The first 100 days of Donald J. Trump’s second presidency have been a study of extremes, especially when compared with the start of presidential terms over the last century.
Compared with other modern presidents, he has signed the most executive orders in this period, collected the most tariffs and had the most lawsuits filed against him. Markets have slumped, as have his approval ratings.
Below are eight ways Mr. Trump’s first 100 days stand out.
He issued more executive orders than any modern president …
On his first day in office, Mr. Trump signed a record 26 executive orders — and he didn’t stop there. The executive order has become something of a hallmark of his governing style, a way to express clear policy directives without the bureaucracy of regulation or the horse trading of legislation.
Some orders direct federal agencies to develop policy in particular areas, like oil drilling, prescription drug prices or the water pressure delivered by shower heads. Some mostly express the president’s sentiment on an issue. Some function as warnings or punishments for political enemies. But many — in key areas like immigration and tariffs — effectively carry the force of law. The near daily release of orders stands as a counterpoint to the current anemic Congress, which has passed only a handful of laws since Mr. Trump’s inauguration.
… and was sued in federal court more, too.
Federal lawsuits filed against the president
Mr. Trump’s executive actions have already led to an explosion of lawsuits. Some of the legal intensity can be explained by the speed and scope of his actions. These include cutting funding across numerous programs; firing large swaths of the federal work force; imposing emergency tariffs; reshaping immigration and deportation policies; demanding federal oversight over universities; and more.
In other recent administrations, lawsuits challenging major federal policies have become common. But those suits often come later, in response to laws and regulations that take months and years to develop. The second Trump term is remarkable because of both the number of suits and their immediacy.
Though the Supreme Court has begun considering aspects of a few cases, most of this litigation is in preliminary stages. It may be years before a full accounting of how many cases Mr. Trump has won or lost.
Revenue from tariffs increased.
A cornerstone of Mr. Trump’s economic policy has been tariffs, which are taxes on imported goods. He has argued that other countries have taken advantage of America on trade, and tariffs are his attempt to rewire the global order and force companies to move production to the United States.
The early results of his policy have included a large recent spike in the amount of money the federal government is collecting in customs duties. But amid the geopolitical and economic turmoil the tariffs have caused, critics have argued that the countries targeted by Mr. Trump will not bear all of the higher costs. Instead, the penalties may largely fall on the companies and American consumers who ultimately purchase the products that enter the country.
The dollar plunged.
Relative value of the U.S. dollar
The value of the dollar has fallen sharply in recent months. The chart above shows an index that measures the dollar’s value against a basket of major currencies including the euro, the yen and others. One of the sharpest slides came after Mr. Trump announced large tariffs on nearly all imports April 2. While he temporarily reversed course, the dollar has yet to recover.
A depreciating dollar may be part of the goal for the Trump administration. Although a strong dollar solidifies its status as the world’s go-to currency, a weak dollar could mean American goods are cheaper to buy abroad, which could boost manufacturing at home.
Markets fell, too.
During his first term, Mr. Trump often referred to the stock market as a barometer of success for his presidency. This time, he has been far less vocal, even as some of his proclamations — on tariffs or his views on the Federal Reserve and interest rates — have led to wild swings in recent weeks.
The S&P 500 has fallen by more than 7 percent since Mr. Trump’s inauguration, on track for the worst performance for stocks in the first 100 days of a presidency since Gerald Ford in 1974.
The State Department was quiet.
State Department press briefings
The State Department press briefing — once a near-daily opportunity for an administration to communicate foreign policy aims — became much rarer in Mr. Trump’s first term. In his second, the briefings have been even more infrequent.
The changes to this practice are consistent with the administration’s attempts to reduce and reshape the government to a degree unseen in generations. Those efforts have included the freezing of foreign aid spending and the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio unveiled a plan to make major cuts to the State Department, calling the government’s diplomatic agency “bloated, bureaucratic” and “beholden to radical political ideology.”
Federal funding for medical research slowed.
N.I.H. funding for competitive grants
The National Institutes of Health funds more medical research than any organization in the world and has tended to provide huge returns in economic innovation and improved health.
But the Trump administration has made big cuts to the N.I.H.’s research funding. Some of the cuts have aligned with certain political priorities, including the termination of studies on care for transgender people, cuts to studies on racial disparities in medical care, and the elimination of some categories of vaccine research. The cuts have also reflected Mr. Trump’s feuds with educational institutions, including major funding freezes on grants to Columbia and Harvard.
The reductions go far beyond those targeted cuts, however. Overall, there has been a widespread decrease in research investment.
Trump went from being popular to unpopular.
Presidential approval ratings
Although Mr. Trump won the 2024 election only narrowly, he entered office with important strengths and opportunities. Voters said they trusted him to handle issues like the economy, immigration and energy. On each of these issues, the new president had a chance to find public backing for his conservative agenda.
One hundred days into his second term, Mr. Trump’s approval rating is underwater. Polls show that he has managed to turn long-term strengths on the economy and immigration into weaknesses.
Methodology
To compute the number of federal lawsuits filed against sitting presidents, we searched the PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) database for cases that included the first and last name of a president in the defendant or respondent party. We excluded cases filed in appellate courts to avoid double-counting filings for the same underlying complaint. We also excluded criminal case filings. We manually reviewed each case to verify that the president (as opposed to another individual with the same name) was a targeted party in the lawsuit. We did not attempt to identify and remove frivolous cases or cases that were filed without a lawyer (proceeding “pro se”). While there were many such filings, we preferred to retain them in our data because we did not want to introduce subjective decisions about the legitimacy of a lawsuit, and because such cases were filed across all presidential administrations.