Trump First 100 days

Trump First 100 days

*A Conversation with Helen Walters and Ian Bremmer for TED Explains the World, April 29, 2025*

**(The video opens with the classic TED animated logo: red "TED" letters forming and then dissolving into particles, followed by a brief animation of red glowing cells against a dark background.)**

**(00:03 - Cut to a woman, Helen Walters, in a home office setting with bookshelves behind her. A name caption "HELEN WALTERS" appears briefly, then "APRIL 2025", then "Recorded for TED Explains the World".)**

**Helen Walters (HW):** Hello everyone. Welcome and thank you for joining. I am Helen Walters. I am Head of Media and Curation at TED. I am so happy to be here on April the 29th, 2025, the 100th day of the Trump presidency. Now the White House is touting this as the most productive and consequential start to any presidency. Others have a different take with a series of new polls indicating that the president's approval rating has dropped precipitously. Conflicting interpretations, how very 2025. So who else but Ian Bremmer to help us make sense of it all? He's the founder and president of Eurasia Group. Ian helps us to process signal from noise. Ian, thank you so much for being here and hello.

**(00:44 - Cut to a man, Ian Bremmer, in a different setting, possibly a study or office. A name caption "IAN BREMMER" appears.)**

**Ian Bremmer (IB):** Helen, wonderful to be with you.

**(00:48 - Screen splits, showing Helen Walters on the left and Ian Bremmer on the right.)**

**HW:** All right, so we're going to think of this as some form of evaluation of the first 100 days of this administration and a look forward to what we should be expecting next. Now, we asked our community to share their burning questions that they want you to make sense of, and far and away the topic that they want to understand better is about the economy. So Trump's so-called Liberation Day happened on April the 2nd. The president described it as one of the most important days in American history. What's your verdict? What are we watching? What should we be looking for?

**IB:** Well, let's first go back to your introduction for one second. When, you know, you said that Trump is saying that this is the most consequential first 100 days of any, uh, president in modern history. Fair enough. Um, enormously consequential and his policies are by and large popular, but the implementation of those policies has been shambolic. And nowhere is that more true than in the economy where Trump was elected expected to do better on the economy than Kamala Harris. He was polling well on that issue consistently. The US economy was performing pretty well, but a lot of Americans didn't think it was going well for them. And a big piece of that was free trade. Didn't support free trade. Democrats didn't, Republicans didn't because they saw, uh, cheap goods from all over the world, but they also saw a hollowing out of the middle and working class in the US. And fair trade was Trump's willingness to try to address that. So, wants to ensure that if the United States is getting high tariffs from other countries, that US is going to put equivalent tariffs on those countries, or the US is going to use a stronger position, uh, economically and in terms of power more broadly, to get other countries to capitulate to open their markets more to the United States. That was the theory. That has not been the implementation. Hasn't been the implementation because they're picking fights with literally everyone, whether the US is in trade surplus with those countries or running a trade deficit, irrespective of the reason for the trade deficit. For many countries, it's because they're very poor and they can't afford American goods and Americans want to buy a lot of cheap commodities, for example, from those countries. Also picking a massive fight with China, and the Chinese, uh, have been willing to hit the Americans back hard. And of course, that's leading to very significant costs that are only beginning to be born, um, by the average American and by the global economy. So, as a consequence, Helen, we're 100 days in, we're only a few weeks in to post-Liberation Day, but the markets have taken a hit and consumer confidence has taken an even bigger hit, and Trump's approval ratings have taken a big hit too.

**HW:** I think it's fascinating to think about the rollout of the tariffs, which indeed seem to be kind of arbitrary and a little strange, at least to a layperson watching it. We just saw that Jeff Bezos or Amazon are going to put a little tag on products on Amazon to denote how much, uh, how much of the cost is coming from tariffs. Trump is not in favor of this plan. What should we be expecting with consumer goods as we move forward over the next 100 days?

