STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE: What does President Trump do now that he's well into his second 100 days? The president made many headlines in his opening months, all but wiping out some federal agencies. He's also had to make dramatic retreats. He's paused or rolled back most of the tariffs he tried to impose, for example. Courts have blocked his moves as illegal again and again. And Congress, which his party controls, has yet to enact significant legislation this year. We have a status report from NPR's Domenico Montanaro. Domenico, welcome.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Hey. Thanks for having me.
INSKEEP: So I just gave a big list and haven't even mentioned foreign policy...
MONTANARO: Right.
INSKEEP: ...Israel, Gaza, Russia, Ukraine, the confrontation with China. There's a lot. How much on that list can the president classify as a win?
MONTANARO: Not quite yet much on any of them. I mean, despite what the president wants to say about his trade deals, for example, you know, he started the trade war and is now trying to find an off-ramp to claim victory. You know, it's tough to say that the person who started the fire, then decides to put it out while threatening more of them, deserves a key to the city. But Trump laid out a groundwork for a lot of things with his 147 executive orders signed in his first few months. But now comes the real work of trying to get these things over the finish line.
INSKEEP: That's a fair way to phrase it, since so many of these executive orders would seem to be statements of aspirations rather than legislation or treaties or concrete achievements. But the president goes on. He's in the Middle East this week, stopping in Saudi Arabia, among other countries. So how has his foreign policy done so far?
MONTANARO: Yeah, and he'll try to take what his trip is here to the Middle East and build wins around whatever deals he comes up with - business deals for the United States - because this is not one in which we're seeing a president go to the Middle East to lay out a foreign policy platform. You know, it's pretty surprising, frankly, that he's not going to Israel while he's there, considering the war with Gaza, with Israel, that Trump has been trying to settle. But it does reflect some of the strain between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for continuing to bomb Gaza. And again, instead, this trip is all about business.
It does also raise some ethical questions, given Trump's personal financial interest in the Middle East, given his company trying to expand in the Middle East - his family company. You know, and it really says something, that we've continued to see Trump focusing on making these deals. These trade deals, for example, have been a key part of that strategy, doing victory laps on these framework agreements because he does need a win. He needs to show some deliverables, really. But what the endgame is on trade is hard to see because what he's trying to do fundamentally would overhaul the U.S. economy, turn back the clock to a time when the U.S. did a lot of the manufacturing here, but the global economy has just changed so much that that doesn't seem likely.
INSKEEP: So many of the lawsuits and court rulings surrounding this president concern who gets to do things. He's been told again and again and again, you might be able to do that if you got Congress to pass a law first, because it's a country of laws. Congress has been working on a law - a giant budget bill that could enact a lot of his agenda. Where's that stand?
MONTANARO: Yeah, and at least for permanent change, you need legislation. And Trump has had no major pieces of legislation so far passed, and he spent a lot of political capital on his trade war. So this is going to be a struggle for Trump, with the very narrow majority Republicans have in Congress and his current low approval ratings. I mean, the sticking point on this, quote, "big, beautiful bill" that he wants to get passed, of course, is Medicaid cuts. Trump has even floated the idea of taxing millionaires so that some of this can pencil out, but that seems to have been shut down by Republicans in Congress. So the details of this are far from finalized, never mind the Capitol Hill politics that it's going to require to get this over the finish line when Trump has spent so much political capital on tariffs.
INSKEEP: His political supporters described the president as populist - doing things that ordinary people would find appealing. Why, then, do you think his approval ratings are so far below 50%?
MONTANARO: Well, I mean, he was really elected to bring prices down, and these tariffs are something that are likely to only increase prices. And it's created a lot of chaos - a wave that really, the world has been trying to surf. Global markets have been really volatile because of all of that. And, you know, part of this issue on the economy, as well, has been Trump browbeating Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to try to lower interest rates. Powell has held his ground. Wall Street clearly wants to see stability. So Trump has backed off on criticizing him, as well. And even on immigration, something that had been a perceived strength of Trump's, his numbers have fallen because people think he's gone too far with some of these detentions and deportations. And it's going to be an uphill climb right now for Trump to get on the right side of public opinion, given how much political capital he's already spent on things like these tariffs.
INSKEEP: NPR's Domenico Montanaro. Thanks so much.
MONTANARO: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
