April 28, 2025 • 19 mins
President Trump will celebrate 100 days back in office this week. The milestone comes amid a US-China trade war, ongoing conflict overseas and high-stakes battles over the future of higher education.
On today’s Big Take podcast, Bloomberg’s Josh Wingrove joins host David Gura to take stock of how Trump has used the last three months to reshape everything from global trade and immigration to the American presidency — and what they reveal about the road ahead.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
This week marks one hundred days of President Trump's second term.
He'll celebrate the milestone on Tuesday at a rally in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Trump loves milestones. He loves anything that sort of has
a top billing type of effect to it.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Josh Wingrove covers the White House for Bloomberg. The co
authored a piece this week looking back on the president's
first one hundred days, and he says that the mood
at the White House is jubilant.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
They think that they're killing it. I think right now
they're happy with the flurry of executive orders. And I
think it's important to understand that this administration of this
landscape is like deferring to the President's avowed love of tariffs.
And I think a lot of people try to figure
out how to explain what's going on with this administration,
and like a lot of it just spoils down to
(00:54):
Donald Trump loves tariffs.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
On April second, which the President calls Liberation Day, a
pronounced a list of reciprocal tariffs tariffs on dozens of countries,
including on some of the US's closest trading partners. He's
paused those tariff hikes temporarily, but their scale and scope
has become a, if not the signature policy of his
first one hundred days. He's also upbended the United States's
(01:18):
approach to foreign policy, and he's given billionaire Elon Musk
carte blanche to restructure the federal government. And he's cracked
down on universities and law firms. The way the President
has made a lot of these changes is through a
flurry of executive orders.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Trump has done more than one hundred orders. Some of
them are significant, you know, like dismantling the Department of
Education or really dramatically trying to expand the president's powers
and immigration.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Some are really minor, like rolling back a Biden era
restriction on how much water can flow through showerheads.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
He one hundred percent signed an executive order on water pressure.
He signed on one of the days that the tariff
news was blowing up. And this has been a bugaboo
of his free years.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
From minor to major, Trump has rolled out his executive
orders with astonishing speed. Josh says that strategy has vulnerabilities
and has left Trump's orders open to legal challenges, but
he also says that speed has been one of the
administration's most effective tools. It's created the effect of flooding
the zone and allowed Trump to push the limits of
(02:22):
his power.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
We are seeing this plan put into place by Trump
allies over months and years, the dramatically reshape the country,
the government, the presidency, or try to, you know, with
the stroke of his sharpie signature.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I'm David Gera and this is the big take from
Bloomberg News Today. On the show taking stock of the
first one hundred days of President Trump's second term and
his efforts to reshape the American presidency, Bloomberg's Josh Winrove says,
one thing is certain. The first one hundred days of
President Trump's second term have looked very different from his
(03:02):
first term.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
It is almost night and day different from the first
term to the second term in terms of how they
hit the ground running. And for instance, no one really
knew who was in charge. Now there's like a clear
delineation of authority. There's much less infighting, there's much less
sort of public sniping and leaking and that sort of thing.