**IB:** Well, first, since it's breaking news, uh, when you and I are discussing it, uh, Amazon is not going to do that. They were thinking about doing that, and then Trump immediately got on the phone with Jeff Bezos, who is not the Amazon CEO but still has a lot of influence over there. Um, and, uh, I am sure, I haven't gotten a read out of the call, but read him the riot act. This is after, uh, Trump's spokeswoman, uh, had come out and said, uh, that, uh, this was considered a hostile act, uh, Amazon, uh, engaging in, uh, putting out, uh, what the tariffs would actually be in terms of consumer costs because of course Trump has been saying the tariffs aren't, uh, a cost that's going to be borne by consumers. It's going to be paid by the Chinese, it's going to be paid by other countries, and the US is going to get all that revenue. Well, that that's not the way it actually works. Um, and Trump doesn't want, uh, anyone, uh, gainsaying him, uh, on that issue. So Amazon very quickly backed down and if they hadn't, um, I expect they would have seen the kind of behavior that, you know, Harvard and Columbia have seen or that a lot of law firms have seen, which is, you know, Amazon, uh, gets a lot of business from the US government from the Trump administration and from the bureaucracy and he would have said, okay, no more of that. And that would have had a massive impact on Amazon shares. So, that's, that's the Amazon story. Um, more broadly, uh, the story is that there are too many cooks, all of whom have different ideas, uh, of what a tariff rollout should look like, but all of whom are loyal to the president and are going to do their damndest to give him whatever he wants at the moment. And so there was internal fighting of the best way to implement tariffs, and that went on for a while. Um, you had, you know, sort of, uh, the, uh, Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary saying should only be 19 countries, uh, with a defined, uh, tariff that's meant to get to reciprocity. Um, you had Peter Navarro saying you got to hit everyone and especially the Chinese really hard. You had Howard Lutnick, the Secretary of Commerce in between. And Trump got sick of the debate, not really a detailed policy guy. And so ultimately, after some days of this, uh, said, I'm just going to put tariffs on everyone. Doesn't matter if we've been negotiating with them, doesn't matter how close they are with us, don't care about the surpluses, everyone's getting a tariff, I want one formula, that's what we're going to do. Navarro had that formula at the ready, that was what was announced on Liberation Day and predictably, um, the markets and everyone else threw up all over that policy.

**HW:** So given that the markets and everyone else threw up all over that policy, how does, what, what is the future for that then? How, how is Trump going to get himself out of this and actually towards a policy that does pay attention to the detail given that they do matter?

**IB:** So, there are a couple of different answers to that question, Helen. One answer, uh, is that he's going to blink. Um, and so, you know, you saw that there was almost immediately this 90-day suspension on a lot of these tariffs to give time to negotiate, um, and also so that you didn't have even greater costs that were going to be imposed on the American economy, not just other economies. So, part of it is Trump showing more flexibility and backing away from a more maximalist announcement that he made on Liberation Day. I mean, let's face it, he declared essentially a national holiday around these tariffs so you knew they were going to be big and historic, but turned out that they were a little too big and historic for him to swallow. Um, that's one thing. Second thing is he's going to actually cut deals. There will be a number of countries that are, um, very, very concerned about having a fight with a much larger US economy. Um, I've spoken, for example, with high-level Japanese officials, um, and they worry that their government will fall if they don't get a deal quickly with the Trump administration. The Prime Minister is not popular. The July snap back after the 90 days of high tariffs against Japan is right before their upper house election. So they urgently want to do a bunch of stuff that will make Trump happy, like buy more American LNG and promise more investments into the United States in semiconductors, in automotive, in other sectors. They even want to find a way to get their currency, the Japanese yen down to about 120 from the present 140 plus. So they want to get to a deal. And there are other countries like that, a bunch of really small countries across the global south, India, the United Kingdom, there are a lot of countries like that. And even though you won't have fully fledged deals that can be inked, there can be framework agreements with letters that are submitted to the Trump administration saying here is what we're prepared to do. Trump will say great, we'll work this out. Um, and that will calm the markets. So that's the second thing he can do. Remember, first was capitulate a bit. Second is cut a bunch of deals. But then there's the third, which is even with number one and two, we are still going to be in by far the highest tariff environment that we have experienced since the 30s without a deal with the European Union, certainly without a deal with the Chinese where right now the sides aren't even talking to each other, irrespective of what Trump, uh, is saying. Um, and also without a deal, uh, with Mexico and Canada, uh, which requires a renegotiation of the US Mexico Canada agreement, the trade agreement that, uh, came after NAFTA from the first Trump administration, which is complex and will take time to do. Um, and what that means, and the China piece is particularly important, I'm sure we'll get into it. But broadly what that means is massive costs, like much bigger than the shock that came from the pandemic, um, that will lead to higher inflation for American consumers, will lead to lots of bankruptcies and massive pressure on corporates and that is going to play out over time because you've already imposed a bunch of those costs, you're already seeing the shipments get hit, um, and the goods not being in the containers and it takes a while for that to flow through into the global economy, but as it does, um, the impact is going to be massive. And here's the biggest problem. Um, back in the first Trump administration, when Trump made mistakes, he had a lot of people around him that weren't loyal to him, they were loyal to the Republican party and they were loyal to the country. And they would also tell him, um, when they thought he was making significant mistakes. That is not true in this administration. I don't believe you have cabinet officials that are loyal to the country before they are loyal to Trump. I think they're loyal to Trump first and they are unwilling to tell Trump when they disagree. We saw that play out with Signal Gate, this extraordinary look into an actual real-time conversation between Trump's top national security advisors on matters of war and peace, on whether there was going to be, um, a military, a series of military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen. And you saw the vice president, the most important, most powerful person on that call, on that text chain, saying, I don't think Trump understands what he's approving here. This is a bad idea. Maybe we should tell him and, and getting shut down. And, and no one ending up telling Trump and going ahead and they, and they, uh, decided to go to proceed with those strikes. Point is that same thing is happening on trade. So, even as the economy takes a hit, even as the markets take a hit, even as his numbers go down, he is going to have people, particularly Howard Lutnick, who is sort of the ultimate hype guy around Trump on the economy, but he's going to have a bunch of advisors around him that are saying, sir, you are so brilliant. You are doing such a magnificent job. Don't listen to the haters. Don't pay attention to what you're seeing in the New York Times and the failing fake news. You're brilliant. And that plus Trump's own far greater confidence in himself this time around compared to the first term means that the impact, the negative impact of these trade policies is going to go a lot further before Trump is willing, um, to make a significant change, um, in what he is convinced is an utterly brilliant policy.

