorities, which is a welcome change from the risk-adverse, globalist Obama administration,” said Holler.

The Trump Effect and the Cabinet

Thomas also noted a third and fourth accomplishment, both with roots more in psychology than policy.

Illegal border crossings are down more than 70 percent, at the lowest rate in 17 years.

Further, the stock market has roared since Trump was elected on Nov. 8. On Tuesday, the NASDAQ broke 6,000 for the first time ever. Consider that it first broke 5,000 in March 2000, 17 years ago, during the dot-com boom.

Contributing to the factors driving both are the members of Trump’s Cabinet, a list of conservatives and businesspersons that would make former President Ronald Reagan envious.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly have indicated they will not tolerate illegal immigration, and will target illegal immigrants who commit additional crimes.

On the business front, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have assured the markets, for now. Ross, the 79-year-old billionaire, lets off a quiet and cheery confidence. Ross attended the White House press briefing on Tuesday, explaining trade sanctions on Canadian lumber. He took so many questions, reporters got to ask two or three questions at two different times in the briefing, a rare occurrence in the West Wing.

Trump’s Cabinet is smart. Thus, political observers see a reason for the energy in markets and law enforcement.

“A dramatic drop in illegal immigration, which is more about rhetoric than the wall, but whatever works,” said Thomas. “I would add consumer confidence as reflected in lower unemployment and an energized stock market.”

There are other victories for the president to brag about as well — among them reduced regulations and approved pipeline projects— that are hardly the pittance of accomplishment the media suggest.

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