Byron York: Donald Trump’s First Hundred Days an ‘Executive Success’

The Washington Examiner’s Byron York evaluates President Donald Trump’s accomplishments and failures in his first three months in office, walking through the promises made in Trump’s “Contract with the American Voter.”

From the Washington Examiner:

On the executive action front, Trump has kept a significant number of his promises:

• Candidate Trump promised to “begin the process” of selecting a Supreme Court Justice to replace Antonin Scalia. As president, Trump did just that, and Neil Gorsuch is now on the Court.
• Candidate Trump promised to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As president, he did it.
• Candidate Trump promised to require that “for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated.” As president, he did it.
• Candidate Trump promised to “lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks” on the Keystone Pipeline and other infrastructure projects. As president, he did it.
• Candidate Trump promised to “begin removing the more than two million criminal illegal immigrants” in the U.S. As president, he did it.

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The bottom line is that Trump has been a 100 day success when it comes to exercising the executive powers of the presidency. He has done a great deal of what he said he would do, and promises to do more. (The White House is planning a new set of executive orders this week to beat the 100 day deadline.)

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But it is precisely in the legislative area that the 100 day mark is such an unrealistic measure. Congress acts on its own schedule. Truth be told, next January, on the occasion of Trump’s first year in office, if he has passed either a full-scale Obamacare repeal and replace measure or a major tax reform measure, that would be a reasonably good legislative record for a first year. This is not the New Deal or the Great Society, when there are huge filibuster-proof majorities in Congress and giant bills coming one after another. In today’s atmosphere and party alignments, Trump will do well to get one big thing passed.

So on the 100 days, call the president an executive success.

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