Trump sprinting to 100-day deadline
Speeches, congressional lobbying to mark events
WASHINGTON - While President Trump calls the first 100 days “a ridiculous standard” by which to judge a new chief executive, he and his staff are planning a busy week of events designed to claim accomplishment as he hits the century mark on Saturday.
The crowded schedule ranges from a new tax reform outline to a renewed effort to get a health care bill through the U.S. House, from a high-profile National Rifle Association address to a 100thday rally in the politically pivotal state of Pennsylvania — all topped by the need for a new spending bill to keep the government open, a challenge that could hinge on Trump’s proposed border wall.
With the current federal spending bill set to ex-
pire at midnight Friday, Trump aides on a series of Sunday news shows would not commit to supporting a new funding measure unless it includes money for a U.S-Mexico border wall.
“We don’t know yet,” budget director Mick Mulvaney said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We are asking for our priorities.”
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” called the border wall an “outlandish proposal” and “political stunt” that should not cause a government shutdown, and he predicted that Trump would back down.
“He would not want that to define his first 100 days,” Durbin said.
In planning their own series of 100-day events this week, Democrats and other critics have cast Trump’s early days as a debacle. They cite lawsuits that have blocked his planned travel ban from Muslim-majority countries, and the administration’s failure to get a health care bill out of the Republican-run House.
Trump and aides said they made progress on an ambitious agenda, and, with the 100th day approaching on Saturday, they are seeking some kind of big legislative win. Their goals include:
Health care: Administration aides have revived efforts to win GOP House approval of a plan to replace and repeal former President Barack Obama’s health care plan, a month after an initial repeal bill had to be pulled from the schedule for a lack of Republican support. As of now, there are no plans for a revote on a revamped bill, though the White House continues to hint it might be back on the floor before Trump’s 100th day.
Tax reform: Trump said last week he would unveil a new tax plan, including major personal and corporate tax cuts, on Wednesday, though there is some question as to how detailed it will be. Mulvaney told Fox the plan will be more about “principles” and “ideas” for tax reform, along with “some of the rates we’re talking about.”
A new spending plan: While Trump aides are confident they will get a government funding approved by Congress by the Friday midnight deadline, the wall dispute could create a snag. Trump and aides want the bill to include money for the wall, but Democrats are vehemently opposed. “The wall is, in my view, immoral, expensive, unwise,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, “and when the president says ‘well I promised a wall during my campaign,’ I don’t think he said he was going to pass billions of dollars of cost of the wall on to the taxpayer.”
The White House is hoping to woo Democrats with an offer to provide funding for a key portion of the Affordable Care Act in the same bill.
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, speaking on “Meet The Press,” said the administration is “pretty confident” that the new spending bill will be satisfactory to Trump in terms of “border security.” Trump said in a tweet Sunday, “Eventually, but at a later date so we can get started early, Mexico will be paying, in some form, for the badly needed border wall.”
In addition to dealings with Congress, Trump is scheduled to give a series of public remarks about his White House record, including Friday’s appearance at the National Rifle Association convention in Atlanta. The president also plans to speak at the National Holocaust Memorial Museum’s National Day of Remembrance, issue new executive orders on energy development, and host White House dinners with lawmakers and Supreme Court justices, according to the week-ahead schedule.
The White House is also expected to launch a special website dedicated to tracking the accomplishments of the first 100 days.
On the actual 100th day, Trump is scheduled to hold a Saturday night political rally in Harrisburg, Pa., one of the key states that gave him his Electoral College victory last year. (The event is scheduled opposite the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner, which Trump and aides are boycotting; fights with the media have also marked Trump’s first 100 days.)
In previewing the administration’s 100 days argument, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the president has signed 24 pieces of legislation and 24 executive orders, many of them designed to roll back “job-killing regulations.” The president won Senate confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and cracked down on illegal immigration, his spokesman said.
Trump is confronting Syria over the use of chemical weapons, North Korea over its nuclear weapons program, and various countries over their trade policies, aides said.
“I think that there’s a lot of things that have been accomplished so far, and I think you’re going to continue to see it,” Spicer said.
Journalists and politicians have often used the 100-day standard to gauge new presidents, a tradition that stretches back to President Franklin Roosevelt and his post-inaugural push for New Deal legislation in 1933.
While Trump has condemned the emphasis on his early days, he has often used the standard himself, both during his campaign and in the days following the Nov. 8 election.
In a recent tweet, Trump said: “No matter how much I accomplish during the ridiculous standard of the first 100 days, & it has been a lot (including S.C.), media will kill!”