Trump touts 100-day record, slams media
HARRISBURG (AP) — US President Donald Trump on Saturday marked his 100th day in office by claiming historic action on his agenda, renewing promises on health care and taxes and attacking the news media that he says is misleading Americans.
Declaring his ”only allegiance is to you, our wonderful citizens,” Trump signed executive orders toughening the nation’s posture on trade deals.
”We are not going to let other countries take advantage of us anymore,” he said in Harrisburg at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center. ”From now on, it’s going to be America first.”
But even as he appealed to Pennsylvania voters who helped elect him in a surprise win over Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trump seemed caught between his role as an outsider candidate and a now-elected negotiator still figuring out how to deal with the very insiders he vowed to drain from Washington’s ”swamp.”
He’s now spent 100 days being educated on the slow grind of government even in a Republican-dominated capital, and watching some of his promises — such as repealing US former president Barack Obama’s health care law and temporarily banning immigration from people in some Muslim nations — go up in smoke.
Even as he returned to politically important Pennsylvania, Trump seemed torn between who he was courting. He opened the rally with an extended attack on the media, pointing out that he was choosing to stay away from the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner.
”I could not possibly be more thrilled than to be more than 100 miles way from Washington’s swamp,” he said, ”spending my evening with all of you and with a much, much larger crowd and much better people, right?”
He then suggested that he might attend the dinner next year — but added that he might consider returning to Pennsylvania.
The state was critical to Trump’s victory. Trump won Pennsylvania with 48 percent of the vote, the first time the state had voted for a Republican presidential candidate since George H.W. Bush in 1988.
Trump visited the AMES Companies in Pennsylvania’s Cumberland County, a shovel manufacturer since 1774. With that backdrop he signed an executive order directing the Commerce Department and the US trade representative to conduct a study of US trade agreements.
The goal is to determine whether America is being treated fairly by its trading partners and the 164-nation World Trade Organization.
Trump’s rally Saturday night in Harrisburg offered a familiar recapitulation of what he and aides have argued for days are administration successes, including the successful confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, his Cabinet choices and the approval of construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.