Ending production of the penny and getting rid of federal support for paper straws?
Done and done.
That was among President Donald Trump‘s “accomplishments” that his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, talked about on Fox News with the chyron reading: “TRUMP ADMIN LINES WHITE HOUSE LAWN WITH IMAGES OF ILLEGALS WHO HAVE BEEN ARRESTED.”
Hillary Clinton seized on it.
“In Trump’s first 100 days, he alienated us from our allies, crashed the stock market, decimated U.S. cancer research, expelled American toddlers, lost the Canadian election by proxy, and threatened your Social Security checks. But at least he focused on the important stuff,” Trump’s 2016 rival posted to X with an image of the interview.
The White House on Monday opened a weeklong celebration of Trump’s first 100 days in office by focusing on his border crackdown, an area of relative strength for the president at a time when there are red flags for him in the latest round of polling.
Yard signs with mugshots of immigrants who have been accused of crimes like rape and murder were posted across the White House lawn, positioned so they would be in the background of television broadcasts outside the West Wing. Tom Homan, Trump’s top border adviser, told reporters there has been “unprecedented success” on the border effort and “we’re going to keep doing it, full speed ahead.”
Immigration is Trump’s leading issue in public opinion surveys, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a morning briefing the administration is in “the beginning stages of carrying out the largest deportation campaign in American history.”
About 139,000 people have been removed so far, according to the White House. Deportations have occasionally lagged behind Democratic President Joe Biden’s numbers, but Trump officials reject the comparison as not “apples to apples” because so many fewer people are crossing the border now.
Later Monday, Leavitt held a second briefing exclusively for “new media,” where Trump-aligned social media influencers asked friendly questions and applauded at the end.
Americans are nearly twice as likely to say Trump has been mostly focusing on the wrong priorities as to say he has been focusing on the right ones, according to an AP-NORC survey, and only about half of Republicans say he’s mostly had the right focus. Another one-quarter of Republicans say it’s been about an even mix of right and wrong priorities, and about 1 in 10 say he’s focusing on the wrong things.
And among Trump’s own supporters, the share of Republicans who say he has been at least a “good” president has fallen about 10 percentage points since January.
Other polls conducted in recent weeks have found similar levels of dissatisfaction with Trump’s first few months, particularly with his economic policies and approach to tariffs.
Trump lashed out at the results on social media as “FAKE POLLS FROM FAKE NEWS ORGANIZATIONS.”
As he’s pushed to crack down on illegal immigration, Trump has drawn criticism as he has strained the limits of executive power, attacked judges who’ve ruled against him, sent hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a mega-prison in El Salvador in defiance of a court order and balked at a Supreme Court order that his administration must facilitate the return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
His plans to carry out a mass deportation have not yet shaped up, but the White House is ramping up efforts to encourage people who are in the country illegally to “self-deport,” with actions that include stiffer fines and incentives to leave, including airfare and stipends.
His administration has pointed to the steep drop in the number of illegal border crossings as an early and significant sign of success.
Trump signed two executive orders later Monday related to immigration, including one directing state and federal officials to publish a list of “sanctuary city” jurisdictions.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
