Scribble

David Rind

00:00:00

Here's a little bit of trivia I learned the other day. The concept of a president's first 100 days in office came about during FDR's term in 1933. Remember, it was the Great Depression. People were losing work left and right. Hunger was on the rise. So Roosevelt got to work, signing a staggering 76 bills into law and revamping the federal government with the new deal to help ease economic suffering. Ever since then, a hundred days has been the benchmark by which we measure new presidents. Admittedly, it's an arbitrary number and an extremely small sample size, but still, it is an early chance to gage what they've done and how Americans feel about it. And it is hard to overstate just how much has happened over the first 100 days of President Donald Trump's second term.

President Donald Trump

00:00:51

Since taking office, my administration has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history.

Wolf Blitzer

00:00:59

Over the weekend, ICE announced the arrest of nearly 800 people in Florida.

Sara Sidner

00:01:04

'President Trump's so-called special government employee, Elon Musk, along with his DOGE agency, promised to completely upend the United States government. And it seems to be happening.

Erin Burnett

00:01:13

'Out front tonight, a 90% chance of a recession. That is the prediction tonight from a top economist, Torsten Slock, painting a dire picture of Trump's trade war and the implications, saying it's pushing the U.S. Economy to the brink of full-blown crisis.

David Rind

00:01:27

From gutting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Washington to pulling funding from top universities to targeting law firms who have done work with his perceived political enemies, Trump's move to expand executive power has seemingly touched every facet of American life. Now, to be clear, many of the president's biggest fans are still on board, full stop.

Josh Kirkland

00:01:50

They're moving at warp speed. They're gonna make mistakes they're going to do their best I feel like to remedy those mistakes.

Kathy Hendrix

00:01:56

We've got to try something different. He's not scared to try something.

Kandiss Taylor

00:01:59

I'm going to put America first. If they're our ally, if we can afford to help them, great. But if it's at our detriment...

David Rind

00:02:10

'But many Americans feel Trump has gone too far. You can hear it at congressional town halls across the country, and you can see it in his poll numbers. For example, new CNN polling over the weekend showed Trump with a 41% approval rating. That is the lowest for any newly elected president at 100 days going back to Dwight Eisenhower, including Trump's first term. So with 100 days in the books, where do we go from here? Today I talked to a first-time Trump voter about how he feels about his decision now, and CNN White House reporter AlaynaTreene tells us what we can expect from the next 100 days. From CNN, this is One Thing. I'm David Rind.

Nevin Skalko

00:03:01

Hello, my name is Nevin Skalko, I'm calling from Chicago, Illinois area.

David Rind

00:03:09

'Last November, just after Election Day, Nevin Skalko answered a call-out from CNN looking for Americans to weigh in on Donald Trump's victory.

Nevin Skalko

00:03:17

If you would have told me, I would be supportive of a Trump candidacy four years ago, I wouldn't have laughed out loud. However, the state of the union couldn't be at a higher inflection point than it is currently.

David Rind

00:03:34

Nevin represented a sizable chunk of the electorate who were not hardcore MAGA by any stretch, but were also not satisfied with what the Democratic Party was offering in Vice President Kamala Harris. They were looking for a change. And Nevin told me in November that he broadly agreed with Trump's key issues.

Nevin Skalko

00:03:52

Shore up the border, keep the economy on track, keep having it doing what it's doing, keep adding jobs, keep growing GDP. That would look like a good vote cast in my opinion.

David Rind

00:04:05

Hey there, Nevin. Good to talk to you again.

Nevin Skalko

00:04:07

Yeah, I appreciate you having me back.

David Rind

00:04:09

Of course, since then, a lot has happened, so I wanted to check back in and see how Nevin felt about these first 100 days.

Nevin Skalko

00:04:19

The shoring up of the southern border is probably the biggest success. We, I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but there's been progress towards the ending Israel, Gaza, Ukraine is crazy.

Vice President JD Vance

00:04:34

Have you said thank you once this entire meeting? No, in this entire meeting have you said, thank you?

Nevin Skalko

00:04:40

We don't have to get into the, the Trump Vance, uh, bully session at the white house for Zelensky that was atrocious.

David Rind

00:04:48

Yeah, how did you feel about that?

