Can you count to 100?
On second thought, maybe you shouldn’t even try. Donald Trump has already taken to Twitter to pooh-pooh the “ridiculous standard” of even asking what a new president has accomplished in his first 100 days.
That particular tweet was a bit confusing. On the campaign trail and for most of his time in office, Trump was constantly bragging about how much he would get done in those first three-plus months. But with the deadline dropping on Saturday and the tallies coming in uncomfortably short, the president has had a sudden change of heart.
“No matter how much I accomplish during the ridiculous standard of the first 100 days, & it has been a lot (including S.C.), media will kill!” his tweet reads in full.
But forget the media for a moment. What do the facts say?
They say that, of all his many big campaign promises, Trump can reasonably take credit for achieving exactly one: Neil Gorsuch is now safely on the U.S. Supreme Court and already ushering death-row inmates to the Arkansas lethal-injection chamber. You might or might not like that sort of thing. But thanks to a last-minute rule change, it’s undeniably a victory for Trump.
Beyond that? Well, there’s not so much to show.
His signature immigration ban is blocked by a federal judge “sitting on an island in the Pacific.” His vow to “repeal and replace” Obamacare was run off the road in Congress. His promise of a border wall that Mexico will pay for has gone precisely nowhere. His hard line on “currency manipulator” China has visibly softened. His vow to stay out of foreign entanglements has been contradicted by missiles in Syria, the mother of all bombs in Afghanistan and talk of nuclear exchanges with North Korea.
Oh, and the FBI and Congress are investigating how the Russians helped him win. That should continue to be fun.
On Saturday, instead of getting roasted at the White House Correspondents Dinner, the president has called a 100-day rally of the stubbornly faithful in Pennsylvania. Wouldn’t it be interesting if, this time, they answered his calls from the podium truthfully?
“Who’s gonna pay for the wall?”
“Um, I guess we are. Or maybe no one.”
Metro columnist Ellis Henican is a veteran journalist, bestselling author and frequent commentator on CNN and other TV networks. Follow him on Twitter @henican.