**HW:** So, you and I actually talked when President Biden met with President Xi in a historical meeting back in November 2023, and that was the first time that President Xi had been to the US in six years. This is maybe a really stupid question, but is there any chance that officials might somehow engineer a meeting between President Trump and President Xi anytime soon?

**IB:** I've certainly been saying to officials on both sides that, um, they would be wise to facilitate a meeting between the two heads of state as fast as possible because absent any conversations between the two, the potential that we get an inadvertent crisis that escalates into something really dangerous is higher than we want it to be. Um, so I'd like to see that happen, but right now I don't see it. Uh, right now we've got 145% um, tariffs from the United States on China and the Chinese essentially reciprocating. So there's no goods trade between the two countries with some exceptions is is basically being cut off. You see Apple, one of the top companies in the world, never mind the United States, um, now moving their iPhone production for the US all out of China into India. That's a permanent move, that's not going to go back. That's a real hit to the Chinese. You see an effort by the United States to contain China and to reduce, get their transshipments out of third countries into the US, so through Mexico, through India, through Southeast Asia like Vietnam. These are all long-term decisions and in that environment, we seem to be very far from trying to reconstruct a strategic and economic dialogue that Biden and Jake Sullivan and others had been trying to put together, not to recreate a relationship of trust, which wasn't happening, but to improve mutual understanding of the two most powerful countries in the world of what each other was up to, what they wanted, what they were doing to reduce risk. Risk has increased in the global system dramatically as a consequence of what the Trump administration has been doing over the last 100 days. But perhaps nowhere more significantly than in the US-China relationship.

**HW:** So what is the next milestone that we should be looking for here? What, is it July when the tariffs, you know, come up for re-examination or what is the, especially with China, what is the next milestone that we should be looking at?

**IB:** Now, with China, it's not actually July. With China, it is, you know, kind of every day, every week, every month as we start to see the implications of these goods not getting to the United States playing through the US economy. So that was what Amazon was, a shoe to drop, and Amazon backed off because they were threatened by the Trump administration. But I mean, why did they say they wanted to do that? Because if you are an American who shops on Amazon, which means if you are an American, right? Um, you are going to notice in very short order that a lot of the things that you buy are going to be a lot more expensive and a lot of the things that you want to buy aren't going to be available, right? I mean, when 99% of like the alarm clocks that Americans consume come from China, maybe you're not going to buy an alarm clock. That's not such a disaster. But when you add that with every other good that comes from China or is affected or has inputs that come from China, suddenly this is going to be a massive problem. And, you know, we had a lot of that that happened after, in the teeth of the pandemic. And, and yes, um, the pandemic likely originated, um, from China and very plausibly from a lab in China in Wuhan. But still, um, people didn't see that as an overt political decision to ruin their lives economically. This is going to be a series of costs on people that was absolutely self-imposed. And one way you know that is because Trump decided to do Liberation Day the day after you had those, um, special elections in Florida and in Wisconsin. He understood that this was not going to be popular. He understood that in the near term, there were going to be major economic costs and that is what the Americans are now going to see.