Nevin Skalko

00:04:50

I thought it was embarrassing.

President Donald Trump

00:04:51

It's going to be a very hard thing to do business like this, I tell you.

Vice President JD Vance

00:04:54

Say thank you, accept that there are disagreements.

Nevin Skalko

00:05:01

Total, total lack of respect. And it was honestly, it was like, uh, I think Vance jumped it off there, but it felt kind of like a coordinated ambush.

President Donald Trump

00:05:12

You have to be thankful. You don't have the cards. You're buried there. People are dying. You're running low on soldiers.

Nevin Skalko

00:05:21

That's just how I took it. I was like, there's no way this just evolved that quickly.

David Rind

00:05:25

I guess like more broadly on his efforts to end the war, because you mentioned last time you kind of have some family connections to Ukraine.

Nevin Skalko

00:05:34

Absolutely, yeah, my grandfather was born in the Ukraine, so if I'm in Ukraine, I don't want to see it in any territory. At the end of the day, you can't fight Russia indefinitely. So when the rare earth stuff and all of that gets thrown into it, it's kind of hard to feel like it's not a strong arm business deal.

David Rind

00:05:53

I want to go back to what you said about you thought that Trump's efforts to kind of secure the border was kind of a positive step. Do you have any qualms about how he's gone about doing that?

Nevin Skalko

00:06:05

Absolutely. I mean, the empathetic side of myself, it's tough when you have people that have been here for 20, 30, 40 years, pay taxes, done all of that. And there's an ICE raid that, and yeah, maybe they're going after a high value target or something like that with no one gang connections, no one violent criminals. And I get it and breaking up families, it sucks. I think the policy is more... If we get it wrong and we'd rather over swing and if we got it wrong, and deport somebody that, so it's tough, it's hard trying to thread that needle.

David Rind

00:06:43

Yeah, but I think the knock is that they're not getting any due process. No chance to go in court to argue their case. They're just being whisked away and then not sent back.

Nevin Skalko

00:06:53

Yeah. And see, see cop, what is it's yeah.

David Rind

00:06:56

The prison CECOT yeah.

Nevin Skalko

00:06:57

Yeah, that's not a, that does not look like a fun place. There's 1000% a better option than shipping everybody out to a maximum security prison, the worst of the worst with no blankets. You have lights on 24 hours a day. It's bad.

Matt Egan

00:07:13

The message from the market has been really, really consistent for the last week or two. Investors are freaking out that if the president spikes tariffs to the highest level in more than a century, that that could really hurt the economy.

David Rind

00:07:27

Now, Nevin says there's another issue that he wishes Trump would handle more delicately.

Nevin Skalko

00:07:32

Oh, absolutely. The lack of communication and transparency regarding the tariffs. I mean, if anyone checked their 401k on whatever it was the 3rd of April or 4th of April, it's like, what the hell? And then to just kind of have it snap back like that.

President Donald Trump

00:07:48

The bond market right now is beautiful. But yeah, I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy.

David Rind

00:07:55

'He says the medical supply company he works for has a domestic supply chain, so it's been somewhat insulated from the trade war thus far. His personal finances also haven't taken a huge hit, but he does expect prices to go up, something economists have been warning about for months. Even so, Nevin does agree with Trump that China's role in the global economy presents a problem for the U.S. And it needs to be addressed, and he's willing to accept some short-term financial pain to do it.

Nevin Skalko

00:08:23

'The thing is, this is why it's so hard to speculate and talk about because I've never seen anything like this. And I don't think there's ever been anything like this to just go ahead and shred 190 trade agreements. And now you're trying in 90 days to undo it. And so you have this total reversal where we became more isolationist, where it's a- I like to say it's America first, not America only. But could I see it shifting to America only at some point? I mean, I don't think that's far-fetched. But if that's right, then we see a total globalization will be over.

David Rind

00:09:06

Is that scary to you, the idea of America standing alone like that, as you describe?

Nevin Skalko

00:09:12

'Terrifying Terrifying and I do think Europe needs to get away from that post-world war two era dependency I don't think I would have attacked them like Vance did and Insulted everybody. That's the thing and that's the overall message I get but that lack of tact is Just it's I've never seen anything like it and I say that probably twice a week now It's like I can't it's it's like a reality show sometimes It's hard to think we're not livin' in the Twilight Zone, but uh...

