Trump’s first 100 days: DOGE, tariffs, TikTok, and more
- Trump’s first 100 days have been marked by significant policy changes, including the ongoing tariff situation that has thrown a wrench into the global economy and led to unpredictability.
- The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under Brendan Carr has become a tool for censorship, with Adi Robertson commissioning a story about its anti-consumer and rights-trampling actions.
- Despite initial promises, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) did not become law during Trump’s term, and the TikTok ban was ultimately implemented by Congress and signed into law by Biden.
- Elon Musk’s DOGE project has had a significant impact on the federal government since January, with Adi discussing its destruction of the government and potential for building a comprehensive surveillance state.
- The sheer scale of Trump’s actions in his first 100 days is overwhelming, with many topics, including immigration, science, climate, research, and public health, being glossed over due to the volume of changes happening simultaneously.
We hit the 100-day mark in Donald Trump’s second presidential term this week and, well — a lot of things have happened in that time.
Verge policy editor Adi Robertson has been running a series of stories about the impact of these 100 days on the site all week. They’re great; we’ve linked them below and in the show notes. And so I wanted to have Adi on the show to talk about six big themes — six big stories we’ve been following — to see what has and hasn’t gone the way we might have expected.
Up front are a couple of the biggest. First, the tariff situation has thrown a wrench in basically the entire global economy. It’s not really clear day-to-day what tariff rates the US is even demanding, and that’s leading to a lot of unpredictability, which is really never what you’re looking for in the business world.
Then there’s one of my personal favorites, the way Brendan Carr is weaponizing the Federal Communications Commission against the First Amendment. I think he’s an unserious, censorious hack, and that’s putting it mildly. Adi commissioned a story about that, and you’ll hear us get into it a bit.
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Those are things that are changing, but then there are a couple of things that aren’t really changing, even though they seemed like a big deal — or at least Trump made sound like a big deal — before his term began. The Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, seemed like it was about to become law — and then didn’t. And the TikTok ban is something Trump willed into being that never came to fruition during his first term. Then Congress did make it happen, Biden signed it into law, and Trump just — decided that doesn’t matter. So you’ll hear us touch on those, as well.
And of course, tying it all together is the DOGE of it all. Elon Musk’s pet project has torn a swath of destruction through the federal government since January, and you’ll hear us discuss not only what he’s destroyed but also the scarier newer thing DOGE might be building: a comprehensive surveillance state.
Even for as much as Adi and I got through, there’s a lot going on that we didn’t have time to discuss. It would have taken us hours and hours to get through everything Trump and Elon have upended in just three months, so we didn’t really talk very much about immigration, for example, or everything that’s happening with science, climate, research, or public health.
And that really does highlight the scale of the problem: Only a hundred days in, and there’s so much going on at once that it’s basically impossible to keep up.
But we’re still going to try. One hundred days of Trump: here we go.
If you’d like to read more on what we talked about in this episode, check out the links below:
- Trump’s 100 day inferno | The Verge
- The DOGE days have just begun | The Verge
- America is living in tariff limbo | The Verge
- MAGA’s next wave of influencers saved TikTok | The Verge
- Whatever happened to the Kids Online Safety Act? | The Verge
- Brendan Carr’s FCC is an anti-consumer, rights-trampling harassment machine | The Verge
- Warning systems for floods, hurricanes, and famines are suffering from Trump’s data purge | The Verge
- Why Trump can’t be trusted with Congress’ new anti-deepfake bill | Decoder
- How Trump’s tariffs actually work on the ground | Decoder
- The FCC is a weapon in Trump’s war on free speech | Decoder
Questions or comments about this episode? Hit us up at decoder@theverge.com. We really do read every email!