I want to, um, I want to Go to, um, your analysis of 100 days, um, how many days did I say?

1,362 left.

It's kind of a, yeah, it's amazing.

Um, that includes weekends though, although we don't have weekends anymore House correspondent.

We don't really, we don't really have weekends.

Um, but let's just talk about, uh, two main things.

Um, I did give the panel homework, by the way, and I asked him not to use chat GBT to do the homework assignments no promises.

Yeah, no, uh, one of, and, and, and the first part of the homework assignment was what's the most consequential.

Uh, what's the consequential action he's taken or what's the biggest change we've seen in 100 days in American governance.

Let me start with, with Steve.

Well, I did, I did what I always do on this, which is not entirely answer the question directly because I have future political officeholder, right?

No, I think sort of bookend of the 1st 100 days.

The first came on day one when he pardoned all of the January 6th, um, riders.

And then the, the second part came in the Oval Office just a week ago when he announced from the Oval Office that he wants his Department of Justice to investigate two people he perceives as his political enemies in Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor.

I think the effect of Those was that the first one, Donald Trump was telling people, if you break the law on my behalf, not only will it be tolerated, but it'll be rewarded.

And on the 2nd, he campaigned for more than a year on retribution.

Retribution is from core to Donald Trump and who he is and he's saying I'm going to use the official levers of government to get this retribution on Chris Krebs in particular, I'm so struck by that because the reason Chris Krebs is people exactly what role he played in, so he ran a cybersecurity agency under Trump and in that capacity his agency basically came out and said the 2020 election was secure and Joe Biden is the legitimate winner and, and that is his crime, right?

So it's not that he was even a political opponent, Donald Trump is punishing Chris Krebs for his acknowledgment of objective reality.

That's why that one stands out to me so viscerally.

Right.

Actually, since I have you, um, what is, what is the thing that really struck you about?

difference between this administration and previous administrations.

I mean, I, I have been stru well, the difference between Trump now and Trump previously is one thing I've been struck by, um, which is just how much more confident, bold, aggressive, creative, he has been.

It sort of wielding the levers of power at his disposal to bend, you know, the, the city, the country and the world to his will, and the other thing that has struck me is Donald Trump traditionally is someone who is trying to get through the minute, the hour of the day, he is trying to win over the person directly.

in front of him, whether that's you and I and Michael in the Oval Office or a huge rally of MAGA supporters.

And what was surprising to me, and again he did hit his limit, but on tariffs he had the stomach, at least initially for more pain as the markets plummeted and he, he was getting, uh, you know, lobbied behind the scenes and some pretty public criticism, um, he stood by that much longer than I would expected for someone who is traditionally pinballing between whatever is politically.

expedient in that moment.

Yeah, the pain threshold is, is something that we did not see as much in the first term.

It's not just on the markets.

It's also negative coverage in terms of the headlines before he'd be screaming his head off if he didn't like a chyron on a show or what someone said.

He still gets angry about the coverage and thinks it's unfair to be clear, if that hasn't changed, but his pain threshold of the markets is much higher than it used to be.

It's not in totality given we saw what he did with the 90 day tariffs, but he does view this stuff a little differently, and I think a lot of it is he's emboldened and I think the one part is it's not just that he won re-election.

It's that he won the popular vote, and that has changed basically the entire way he approaches office this time.

Asma, what's the most consequential this is going to sound wonky, but I do think it's really important and it kind of goes on what you were saying actually a moment ago, which is I think that he is acting in a way that is both quicker, deeper, more aggressive than he did in his first term and to do this, and this is where I say I think it gets wonky, you know, we talk a lot about executive power and the breaking of institutions, and these are things that.

You know, any political science student talks about it and I think it sounds wonky and abstract, but to me that is the longest possible long term legacy that he's leaving.

You look at his interaction with courts, possibly defying courts in some situations you talk about trying to sort of, I would argue undermine law firms, universities, media institutions in some cases there is a total, I think, willingness to expand his power in ways that I didn't see in the first term.

Um, there's just a far more.

Uh, freedom that he's engaging with, but there's also, I would argue, um, less defiance or resistance from the outside to this.

I mean, look, I'll be blunt.

I thought it was very surprising initially the way that we saw universities at least initially willing to appease or possibly acquiesce or play ball with him, um, that was surprising firms, very surprising, I thought Caitlin, most consequential, I think there's so much here that it's really hard to to think of all consequentials.

not, but a lot of it is a lot of a lot of it is what they're doing at the agencies, you know, firing federal workers.

What does that look like from the Department of Health and Human Services.

We don't know.

I do think one change that the White House feels better about that Trump is less likely to fire people, that he typically before if this had happened 8 years ago with, you know, what happened with Signalgate as it's now known.

Um, that might have resulted in a departure, but they are so resistant on giving the media or Democrats as they view it a scalp, that they're not firing people.

But I've heard from people who think, you know, when it comes to the Pentagon, obviously such a critical place that you never know as a president what crisis could become fall upon you that you have to deal with in that moment.