And of course they know the mechanics of government much
(03:25):
better than they did. He was a group of outsiders
in so many cases in twenty twenty five, it's staffed
by people who not only in many cases worked with
the president of his first term, but have spent months
over the past few years preparing for when they get
another kick at the can.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Josh says planning for Trump's second term actually started soon
after his first one ended, with some aids from his
first term, creating initiatives like Project twenty twenty five to
lay the groundwork for the policies the administration is now
rolling out.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
And so they were able to hit the ground running
in a very quick way, completely at odds with the
first term, where they were sort of, you know, building
the plane in mid air. Now again, a lot of
questions I think remain for them. Can all these executive
orders be codified? Will Republicans and Congress get together and
pass the bill? And of course Trump pledged quick wins
(04:14):
on things like foreign affairs, a deal in Ukraine to
and the fighting there and in Russia's invasion, Those have
of course proven elusive so far.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I want to talk about some of the administration's top
priorities during the first few months of this term, and
let's start with the economy. Start with trade. How much
has this rollout of these tariffs, of this trade policy
gone according to plan.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
They have clearly adapted. They would say that that's part
and parcel of the process here, you know. But for instance,
some of the early tariff announcements were on China, Canada
and Mexico. And on the Chinese tariffs they kept them,
but the Canada ones were delayed, enacted, clawed back, and
still to this day remained in effect separate from the
tariff regime that surprised everyone you know on April second
(04:58):
and sent markets into a tailspin. So there has definitely
been adjustment. They've of course exempted some things like smartphones
from some of their tariffs, but only because they plan
on hit England with entirely separate tariff and by the way,
one that is probably more legally sound and permanent and
on stronger legal footing and could stand the test of
time more easily. So yes, it has been chaotic. What's
(05:22):
also a fact is that he has said repeatedly that
he believes in tariffs, and it seems clear that some tariff,
and a big one is going to stay in place
one way or another. He told Time this month Time
magazine that if in a year tariff's of twenty thirty
or even fifty percent remain in place, he will consider
that a quote total victory.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
What do you take away from the way he's reacted
to feedback and pushback from some of his supporters. I
think of the investor Bill Ackman. I think of the
feedback that he's gotten in the markets when shortly after
what he called Liberation Day, we saw red light flashing
in the bond market. Is he reacting and what does
that tell you just about his willingness to change or adjust.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
He's essentially shrugged it off. We should know. Elon Musk
has been sending anti tariff messages as well, and has
seemed to have fallen from the sort of top tier
of President Trump's orbit just a little bit over the
course of this. Trump believes that tariffs are an end,
not just a means to an end, and that is
(06:26):
at odds with even some of his hawkage sort of
tariff friendly staff, like for instance, Secretary Besson, too are
reporting is said. Secretary Besson favors using tariffs more as
a tool to extract concessions, including reductions and other tariff levels,
reductions of non tariff barriers, investments like hey, Volkswagen, build
another plant in America rather than just having them for
(06:48):
the sake of having them. By the way, David, as
you know, there's a contradiction in so much of what
Trump is doing. Right, He's talked about tariffs both as
an on shoring thing and as a revenue tool. Those
things are of course in conflict with one another to
a certain extent, and so I think Trump is not,
you know, beefing with the bill Ackmans of the world,
(07:08):
or the Ken Griffins of the world, or the Elons
of the world per se, who have signaled, to varying extent,
some sort of unease with what is going on. And
he is at least acknowledging the market reaction, talking about
the yippie reaction that led to that April ninth, you know,
clawback where he brought about five dozen countries from numbers
above ten down to ten and then ratcheted up China.
(07:31):
But on balance, the market seemed to react positively to that.
So he's sort of shape shifting in real time and
responding to it and not really getting into flame wars.
But like he still is an avowed believer in.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Tariffs, sticking with the economy. Let's talk about taxes, and
you brought this up just a moment ago. The way
that he looks at tariffs is as a means by
which he could pay for extending tax cuts. What is
the administration's current plan for doing that.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
The tariff and tax policy is moving as quickly as
it could reasonably move. I mean, they are hoping for
significant progress on that in the next few months. And
what they will do is not only extend the expiring
tax cuts, which by the way, need action. Right barring
them doing something, they go away. These go the way
taxes go up as opposed to them just trying to
(08:19):
enact a proactive tax cut. But they do also want
to enact proactive tax cuts on top of that, including
his no tax on tips pledge. They've flirted with doing
a higher tax rate on millionaires or the Trump has
sort of sent mixed messages about that, seems to be
more or less distancing himself from it, at least politically,
so they're looking at ways to do this there. Republicans
(08:43):
in Congress are also looking at tools to kind of
game the math a little bit and make the tax
cut extension not count as a CBO score. Even though
of course it would count in terms of revenue, So
all these things are in the mix. Trump sort of
vision is that tax cuts else with tariffs, in particular
tax cuts for domestic manufacturing potentially will drive a rebound,
(09:07):
and that spending cuts led by Elon Musk and his
DOGE efforts and additional revenues tariff revenues will either shrink
the deficit or help facilitate those tax cuts.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
On that point, and this was a dramatic start to
this term, the work of Elon Musk and his small
team kind of going through various agencies and bureaus and
making cuts and laying off workers. Is there any evidence
to suggest that that's made any kind of a difference
in terms of what the government spending. Has it been
a cost saver? Broadly speaking, it's.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Been a cost saver, But the indications are that it's
much more modest than was initially pledged. Certainly compared to
mister Musk's initial projection of two trillion in the annual
savings on a federal budget of about seven trillion, I mean,
it's going to come in way, way, way, way way
below that. I mean they're talking about something like one
hundred and fifty billion memory serves right now, so they're
(09:58):
going to save money but much less. And what we've
seen a lot of reversals on is some of the
staffing cuts save made. You know, they fire people and
then have to bring them back, either because a court
tells them to or because they realize that people were
doing a job that they didn't want to do without.