**HW:** But what's so interesting is that we've already seen the the polls going down, the favorability rating for Trump is already going down and that is before these costs have really impacted the voters. And the voters are really having this sense or about to have this sense of, wait, this is impacting me. I, if if they're a Trump voter, maybe they really liked some of his policies, but people are having that, wait, the leopard's eating my face moment of like, wait, this is actually really negatively impacting my life. So it seems to me that those polls are going to plummet yet further. And we know that Trump really likes polls and he really likes to do well in them. So again, sorry for like stupid questions, but what what is he doing? Why is he prepared to tolerate this negative opinion?

**IB:** Well, we also know that he likes markets and he talks a lot about how the markets are doing and he took huge amounts of credit for when the market was doing well under Trump and when the market wasn't doing as well under Biden, he blamed Biden. Um, I mean, you probably noticed that, you know, Fox News stopped running the markets Chiron, you know, streaming underneath, uh, their coverage when the markets were taking a dump because it wasn't helping, you know, sort of a a lean, um, in favor of Trump. Trump certainly doesn't want to talk as much about that. Um, and he is clearly more willing to accept um impact, negative impact on the markets, at least for a period of time because he's decided it's necessary. He's not running again. He's 78. He's much more confident that his views are correct and he is being told by the people around him how brilliant he is. Well, I think that plays with his polling as well. Maybe not as well, but of course, a solid 90% of Republicans still support Trump. Um, his base still supports Trump. Now, what's going to be interesting to watch, Helen, is for the last several years, um, voters, American voters view of the economy had less to do with how the economy was doing and more to do with their political alignment with the president that was running the country, which is weird and shocking, uh, but nonetheless is true. Um, and so the question will be, does that break when Americans see that suddenly prices of goods have gone way up, that they are not able to live with the same standard that they were before Liberation Day. Is that going to make Republicans say, I know that this is my guy and I know that I'm supposed to support everything he does, but actually he really just messed my life up and that's going to change how I think. That is a, that is a completely contrary to the way American politics have been working for the last few cycles increasingly, but this is a major piece of cognitive dissonance that'll have to be swallowed. So far, the um, the negative uh trend in Trump's numbers has been overwhelmingly driven um by by Trump-oriented Dems, um or you know, Trump-curious Dems and independents, not by Republicans. I expect that is going to change significantly as these costs start hitting Americans because the scale is going to be so massive. But I might be wrong. I mean, we're we're we'll get to see this play out in real time over the next few months.

**HW:** Indeed we will. All right, let's get back to international affairs and in particular Ukraine. We saw President Zelensky came to the US, had a very fractious meeting in the Oval Office. We just saw President Zelensky and President Trump meeting at the Pope's funeral. Um, so what do you think? What's happening? What should we be looking for over the next 100 days and beyond?