David Rind

00:09:44

I'm struck the way that you react to all of these kind of unprecedented things, but this is kind of what Trump campaigned on, what he kind of promised. This great disruption, trade war, hard stances on Ukraine and all that kind of stuff. So I guess, like, couldn't you have expected this voting for him?

Nevin Skalko

00:10:05

Yeah. Yeah. Fair question. Again, it's kind of the, the, the rollout and the lack of messaging and the flip flop and honestly, which surprises me, I get it leverages. It's tough to get, but are there other ways to get it? Absolutely. That being said, gone to my head. I couldn't have voted for Kamala. That's what happens when we have the best two we have out of 330 million. You're stuck between a rock and a hard place and yeah.

David Rind

00:10:39

What do you want to see from the next 100 days that you haven't so far?

Nevin Skalko

00:10:43

'Slow down a little bit. Why half-ass ten things when you can whole-ass one thing?

David Rind

00:10:53

Well, Nevin, thanks so much for the time. I really appreciate it.

Nevin Skalko

00:10:57

That's all I'll see you in 100 days or what?

David Rind

00:10:59

Yeah, that's right. We'll do it again.

Nevin Skalko

00:11:01

Alright, thanks my friend.

David Rind

00:11:07

We'll be right back. Okay, CNN's Alayna Treene is here now. And Alayna, I just spoke to someone who voted for Trump in November. He's largely on board with Trump's goals, but thinks that he might be moving a little too fast and could be a little more careful about how he does things. I feel like I know the answer to this, but is there any chance the White House slows things down starting on day 101?

Alayna Treene

00:11:35

I don't think that is likely. Look, this is actually something that the president, I know from my conversations with White House officials, Trump administration officials, that he's very much happy about, I guess, the breakneck speed with which he's been doing things. I mean, one thing that was very clear, I remember having these conversations even before he took office during the transition. Was that he felt during his first term that he was held back a lot. And part of that is because of the people he had surrounded himself with during his first term compared to this term. You know, now he has a lot of yes men around him and he wants to move very quickly. But he also recognizes that his timeframe is different. You know his team understands that. Not only are the first 100 days so crucial, I mean, that's typically when you have the highest approval ratings, you're more able to get things done quickly. He, of course, has Republican control of the House and the Senate. And a big thing that keeps coming up in my conversations as I was talking with aides to the president for this first 100 day is, they also know they're running against a clock. I mean once the midterms happen, they don't know exactly if they could lose some of that. But also, they recognize there's going to be a lot of talk and focus on his, you know, whoever is going to succeed him. And so they are wanting to move very quickly with his main agenda items.

David Rind

00:13:00

Well, I wanted to ask about those Republicans and the extent to which that goodwill might run out because, you know, multiple new polls have shown that Trump's approval is underwater. Many voters think that he's gone too far even on his key issues like immigration or the economy. On the economy specifically, in our latest CNN poll, his approval on handling inflation is down nine points from early March to 35% and on tariffs themselves, it's down four points to 35%. Do you get the sense that any of these negative feelings out there in the country around the economy could make their way to Republican lawmakers and then eventually to the way that Trump is carrying out his economic policy?

Alayna Treene

00:13:41

I would actually argue it's already making their way to these people. I mean, we've already covered a lot of these Republicans, and it's been the same with some Democratic congressmen as well, but they've been going home to their districts and being accosted by their constituents.

Woman

00:13:55

We in the community are being harmed by this. What are you doing to stand in opposition to this administration? And what specifically are you doing that warrants the label moderate?

Alayna Treene

00:14:08

When at town halls or talking to them in private settings.

Rep. Mike Lawler

00:14:12

So again, my record speaks for itself. I have been.

Alayna Treene

00:14:17

Particularly Republicans who are in more moderate districts, who aren't in safe seats. They are, of course, having to grapple with this right now.

David Rind

00:14:24

Yeah, like they are hearing it from constituents at town halls, but is that going to translate to them standing up and say, no, you need to stop these terrorists and I'm going to do X, Y, and Z, or I'm gonna push back on this big legislative package that he's going to be trying to push through in the next couple of weeks?

