Trump's early-term momentum has hit a wall. Here's why.

USA Today

a day ago

Trump's early-term momentum has hit a wall. Here's why. From Gaza to Ukraine and from federal judges to the Federal Reserve, President Donald Trump has seen his early White House successes take a back seat to emerging struggles.
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Elon Musk slams Trump's big tax bill on X
Days after leaving the White House, Elon Musk slammed President Trump's big tax bill on X.
WASHINGTON − Governing? Harder than it looked.
Just as Donald Trump is pushing to pass the centerpiece of his domestic agenda, former BFF Elon Musk is trashing his "big, beautiful bill" as "a disgusting abomination." The president's prediction that Vladimir Putin would heed his entreaties to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours is stretching into Month Five.
Judges he appointed to the bench are daring to rule against him.
From cutting federal spending to deporting illegal immigrants, from reaching a nuclear deal with Iran to negotiating a ceasefire in Gaza, Team Trump is running into roadblocks that are making it difficult to deliver on promises he confidently made before moving into the White House.
More: Trump erupts when asked about 'TACO trade' ― a new nickname mocking his tariff approach
There are some skid marks where the rubber has met the road.
To be sure, some of Trump's problems come from a surplus of early successes and from the breadth of his ambitions. Through a flood of executive orders and actions, he has launched a transformation of the USA's approach to the world and the federal government's role in Americans' lives.
Congressional Democrats are still struggling to craft a consistent and coherent strategy against him.
But the pushback from other forces has become increasingly problematic for the White House − pushback from skeptical judges, foreign leaders with their own priorities, a steady-as-she-goes Federal Reserve and the reality of budget arithmetic.
If Trump's first 100 days were a rollercoaster, the second 100 days, a span that ends on Aug. 8, are proving to be a bit of a slog.
Ukraine: 'It'll be done within 24 hours'
The question for Trump − as it was for many of his predecessors in the White House − is how he chooses to respond, whether he doubles down or adjusts his goals and tactics when obstacles loom.
Consider Ukraine.
In dozens of campaign speeches, candidate Trump said he would settle the war in Ukraine within a day of taking office, and perhaps even before he moved in.
More: Russia's 'Pearl Harbor': What to know about Ukraine's audacious drone strike
"I know Zelenskyy, I know Putin," he said at one Pennsylvania rally, referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his Russian counterpart "It'll be done within 24 hours, you watch. They all say, 'That's such a boast.' It will be done very quickly.'"
But Putin has swatted away Trump's demands for a quick ceasefire, and Ukrainian forces have engineered a stunning drone assault on Russian military forces. An end to the war seems nowhere in sight. "I'm very disappointed," Trump said on May 28.
What does he do next?
More: Russia demands harsh terms at Ukraine peace talks
Trump has threatened sanctions on Russia but is clearly loath to impose them. He has also suggested the United States may just walk away, leaving the conflict to the two warring parties and the Europeans to figure out.
He faces similar calculations on tariffs, where he has delayed or reduced his most far-reaching threats to China and elsewhere when they seemed to rattle the stock markets. Does he follow through on his July 8 deadline for trading partners to make deals or be hit with the most stringent tariffs in close to a century?
And on Gaza, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a longtime ally, has resisted the administration's efforts to negotiate a ceasefire. "Get it over with and let's get back to peace and stop killing people," Trump had vowed during the 2024 campaign. But the region is still wracked by chaos and violence, in recent days over the distribution of food aid.
For presidents, a familiar problem
Trump is hardly the first president to find himself stymied by the realities of governing and the frustrations of the balance of power.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was so enraged by Supreme Court decisions undercutting his New Deal that in 1937 he proposed packing the court with additional, and presumably friendlier, justices. That idea went nowhere, though the high court started to be more welcoming to his initiatives.
More than a half-century later, Bill Clinton adopted a strategy of cooperation with the new Republican House speaker, Newt Gingrich, when Democrats lost control of Congress in the 1994 midterm elections. The policy, dubbed "triangulation," dismayed liberal Democrats but led to welfare reform and a balanced budget.
More: Elon Musk slams President Trump's big tax and policy bill as a 'disgusting abomination'
After Democratic setbacks in the 2014 midterms, Barack Obama said he still had the ability to deploy "the pen and the phone" − that is, to sign executive actions and to activate outside allies.
Trump enjoys considerable political assets, including the discombobulation of Democratic leaders and the loyalty of congressional Republicans.
More: Trump lashes out at Sen. Rand Paul over opposition to big tax bill
That is being tested by the battle over the bill known as reconciliation. The sprawling measure would extend and expand tax cuts from Trump's first term, add billions of dollars for border security, and trim billions from Medicaid and clean-energy tax credits.
It would also increase the national debt by a budget-busting $2.4 trillion over 10 years, according to the updated estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
In previous showdowns, Trump has prevailed in Congress, in part because GOP members see their reelections at risk if an unhappy president backs primary challengers against them. He is lobbying for the bill as "arguably the most significant piece of Legislation that will ever be signed in the History of our Country."
But Musk, who until May 27 led Trump's DOGE budget-cutting initiative, has weighed in on the other side, warning the legislation would create a "crushingly unsustainable debt." His warnings are being cited by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and a handful of other GOP senators alarmed by the bill's impact on the federal budget deficit.
The tech billionaire posted an electoral threat of his own on X. The social-media platform is a political asset, too, not to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars that the world's richest man has been willing to spend in the past on political campaigns.
"In November next year," he proposed, "we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people."