**IB:** That was of course a much better meeting. Um, and it was a meeting that was attended only by Zelensky and Trump, even though French President Macron tried to wangle his way in there, that was not happening. Trump said no on that. Um, and I'm glad they had that meeting. Uh, and it does show that, you know, even though, uh, everyone was really concerned about Trump cutting off the Ukrainians. And remember, after that disastrous meeting in the White House, the United States actually suspended intelligence and defense support for Ukraine. And I will tell you, that had a huge impact on the Ukrainian leadership. They didn't think that was possible. They suddenly realized it was. The US is their principal backer, um, and they can't continue to fight the war and defend themselves against the invading Russians if the Americans continue that suspension. So that um, showed the Ukrainian leadership that they needed to take Trump more seriously. They needed to sign a letter of intent for a critical minerals deal that they will, um, going, they will implement going forward. So that's a win for Trump. And they also accepted, uh, Trump's demand for a ceasefire with no preconditions. So, Trump hit the Ukrainians pretty hard. The Ukrainians have now accepted Trump's terms, uh, to get to a ceasefire, to get to a ceasefire. Trump has not been willing to hit the Russians hard. And it's funny, there's been a lot of, um, you know, effort to try to convince Trump that the Russians aren't taking you seriously, they're walking all over you. And we have now seen over the last week that Trump is inching towards an understanding of that reality. He has now mentioned that, well, I'm losing my patience. I'm angry that the Russians are continuing to bomb, including in Kiev, and killed a bunch of civilians when I told them not to. Uh, I'm angry they're, they're not, they're not coming to the table. Privately, Trump keeps telling people, I want the Russians to come to the table, they won't come to the table. What do I need to do to get them to come to the table? And that was behind this decision for Trump to post that maybe I need secondary, uh, sanctions on companies and finan- and financial institutions. And, and what he is hoping, and what he has been told by advisors and by some foreign leaders that have met with him in the last week from Europe, um, is that if you're willing to go after a couple of the top Russian companies, um, you know, companies like Rosneft, for example, Lukoil, for example, specific examples, um, that you won't even need to implement. Putin just needs to believe that you're serious and then he's going to back down and he's going to come to the table. And, and Trump's view is, well, if that's what I need to do, okay, I'll do that. Is that enough? I don't think that's enough. I, I think that Putin still believes that at the end of the day, Trump does not want to get into a fight with Russia. Trump doesn't want, he wants to wash his hands of Ukraine, and if he walks away from this conflict, it will be walking away from both sides and not blaming Putin alone, but instead blaming Putin and Zelensky together. So that, I think that's the bet that Putin is making as of right now, which means we're not going to have a ceasefire. Now, if Trump changes his mind and actually shows that he's willing to not just throw some threats, but really implement on an or else, then maybe Putin's mind can be changed. And maybe then Putin will sit at the table, especially because that move by Trump would empower the Europeans who are willing to do a lot more to support Ukraine and again, Trump has moved the Ukrainians to support Trump's position. He's also moved the Europeans to spend a lot more money on defense and do a lot more to support Ukrainian reconstruction. So if Trump were to pivot against Putin at this point, which he hasn't done yet, he could plausibly show, look how much I've managed to get in service of peace. Look how much I've managed to get in reducing America's obligations for this country that really should principally be Europe's obligation, not the United States. But I haven't yet seen Trump willing to do that. In fact, what I've seen is Trump focusing more on Iran, talking about Africa and maybe needing to do some peace there, even, you know, privately musing about North Korea. In other words, getting bored of Russia-Ukraine and instead washing his hands of it and moving on to other places where maybe he should get his Nobel Peace Prize. That's, that's where I fear we are heading as opposed to the more constructive tack.

**HW:** Interesting. Um, and I want to talk a little bit more about Europe. As you say, the Europeans have really stepped up. I think they were, you were in Munich when J.D. Vance went there and had his conversation with them and jaws dropped and people were very, very confused and surprised and upset by what he had to say. And yet it is also true that the Europeans have indeed stepped up and have committed more of their, more towards their defense budget. So, how is Europe kind of calibrating in this post first 100 days moment and how are they going to be approaching the US and also Ukraine and everything else going forward?

**IB:** Well, you know, in the first 100 days, some of the biggest impact of Trump globally has been a unifying tendency. We've seen that in Europe, the Europeans coming together and saying we have to provide for our own defense independent of the United States long term. We have to support Ukraine independent of the US long term because we can't trust them. They're not going to be there. They're going to walk away. Um, and that has created a stronger support for the European Union, um, and, and for EU competencies on the economy, on trade and building a competency in defense. That's, and by the way, we've also seen that in Canada. That unifying tendency is why my friend Mark Carney got elected. The Liberals were dead in the water before Trump was inaugurated and then once he started beating up on the Canadians on the 51st state nonsense, um, and on tariffs, suddenly, um, you know, the the conservative candidate who wanted to be Canada first and was aligned with a lot of Trumpist policies looked much more vulnerable and Carney won. Um, Mexico, same thing, Claudia Sheinbaum has 86% approval right now. That's gone way up because of Trump. So, in the near term, Europe is stronger and more unified. But long term, even if they spend more on defense, even if they reduce their red tape, they create more productivity, they try to align on this new competitiveness report that is really a blueprint for things that Europe needs to do, should have done 10, 20, 30 years ago. Is it enough? Because ultimately, Europe doesn't have the growth, they don't have the productivity, they don't have the fiscal space. Germany does, but most of Europe does not. They don't have the defense capacity so they have to build it. They have to do an awful lot simultaneously on the back of European citizens that aren't going to be comfortable with that strain at all. So, do we believe that Europe can be successful long term? As I said earlier, if the Chinese can take the pain economically, if they can get through that with political stability, they will be in a better position long term. The Europeans, I don't think the Europeans have the political capacity, the will to outlast the Americans. And so I fear that even as the Europeans unify in the near term, they are not going to succeed in doing the things they need to to maintain a, a unified block that becomes more vibrant, that is able to defend itself, that is able to drive new technologies that will attract investment and capital and that can compete with the United States long term. I don't actually think that's a very good bet. It's a better bet than it was a few weeks ago, but it's not yet a good bet in my view.