Alayna Treene

00:14:41

'No, I totally agree. It is a huge difference. I want to note as well that another change from his first 100 days in his second term to his first one hundred days during his first term is the way that he is treated by Republicans on Capitol Hill. I covered his first administration. It is very clear that he has far more buy-in from Republicans than he did during his first term. A lot of people are afraid to cross him and for their own political Survivability, so I do think that is a point that has to be made. But at the same time, I think what we're going to see happen with this budget bill that they are trying to get through is going to be very telling. Even though they do have control of the House, it's very slim margins. You have to get 60 people in the Senate. It is going be a very big uphill battle for these Republicans to try to get this through. But again, I do you think that they are giving him, the president, a longer leash than they had in the past.

David Rind

00:15:36

Well, so going forward beyond this big legislative package, what are the priorities of this administration as the next 100 days begin?

Alayna Treene

00:15:45

Well, there's a lot that they wanted to do during his first 100 days that they so far have been unable to do. One is with trying to end the wars first, of course, with Israel and Gaza, but also Ukraine and Russia. We've reported that behind the scenes, the president has been very frustrated that getting a deal between Russia and Ukraine to end war has been much harder, he's told aides behind closed doors, than he had initially anticipated. Those are the two. Things where, when I talk to White House officials privately, they say, you know, these are the areas where he thinks his legacy is going to be made. These are going to some of the most defining aspects of his legacy. And it's still very much unclear if he's going to able to follow through on his promise to do that. And then I think with tariffs as well has been another area where they aren't exactly getting the results that they had hoped for. We have to see if they're going to get these trade deals done. I think that's also going to be a massive focus of this next 100 days and really the areas where there is a lot of, you know, quiet anxiety almost over how it's all going.

David Rind

00:16:48

Yeah, these these things usually take years sometimes to hash out and now there's like this 90 day clock I guess but even that seems like a tall task, right?

Alayna Treene

00:16:59

'Oh, absolutely. I mean, the idea that they're going to be able to get all of them done within a 90-day period, I think, is a very steep goal. I would also note, of course, that these are self-imposed deadlines that they are setting on themselves. But I would not be surprised if we see some sort of extensions. We know that the first deals we're likely going to see are going to with the United States allies, particularly in Asia like Japan, India, South Korea. But we are still waiting to see on what those will actually look like.

David Rind

00:17:25

Well, I guess finally, you're at the White House basically every day of your own waking life covering this administration. How would you describe the mood as we've seen so much upheaval and action from this administration?

Alayna Treene

00:17:40

One of the things that's very different from this term is just the way that the president is approaching the way he does his job. He is very much committed to following through on the things he wants to follow through, which is why it's been stunning. I mean, I have to say, as someone who covers the White House, as you mentioned, day and day out. It is so hard sometimes to keep up. With what is going on in this White House, because they are doing so many huge consequential things on a daily basis, and things that are so different. Another area of, I would just say, are testing the powers of the presidency. He is taking a far more expansive view of the executive authority, and we're seeing the courts push back. But I do think, you know, for the mood, I think they are very pleased with how it is going, but they also

David Rind

00:18:24

Even with these bad poll numbers.

Alayna Treene

00:18:26

Yes, you know, from the poll numbers so far, I do believe that they have been kind of brushing them off. What we've also heard, another difference from the president from his first term is, you know he is brushing off some of this more than he used to, particularly if you look at the stock market. When the stockmarket was tanking around his tariff policies, you used to dictate policy based on how it was performing in the stock Market. Now he's really like, hey, I believe in what I'm doing and. We're going to have some pain for a bit and we'll see how it all pans out. But again, time will tell on whether or not they will actually be able to see these policies through and if Americans are going to have the patience to wait for that.

David Rind

00:19:11

Alayna, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

David Rind

00:19:23

One Thing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by me, David Rind. Our senior producers are Felicia Patinkin, Haley Thomas, and Faiz Jamil. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dzula is our technical director. Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Mark Duffy, Alex Manessari, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Leni Steinhardt, Jamus Andrest, Nicole Pesaru and Lisa Namarow. Special thanks to Wendy Brundidge. As a reminder, if you like the show, leave us a rating or a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. It really helps other people discover the show. And as always, the best way to spread the word is to just tell a friend about it. We'll be back on Sunday. I'll talk to you then.

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