US President Donald Trump at the White House on April 27, 2025. Photo / Getty Images
US President Donald Trump at the White House on April 27, 2025. Photo / Getty Images
Executive orders are up, while the S&P 500 and Trump’s approval rating are down.
As US President Donald Trump passes his 100th day back in office, some key features of this presidency are already coming into focus: the colossal amount of money he raised to celebrate his inauguration; his historicuse of executive orders from Day 1 to quickly reshape government; the market slump in reaction to his tariff policies; and his 100-day approval rating, lower than any seen in nearly a century.
Here, in 10 charts, is a look at aspects of his second term so far.
Trump is using executive orders much more than other presidents
Trump signed more than 140 executive orders as of Monday (Tuesday NZT), far more than any American president in the same period. He is rapidly approaching the number that Barack Obama signed in his entire first term.
Those orders have aimed at the federal bureaucracy, among other targets
Graphic / Washington Post
Trump’s orders are unprecedented not just for their volume, but also, arguably, for their scope. From attempting to shrink a federal department created by Congress, to invoking the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants, Trump’s orders have tested the limits of presidential powers. His administration is already facing more than 200 lawsuits, according to a Washington Post tally.
Trump is also using executive actionsto attack perceived enemies, including the law firm that employed the spouse of his political opponent. He has also targeted environmentally friendly paper straws and shower heads.
Most Americans said they disapprove of Trump’s actions in several key areas: immigration, managing the federal government, looking out for the interests of average Americans, the economy, foreign relations, tariffs and the stock market.
The Senate is moving quickly to confirm his nominees
Graphic / Washington Post
So far, the Senate has confirmed more than 50 Trump political appointees, thanks in several cases to party-line votes cast by his Republican allies who control the chamber. Among recent presidents,only Barack Obama surpassed that figure, when Democrats led that chamber in 2009.
Trump has more than doubled the number of appointments he made in the same period in his first term, owing in part to a detailed plan for the beginning of the second term.
His inauguration fund more than doubled his 2017 record
Graphic / Washington Post
Trump raised $239 million (NZ$402m) for his 2025 inauguration celebrations, shattering the record he set in 2017 of $107m. The next closest figure was $61m, raised by Joe Biden.
Donors to this year’s fund included more than a dozen people Trump has nominated to a variety of roles in his administration, and tech and cryptocurrency companies fighting cases in federal courts.
One-million-dollar donations also came from Amazon (whose founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post); Google and Meta - which have cases before federal judges; and Nvidia, the chipmaker embroiled in Trump’s trade war.
Trump is posting on Truth Social more than he did on Twitter in 2017
Graphic - Washington Post
President Trump averaged more than five posts a day for the first 100 days of his first term. According to a Washington Post analysis, Trump has published more than 1700 posts on Truth Social, the platform he owns, in his first 100 days of his second term - an average of 17 posts a day.
“TRUTH (Social) is on ‘FIRE’ (in a positive way, of course!),” he wrote last month. “It is my Voice, and the Real Voice of America. Sign up TODAY, I have never let you down!”
Trump has spoken about expanding the US footprint
Graphic / Washington Post
Trump has stressed that to protect US national security interests, the country needs to undertake territorial expansion.
On his first day in office, he signed an executive order to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
In March, Trump dispatched Vice President JD Vance to Greenland, after having refused to rule out using military coercion to take control of the semiautonomous Danish territory. Meanwhile, Trump needled America’s neighbours to the north, saying they should become the 51st state - apparently without regard to the will of Canadian citizens, nor the overwhelming advantage it could accrue to Democrats.
International visits to the US are down
Graphic / Washington Post
International travel to the United States - which was, broadly speaking, trending downward - dropped further during Trump’s first 100 days back in office, according to data from the International Trade Administration, a part of the Commerce Department. The decline follows the Trump administration’s targeting of foreign nationals with opinions it opposes; deportation efforts that lack due process; and a confusing rollout of tariffs that have roiled global markets.
The decline comes as the United States prepares to host the FIFA World Cup next year, an event Trump announced last month he will take a leading role in facilitating.
Trump has visited a golf club nearly every weekend
Graphic / Washington Post
Trump has spent nearly every weekend at a golf course, according to a review of his schedule, media reports and publicly available information.
In 2011, Trump complained that Obama “plays golf to escape work while America goes down the drain”. Later, Trump wrote, “Can you believe that, with all of the problems and difficulties facing the US, President Obama spent the day playing golf.”
In 2016, as Trump sought to make the leap from reality TV celebrity to commander in chief, he told supporters in Virginia he “may never see” his golf courses and properties again. “Because I’m going to be working for you, I’m not going to have time to go play golf.”
- Federica Cocco, Adrián Blanco Ramos and Daniel Wolfe contributed to this report