**HW:** It's interesting. Obviously, yesterday we saw the rolling blackouts occurring across Portugal and Spain. And I was, this is a really horrible joke that someone made, but someone I was talking to was just like, well, we'll see the report on what actually happened in about six years' time. I'm wondering if you, if you wouldn't make that bet right now, what is the alternative? Like if Europe doesn't make that shift, what happens?

**IB:** Well, look, the advantage that Europe has is that they are committed to rule of law, they are committed to like, you know, sort of consistent tax codes. They don't have structural corruption in the EU in the way that we increasingly do in the United States and that China, of course, its entire system is kind of aligned around. Um, and, and that is, you know, that is attractive. But to make that work, you still want a return on your investment. Um, and, and let's face it. I mean, there are very few companies, Western multinationals, that are out there saying, I want to go and invest a lot of money in Europe and hire a lot of Europeans when I know it's almost impossible to fire them, and when I don't think I'm going to make a lot of money, and when my input costs are much more expensive, and I have to deal with a lot of political long-term instability geopolitically, you know, with migrant pressure from Africa and the Middle East, with national security pressure from Russia that's a much bigger threat to Europe than it is to the United States. So there are just lots of externalities around Europe that are very, very hard to fix. So what does that mean? If they don't succeed, um, and they aren't able to become truly competitive, they only get it half right or a quarter right. Well, that means that over the next five years, 10 years, that a whole bunch of individual European countries are going to vote to get rid of the elites. They're going to vote to get rid of the political establishment. And they will, so Germany, the AfD and the far left, you know, which have had historically successful elections in a country that has really a very strong center, suddenly, it's the outsiders that will start winning and that will start to unwind the European Union because they're not committed uh with the EU. That in France, the far left and the far right will start outperforming. In the UK, the Reform Party under Nigel Farage will win and the Conservative Party will split. And so you can imagine that if the Europeans don't get it right, that they will start to fragment. They certainly will no longer unify. And the reason for that, Helen, is fairly simple. It's that in a world where the United States drives this model that is, you know, incredibly state and private sector driven. So you have industrial policy and you have huge market forces and they capture one another. And in China, and you have this system that is massively state-directed and enormous amounts of capital to national champions. Well, I mean, in the US and China, the citizens don't have as much of a voice, but the growth is there. Well, in Europe, the citizens have more of a voice, but the growth isn't there. And if the Americans and the Chinese are doubling down on a non-rule of law system, on a system that is about we just care how powerful you are, you get the outcomes you want, then the Europeans will not have any space. And and that that system will increasingly fail. That is the danger of what this. Now, now by the way, Helen, um, in that system, there are others that that are equally worried to Europe. Canada is equally worried as Europe in that system. Japan and South Korea are equally worried. Frankly, you know, the G6, so the G7 minus the United States, plus a bunch of other advanced industrial economies and maybe some medium income democracies, all are going to be very unhappy, very uncomfortable with a world that is being increasingly driven by the US and China. And so the question will be, is there going to be a third way? And right now the momentum is against that. But it's an open question. It's a really important one.

**HW:** Really, really important. All right. So you mentioned both Mexico and Canada, and obviously Mark Carney was just elected. I, I want to talk about immigration. That is a banner topic that, uh, Trump had campaigned on. Um, it is also true to say that boarding crossings between Mexico and the US have plummeted since he took office. Yet it is also true to say that fewer migrants have been removed from, uh, then, uh, by Trump and this administration than were then were removed by Biden in the previous 12 months. There's also been some, I think it's safe to say legally questionable deportation tactics being used. A judge in Milwaukee County was just arrested for obstruction of justice by allegedly protecting a migrant in her court. What's going on with immigration? What's happening with the rule of law in the United States? And what should we be watching here?

