It has been a first 200 days that experts say is the most consequential start to a presidential term for 92 years.
That was when Franklin D. Roosevelt set out to save America from the Great Depression and get the country back to work.
When President Donald Trump entered the White House on January 20, 2025 he faced a struggling economy, an immigration disaster, and brewing trouble in Europe and the Middle East.
Trump dealt with it all by throwing the political rulebook out the window – he abandoned free trade, upended relations with America’s allies, eviscerated his own government bureaucracy, and bombed Iran.
All of those measures, according to the naysayers, should have led to disaster. Instead, Trump’s supporters are doing victory laps and he is forging ahead at breakneck speed.
‘You’ve not seen anything like this in almost anyone’s lifetime. You have to go back to March 4, 1933 (the inauguration of Roosevelt) to have an administration so active and aggressive, and successful in promoting its agenda,’ high-profile pollster Frank Luntz told the Daily Mail.
”John Kennedy getting elected in 1960 was a very big deal, but nothing compared to what Trump has done in his first 200 days. He really has remade the governing process. Trump has reset what is acceptable in American politics. It’s not that he’s played the game better, he’s changed the game. He’s changed the world. We’ve never had anyone like him.’
Donald Trump takes the oath of office as Barron Trump and Melania Trump watch at the 60th Presidential Inauguration in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025
For allies the tone was set by J.D. Vance’s speech in Munich on February 14 during which the norms of the transatlantic alliance were, as one eminent European put it, ‘smashed to smithereens.’
Trump, through Vance, demanded America demanded the Europeans step up their own security and take responsibility for their own back yard.
At home, Elon Musk frenziedly came and went from the White House, taking a chainsaw to government departments. After 200 days, USAID and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are gone, and the Department of Education is on the way out. It happened so quickly that Musk himself is already out the door.
Elon Musk cut thousands of government jobs through his DOGE agency before then falling out with President Trump
Meanwhile, in Congress, despite small majorities, Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ incorporating his tax cuts, made it over the line into law by July 4.
And, as high-profile deportation raids escalated, the number of migrants crossing the border into the U.S. plummeted to levels near zero, which not even Trump’s biggest supporters had dared to predict.
‘Honestly, I would give the guy A plus,’ said Republican strategist David Urban. ‘This Trump. 2.0 is incredibly efficient and incredibly efficacious. They’re just knocking out of the park at so many different fronts. It seems like almost an entire presidency has occurred in this first 200 days. Amazing. The velocity at which things traveled in this second term is just unprecedented.
‘Whether you like the President or not, there’s one thing that’s undeniable, that he is the most consequential president in our lifetime.’
Urban added: ‘He’s basically reshaped NATO. He’s basically reshaped trade. He’s reshaped immigration. I mean huge, huge issues which impact so many people on a daily basis. The President’s done what most people thought could not be done.
‘There were so many prognosticators of doom on the other side who have been affected by TDS (Trump derangement Syndrome,) who said that if the President does X, then Y is going to happen and the sky will fall. The President has done X, and not only has Y not happened, there’s been a positive outcome.
However, as Trump hits the 200 day mark, he faces a new potential showdown with Vladimir Putin and uncertainty over his trade war with China.
And another problem looms over everything – the specter of Jeffrey Epstein.
The ‘Epstein files’ saga threatens to continue during Trump’s next 200 days
Urban believes the brouhaha will pass, like similar frenzies over the JFK assassination and UFO sightings.
‘I think there’s no there, there,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe there’s some magical list that’s people who drink children’s blood that’s going to satiate anybody.’
But the issue threatens to cast a shadow over the next 200 days as Democrats look set to up their attacks on Trump for not releasing the full ‘Epstein files,’ leading to wild conspiracy theories relating to the late pedophile billionaire.
“Well, the Democrats have to. What else are they going to have to propel them back to power?’ Larry Sabato, Director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, told the Daily Mail.
‘What else do they have unless the economy goes into recession, or has a significant measurable slowdown, or there’s stagflation. They have to continue to criticize and they want to take a subject that people seem to care about, that they think this is dividing the MAGA base.
‘And it is on that issue. But then Trump’s base comes right back together for anything that Trump tells them they should be for. It doesn’t change their votes, doesn’t change their determination to see him succeed in everything he wants to do.’
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office
The Epstein issue is resonating with voters but not impacting Trump’s support, he suggested.
‘I’ve already had so many people write to me and say to me in a grocery store, “Look, I’m very upset that they’re not releasing all that, shame on Trump for not doing it.” But then the next sentence is “I just love this guy, he’s been the greatest president of my lifetime.” They don’t care. So what?’
Sabato said the solidity of Trump’s base means he will usually poll above 40 percent and that is ‘plenty good to run a presidency. You don’t need to be over 50 percent.’
‘In terms of energy and achievement I would rate the 200 days very highly compared to other presidencies. Now, the other scale would be very, very different, say, wisdom or attention to the Constitution and the customs and traditions that have made America work. And I would give it an F minus.
‘Almost every day, we seem to be taking another step down the road to the most extreme polarization we’ve had since the Civil War.’
US President Donald Trump speaks to the press after signing a proclamation renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America aboard Air Force One, as it flies over the Gulf enroute to New Orleans, Louisiana on Febrary 09, 2025
Trump’s success, while celebrated by his supporters, has also created a potential problem for Republicans down the road. according to Luntz, who conducts weekly focus groups with voters.
It has resulted in two hugely divergent views of his presidency. Many Republicans are almost euphoric, but many Democrats are more alienated than ever.
‘It has been a tale of two presidencies. Those that voted for Donald Trump are ecstatic. He’s done everything he promised to do and more. He’s done it in a bold and way, and they approved of just about everything,’ said Luntz.
‘For those who didn’t vote for him, it’s even worse than they were expecting. They’ve come to realize that everything he said, he meant.’
Trump is a ’49 percent president’ because he has not added to his support in office, Luntz said.
‘This is the difference between him and Ronald Reagan. Reagan was elected with 50 percent of the vote. Trump was elected with 50 percent of the vote. Reagan went out of his way to expand it, and he was successful in doing it. Trump is not seeking to expand his coalition.’
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive to address guests and supporters in an overflow room in Emancipation Hall after his inauguration at the U.S Capitol on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Donald Trump takes office for his second term as the 47th President of the United States
That doesn’t matter for a president who will not be seeking reelection, but it matters a lot for his successor, and also in the 2026 midterms.
‘There is blowback, and that blowback is significant, and the pendulum, when it swings back, is going to swing back with velocity,’ Luntz said.
‘Eventually, when it’s the other side that will win, because it will happen, there’s going to be a level of retribution that we haven’t seen, that I think is very dangerous for the political system.’
