White House’s alternative facts

Ments are making rather suspect quantitative arguments without any regard for the quality or difficulty of legislation

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A trip down history lane shows that only three presidents since 1900 have had a vacancy to fill in their first 100 days, and that all three of them faced that vacancy late in their first 100 days.

Bill Clinton got a vacancy on March 19, 1993 — 58 days into his first term. Harry S Truman got a vacancy on June 30, 1945 — 79 days after replacing Franklin D. Roosevelt. And Warren G. Harding got a vacancy on May 19, 1921 — 76 days into his brief presidency. So Trump had all 100 days to fill his vacancy in his first 100 days; Clinton had 42 days, Truman had 21 and Harding had 24. All but one other president didn’t even get the chance for such an accomplishment. That one other president was Richard Nixon, who inherited somewhat of a mess on the Supreme Court from Lyndon B. Johnson.

The biggest problem with all of these claims is that they are making rather suspect quantitative arguments without having regard for the quality or difficulty of legislation and executive orders. A president can make as many executive orders as he wants. So to hold the number of them out there as a sign of success is, at best, hypocritical and, at worst, proves basically nothing about how productive Trump has been.

The number of bills passed is a similar situation. There has yet to be real, consequential, large-scale legislation passed in Trump’s first 100 days. And claiming that 29 bills is an accomplishment shows that the Trump administration will do just about anything to put a good face on its first 100 days — even dispatch some dubious “alternative facts”. Aaron Blake is senior political reporter for the Fix.