**IB:** Well, Trump not only, uh, defeated Biden on his economic policy, which he is now, um, at serious risk of unwinding, um, and I think is very likely to unwind. I think some of the steps he's taken have already are impossible to to put back in the box. But Trump was also very successful in his willingness to address, uh, long unaddressed illegal migration into the United States. And, and there I would say his policies are on much safer ground for him, for his base, and for many Trump-curious non-Republicans. Um, and the fact that, um, the border is much more secure and, and the willingness to make that border secure is also having a chilling impact on those that might come, try to come into the United States is, is an unmitigated win for Trump. Um, and that's a popular policy. Now, that's different, um, from dealing with illegal migrants that are already in the United States. That's harder to do. Um, it requires more resources that he hasn't yet applied, um, and will be difficult to raise. Um, also requires going after, um, some moneyed interests, like the big corporations that are very comfortable benefiting from very productive, low-cost labor, um, in the US that Trump hasn't yet been willing to go after directly with, you know, I verify, for example, e-verify and other policies that would, that would make it hard for them to continue to benefit from those illegal workers. Um, the biggest negative so far, um, has been Trump's willingness, um, to flout, uh, the, uh, rulings of justices, including a 9-0 vote by the Supreme Court. And this is a fight he wants precisely because it is popular. Uh, I mean, when, when you deport someone that is illegal, uh, illegally in the United States and would clearly be deportable, and Trump just decides to deport this guy to El Salvador, which is the one country that it was illegal to deport him to, and then refuses to facilitate his return as demanded by the Supreme Court, that is Trump flouting a narrow ruling against a person that is very unsympathetic to most American voters. And he loves the idea of having a fight against the Maryland senator that went down to El Salvador on taxpayer funds, um, to defend someone that shouldn't be in the United States to begin with and who Biden didn't do anything about, um, when the average American doesn't feel like anyone's looking out for them. Um, so that's a fight he wants, even though that means he is fighting against a Supreme Court ruling, including the six Supreme Court conservative justices, including the justices that Trump himself appointed. They all ruled against him on this, he doesn't care, right? So this is an area that he wants to have more fights and he thinks that they will work well for him, he's probably right.

**HW:** Ian, it turns out that we are running out of time, which is outrageous. So I want to finish with one last question, which is you've, you're obviously tracking this incredibly closely. What should we be paying attention to over the next 100 days?

**IB:** Um, the single biggest thing is going to be the blowback from the economy. Uh, Trump has shown that when he's hit in the face hard, he's capable of pivoting, even in his second term, not just in the first. And the, the one thing that happened in the first 100 days that forced that was when he started talking about removing the Fed chair that he appointed in his first term, Jerome Powell. And everyone threw up all over that, especially the so-called bond vigilantes, uh, when the idea that US Treasuries were suddenly not going to be as attractive because the US wouldn't have an independent Fed and therefore would be more like an emerging market. He backed off from that fast. That was a hot stove that he touched. He didn't like getting burned by that hot stove and he said, oh, I'm not going to fire him. I just would like him to move a little faster, uh, on reducing interest rates. So, the question in the next 100 days, the most important question will be as the American economy takes a major hit, and as average American voters and businesses, small and medium businesses especially, start feeling that pain and expressing themselves loudly, how does Trump respond? How do Republicans in Congress respond? That's the first thing we should watch. The second thing we should watch more broadly is what kind of reaction do we see inside the US as there are further efforts made to erode the checks and balances of a democracy, of the world's most powerful country that happens to be a dysfunctional democracy. As Trump continues to go after law firms and universities and the mass media and political opponents and you name it, opens investigations, opens audits, extorts them, threatens them, who is willing to stand up and who capitulates? And, you know, we've seen a fair amount of capitulation from a lot of multinational corporations because they're comfortable in a more kleptocratic environment that the US has become for decades. We've seen much less capitulation from American institutions of higher learning and from law firms that are standing on some foundational principles that they think are core to who they are. Courage, Helen, is contagious, and the more you see of the latter, um, I think the more broadly, um, the response against Trump will be, who looks a lot weaker on the domestic and international stage today than he did 100 days ago. So, that's I think what we want to watch most closely.

**HW:** Well, Ian, we are so grateful to you for continuing to watch everything closely and we will indeed be asking you to come back to share your insights and your thoughts with us at some point soon, maybe in another 100 days. For now, thank you so much for being here and thank you to everybody for watching. We'll see you soon.

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