I've heard from some people who say the way the Defense Secretary Pete Hag set is running the Pentagon the way he is choosing to lead the president's resistance to fire him, he could come to rue the day over that because if there is a real crisis, they've, there's been these instances where Pete Hecket has has disappointed even the White House with some of his actions or responses.

There's a question.

about that.

They're standing by him for now.

They fought very hard to get him confirmed.

They're not on the verge of firing him, but does the president regret actually not firing people and correcting mistakes could be something that we see play out.

Asma, why haven't they fired Pete Hexa?

Why haven't they fired him?

I do think it goes back to the level of confidence the president feels.

I mean he's operating in a different way than he was last time, where I think he believes, also I think it's a matter of loyalty.

I mean, he appreciates loyalty, it seems thus far Hegseth has been rather loyal to him, and that's a key issue to him.

Right, right.

Um, Steve, let me ask you this question.

Um, what's the most surprising.

Thing.

I mean, we all spent a lot of time, especially in the, you know, post-election pre-inauguration period trying to game out what we thought would happen.

We were all to some degree or another, I was very wrong thinking that this was going to be a continuation of Trump won when this feels like a very much a new kind of administration, but what's the most surprising thing?

So I thought I thought it was likely going to be a more aggressive Donald Trump that we saw in this.

2nd term, and I'm, I'm going to invite scorn and ridicule by what I say.

I anticipated we would see more resistance from Republicans, not just on policy issues, you know, the tariffs and um Vladimir Putin and Russia.

I mean these sort of issues that have been at the core of the Republican Party, going back decades, they're just rolling over.

You, you rarely, Rand Paul will occasionally offer a gentle critique of the tariffs.

You'll have a senator send out a gently worded tweet about Russia, but not really fighting him on policy at all.

Steve, not to be scornful.

I invited or mocking or mocking, but what in the behavior of the Republican Party over the previous years suggested to you that there would be more opposition, so it was it was both on the policies that I think these were sort of so, so core of the Republican Party.

I mean that, you know, to the extent that there are Republicans who believe things in Washington.

Many of them still believe the things that they believed when they were elected, and that was a long time ago and they were Ronald Reagan Republicans.

George Bush Republicans, more traditional Republicans, they didn't want to fight.

The thing that really surprised me though goes to what Asma said.

They're not fighting on rule of law questions.

They're not fighting him on separation of powers, questions, these are of fundamental issues, challenging the president or even raising questions in public about what the president is doing on those sort of core constitutional questions eagerly giving away congressional prerogatives, but doesn't it seem like Democrats have also struggled, I think, at least in the initial weeks with how to respond and maybe that goes back to the question of speed.

just, um, I mean there's so much happening at the same time, but I was surprised that Democrats you're most surprised at the speed of the demolition.

I think the speed of it, right, and we're not just talking about, I mean, look, in his first term, it felt like he was operating on the margins of, of institutions.

I mean, now you're talking about sort of dismantvirtually dismantling USAID Department of Ed.

These are like institutions and agencies that have existed in Washington for decades, and I'm just surprised by the scope and the depths.

that, I guess, look, I'll also say that I'm surprised by the ways in which Doge has operated and gone into sort of all across government was not that that we didn't hear about on the what's the Monty Python one?

No one's expecting.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

No one expected Doge, I think, right?

That was, that I don't know.

I did not advisors expected, that's always, that's always the case.

Caitlin, any, any, any thoughts on just the thing that really took you by surprise.

Well, I just think at this moment, but here's the thing I think to reflect on when it comes to 100 days is they have been, and this is the view of the White House.

This is not something that that I came up with.

This is what I've heard from multiple people is the 1st 100 days has been the easy stuff for them.

The executive orders, the fights with the courts just battle it out in the court.

We'll play it out later.

All of those things are coming to a head.

The courts are getting involved in this now.

It's going up to the Supreme Court in several instances.

All of that is playing out.

They very well may not win, and they are also getting to the more difficult issues when it comes to what's happening legislatively.

With his tax bill, what all of this is going to look like and so they in a sense at the White House, they've left the glow and realized they're in the moment where, um, it's gonna be a lot more difficult these days.

A perfect pivot to Ashley.

I'll give you the last word.

The next 100 days we're gonna just do this in 100 day increments because thinking about 1300 days is a lot.

Um, the next 100 days significantly harder.

Polling numbers are down for him.

He's very sensitive to that.

What, what, where do you, where do you see the real friction?

points.

Well, I think everything was so streamlined in the 1st 100 days more or less, and we have started to see the cracks, signal gate kind of being the first one that feels a bit more like Trump 1.0, that clown car chaos of it, and it is less the the streamlined, the ruthless efficiency, and so they are getting into a harder period as they are revealing themselves to have more challenges that have echoes of the more sort of floundering president, right?

Well, we'll, we'll gather here and uh another 100 days and um we'll make gentle fun of Steve for his um his his idealism and optimism, but we are going to have to leave it here for now.

Um, I want to thank our guests for, for joining me.

And I want to thank you at home for watching us.