Bill Clinton special adviser issues damning analysis on Trump's first 100 days: ‘He's fallen into the trap' and ‘overread his mandate'

Independent

21-04-2025

Donald Trump has 'overread his mandate' and may be on course for a 'historically unpopular presidency,' a senior advisor to former president Bill Clinton has said.
The president has fallen into the trap of 'not understanding the difference between the spectacle of campaigning and the work of successful governing,' Doug Sosnik, who advised Clinton from 1994 to 2000 said.
It comes as Trump, for the second time, nears the milestone of 100 days in office. During this time the president has already issued scores of executive orders in an attempt to deliver on the promises of his campaign.
However, in a New York Times op-ed, Sosnik wrote that 'a consequential start does not in any way equate to long-term success,' noting that Trump's approval ratings are already falling. 'If past presidencies are any guide, the worst is yet to come,' he said.
'As more and more Americans begin to feel the pain of his policies, we may well look back on his first 100 days as the prelude to a historically unpopular presidency.'
In November, Trump was the first Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years, though his share of the vote was still less than 50 percent. According to a recent Gallup survey, his approval rating in the first quarter of his second term is 45 percent.
The pollster noted that the average first-quarter approval rating for U.S. presidents from 1952 to 2020 is 60 percent.
In his op-ed, Sosnick said approval ratings tend to settle by early September of a president's first year, following a 'honeymoon period' after the election. He highlighted that both Clinton and George W. Bush had dropped 11 points at that point, while Barack Obama dropped 15 points.
'Mr. Trump will probably be subject to the same laws of political gravity, but he risks an even steeper fall in job approval by early September because of a combination of factors, some of which he shares with his predecessors and some of which are unique to his presidency,' he said.
'Like his predecessors, Mr. Trump is overreading the mandate that voters gave him…Mr. Trump has fallen into the trap — common for newly elected presidents — of not understanding the difference between the spectacle of campaigning and the work of successful governing.'
Sosnik added that Trump's 'failure to properly plan and execute policy' has so far defined his second term and was exemplified by the 'shambolic' rollout of both immigration and tariff policies – the latter having sent global markets into chaos.
'The uncertainty created by Mr. Trump's chaotic style of governing has also made it impossible for companies to make investment decisions,' Sosnik wrote.