But it has produced some savings and it's brought with
it a bit of a political impact, including potentially a
(10:20):
political price. But Trump has so far has sort of
been almost gleeful to be associated with it because he
wants to be seen to be breaking down the status quo.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Coming up an update on another policy priority for the
White House, immigration and how that's part of a bigger
fight over the limits of a president's power playing out
in courtrooms across the country. A hallmark of the first
(10:53):
one hundred days of President Trump's second term has been
his effort to broadly reshape immigration policy. Over the last
few months, he's repealed temporary protected status for Venezuelans, sent
additional troops to the US Mexico border, and use the
seventeen ninety eight Alien Enemy Act to speed up the
deportation process. So I asked Bloomberg's Josh Wingrove how the
(11:14):
implementation of these policies has gone so far.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Trump consistently says that he thinks the election was substantially
about the border, and so they wanted to come out
swinging on border things. Along the border. He's had success
in dramatically reducing border crossings. The numbers speak for themselves.
There's a lot of reasons for that. The tension and
the potential constitutional crisis has come on their efforts within
(11:40):
the country to sort of grab people and remove them,
which is an imperfect process and of course has led
to in at least a couple of cases, people being
sent away to an El Salvadori in prison that a
court has ordered the government to quote facilitate the return of,
as well as some admitted errors of the government in
(12:00):
its own deportations. Now, the politics of this are messy.
Democrats do seem split on this issue, but the ones
leaning into it, of course are saying that due process
matters whether you're a documented citizen or not, and so
to be able to sort of disappear anyone to an
El Salvadori in prison overnight raises of course, all kinds
(12:21):
of questions where you're headed. Though there's potentially a standoff
with the Supreme Court. Trump has said he will listen
to this Supreme Court, although in previous rulings, sort of
eye of the beholder on whether you believe that the
administration is hewing to the exact language of the Court's order.
They of course argue that they are. But the immigration
fight is proving more unpopular as time goes on. The
(12:45):
low hanging fruit for Trump of closing the border, cracking
down on gangs and criminals, all that is popular. What
is less popular is sort of extra judicial dead of
knight grabbing of people, documented people and sending them away.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Josh, the courts are the crucible in which the president
is fighting this fight over the limits of executive power.
I'm curious, as you watch all of these many fights
unfolding and courts across the country, what are the conflicts
that you're paying the closest attention to that will tell
you what the limits of that power, in fact are.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
It's probably the immigration cases. But I think the administration
does view this as a fight over executive power, and
in their mind they are arguing that it is their
power to reshape the bureaucracy and the agencies and the
departments that is being stymied either by the bureaucracy or
by court orders on behalf of the bureaucracy. Of course,
(13:43):
if they find themselves as they have, in sort of
open conflict with a court order, that gets into a
pretty cut and dry clash of the executive and judicial
branches pretty quickly. But right now Trump is definitely, by
definition testing and trying to remake what he and conservatives
(14:05):
believe has been this sort of mandate creep of the
bureaucracy that has made it impossible for presidents to get
anything done expeditiously.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Then, of course there's President Trump's approach to foreign policy.
