Opinion: After 100 days in office, how do you think Trump is doing?

USA Today

08-05-2025

Opinion: After 100 days in office, how do you think Trump is doing?
On a bonus episode (first released on May 5, 2025) of The Excerpt podcast: We received so many responses about President Trump's first 100 days in office that we created a second episode on what Americans are really thinking about Trump and his administration. Forum is a series from USA TODAY's Opinion team, dedicated to showcasing views from across the political spectrum on issues that Americans are starkly divided on. If you'd like to weigh in on a different topic, you can find more questions at usatoday.com/forum. And if your submission is selected for print, we might invite you to add your voice to a future special bonus episode like this one. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to [e-mail].
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Michael McCarter:
Hello and welcome to The Excerpt. Last week we heard from listeners like you about President Trump's leadership over the last 100 days. And we heard from so many of you that we're doing a part two on this topic. How do you feel President Trump is doing since taking office? I am Michael McCarter. I lead the opinion sections of Gannett, the parent company of USA TODAY. This is Forum, our bonus series from USA TODAY's opinion team found right here on The Excerpt fee. Here's what you told us.
Eugene Dunn:
I think America is radically better off under President Trump's leadership. Just the fact that he closed the border down immediately from the catastrophe that Joe Biden purposely allowed. On the strength of that alone, that puts him radically better.
Michael McCarter:
This is Eugene Dunn, a 61-year-old who lives in Medford, New York. He voted for Trump and is fully behind him.
Eugene Dunn:
All I keep hearing is that the federal debt is like an existential threat. It's unsustainable. This should be a Manhattan project like effort that the whole country's involved in. Everyone should be able to submit ideas and not just cost-cutting ideas, but revenue enhancing ideas. Regarding the tariff situation, which has brought his poll numbers down a low, Trump has been talking about the trade imbalance for 40 years. He's been remarkably consistent on this. He is the world champion expert on tariffs and the trade imbalance. If anyone can fix it, it's him and I have total faith in him. And I'm leaving everything in the stock market just the way it is.
A lot of friends are jittery and all, but I say ride it out, in Trump we trust. I believe Trump saved that for his second term the first time around because he knew it would be a rocky situation. And he came in the second term telegraphing and telling everyone the golden age is coming, so I believe that this tariff war that he started that was neglected for generations the last 10 to 12 presidents just kicked the can down the road. I believe this is his ticket to getting us into the golden age and perhaps even elevating him into the top Mount Rushmore type president.
Michael McCarter:
78-year-old Lucy Hanson is from Midlothian, Virginia. The president didn't get her vote. She has concerns about how Trump is handling deportations and the economy.
Lucy Hanson:
Trump has promised from the very beginning that he wants to be a dictator from day one. He is on his way to becoming just that. He is eliminating people of color, whether they be brown, black, yellow from everything. He's cut out DEI, which is all-inclusive, including women. I'll be real honest with you, I can honestly say I can't think of anything right off the top of my head that I support with his rush to rid the country of people who are not from this country.
I do agree with the fact that people of foreign origin who have committed crimes should be removed. However, I believe all of them, whether they've committed a crime or not, should have due process, not just shipped off with handcuffs to a extremist prison in El Salvador. That is cruel and inhumane. I'm 78, well past retirement age. I worked until May of 2023 at which time I was eliminated. I had very little in savings in my 401k. There's no place for someone like me. I'm lucky that I'm healthy and am willing to work and like to work, but every time I go to the grocery store, my bill is bigger and bigger and bigger and I buy less and less and less.
Michael McCarter:
Rebecca King lives in Eustace, Texas. She's 69. She voted for Donald Trump, but she doesn't think that the country's better off under his leadership.
Rebecca King:
He ran on platforms that garnered support from so many different groups by promises such as his fan X and things like that then he goes and starts these wild deportations and even the children who are American citizens, separating families that does nothing to encourage family. And he's supposed to be standing behind family. He is supposed to have family values. That's not family values. I want somebody that can be responsible, act responsible, and handle the government in a responsible way, not radical. Make changes little at a time and not create so many fires that it's so hard to try to figure out what's going on.
And the economy, if people can't survive, America can't survive, and I don't want to see oligarchs, us become oligarchs where it's wealthy leading and the citizens are peasants. He is taking a big risk with the Mar-A-Lago Accord and I just can't see that working now. I just don't. He may get the dollar value lowered, but I worry with these tariffs if he's actually implementing a consumption tax upon the American people to fund all his extensive projects like the Golden Dome, all these deportations and things like that when he is supposed to be getting the budget and the deficit under control. I would like to see him slow down and follow the court's orders that they have issued and him adhere to our constitution. I just wish more people would wake up and understand that this isn't good. This is not normal.
Michael McCarter:
Gary Rog is 68 and lives in Hamburg, New York. He didn't vote for Trump, and while he supports some of the immigration policies, he's worried about the balance of power and the economy.
Gary Rog:
I don't think anybody would argue that there was bloat in the U.S government in terms of spending and employees, but to wholesale just release people with no plan, with no review is insane. I think the tariffs have hurt the American economy to the point that it may take a long time to recover from the damage done. Certainly, my 401k has felt it. From the standpoint of foreign relations, I think the tariffs have seriously damaged long time allies of ours. I think it's damaged the reputation of the United States as a leader in the free world. I think that while I agree that immigration had become a major issue and the borders were way too porous under the Biden administration, I think the crackdown that's going on now is constitutionally illegal.
I don't think that American citizens should be deported under any circumstances whatsoever without due process. I will just say that I think while at the beginning of the Trump administration, I did not think we were heading for a constitutional crisis, but I think as we're past 100 days now, I think that we are heading to a constitutional crisis here in the United States. If he disregards the judicial, if we start rounding up American citizens, whether they're criminal or not, we have a justice system that handles that, not the President of the United States handling it. I think deporting children, U.S citizens is a grave, grave error, and I think that if his policies don't stop, I think we are going to have a significant problem here in the United States that may take years to repair if we can.
Michael McCarter:
That's it for this episode. This is a co-production with the Forum team at USA TODAY, where we invite our readers to weigh in, in writing on a national topic of interest. If your submission is selected for print, we might invite you to add your voice to a future special bonus episode like this one. There's a link to Forum in the show description. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to [e-mail]. Thanks for listening. I'm Michael McCarter, vice president of the Gannett Opinion Group. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.