In addition to his America First trade policies, he scrapped
USAID ending programs critical to promoting America's soft power overseas
and changed how the US interacts with its allies on
the world stage. Talking about how much the United States's
role in the world has changed over the first hundred
(14:36):
days of President Trump's second term, and I think there's
probably no clearer example than how it has regarded and
dealt with in Ala and Europe, with Ukraine, how much
is that emblematic of the way the US now sees
its traditional allies what we've seen in terms of how
that relationship is deteriorated.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
President Trump is just very transactional on these things, and
with you, he is surprised at G seven counterparts by
coming in and saying, Russia is in a strong position.
You know, We've got to end this war. Otherwise Russia's
going to run rough shot all over Ukraine. The view
of the virtually the rest of the G seven was
(15:12):
that Putin was kind of on the ropes and that
if you kept giving weapons to Ukraine that things might turn.
But it is true that appetite for this conflict to
continue is waning in many corners of the world, and
so we'll see where it goes. But Trump is pulling
back on what are traditional alliances, or at least alignments
of American either military power or foreign policy, or interest
(15:36):
abroad or soft power abroad. But the question is is,
of course, is there a price for this, right like
shutting down elements of the State Department will create lanes
invariably in corners of the world for Russia and China
to expand its influence. Shutting down USAID will curtail the
ability of the US to demonstrate soft power around the world,
(16:00):
and waging these teriff fights will of course upset not
only other governments and countries that have traditionally been US allies,
but the people in them. Trump wants to sell more
US goods abroad. It is a fair question whether Europeans, Canadians,
Japanese Australians are going to want to buy US goods
when they feel their country is being batted around on
the teriff fight. So you know, he has, I think
(16:22):
a clear approach here. The response, I think is very unclear.
And we don't know where the tariff stuff is going
to settle. We don't know where the sort of boycott
effective consumers abroad is going to settle. We don't know
where the economy is going to settle. We don't know
what Vladimir Putin will do with this deal that's been
hanging on the table for weeks ish.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
One hundred days an arbitrary metric milestone. You've been talking
to President Trump's allies and aids. How do they see
it and what do they say about it? As a
jumping off point for the next hundred days and two
hundred days and the rest of his term.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
There is a reason why, whether it's one hundred or
two hundred or fifty or whatever people tend to measure
the early days of administration. It's because you lose steam
and you try to do things, You try to get
things through the Congress before the midterms, when, of course, historically,
although not necessarily always, the governing party loses at least
the House. And so Trump is raising the clock and
(17:23):
that is why he's rushing things in one hundred days,
and that's why they teed up over one hundred executive
orders to roll out in those one hundred days. Going forward,
in the next hundred days, I think we're going to
focus a ton on trade. They're trying to get something
done with China, and they have a series of other
national security slash foreign policy discussions with Iran of course
(17:45):
in Ukraine that they're trying to get some sort of
resolution on. And so I think he's going to try
to pivot his attention to that, and he will continue
to face pressure about what all these tariffs are going
to do to the American economy and the American markets
and the American bond market, what have you, and he'll
no doubt be under pressure to adjust as things go.
(18:05):
But the dream of the administration is that they land
a reconciliation bill, they get the tax cuts they wanted,
the tariff stuff, settles in a place that markets can
live with, and that they notch a bunch of wins
on foreign policy. That is their dream. But of course
there are warning signs flashing on literally all of those.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura.
This episode is produced by David Fox and Julia Press,
with support from Rachel Lewis Krisky. It was edited by
Tracy Sanielson, Justin Sink, and Josh Wingrove. It was fact
checked by Adriana Tapia and mixed and sound designed by
Alex Sagia. Special thanks to Bloomberg's White House team. Our
senior producer is Naomi Shaven. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso.
(18:53):
Our deputy executive producer is Julia Weaver. Our executive producer
is Nicole Beemster Boor. Sage Bauman is Blomberg's head of Podcasts.
If you liked this episode, make sure to subscribe and
review The Big Take wherever you listen to podcasts. It
helps people find the show. Thanks for listening. We'll be
back tomorrow.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
This week marks one hundred days of President Trump's second term.
He'll celebrate the milestone on Tuesday at a rally in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Trump loves milestones. He loves anything that sort of has
a top billing type of effect to it.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Josh Wingrove covers the White House for Bloomberg. The co
authored a piece this week looking back on the president's
first one hundred days, and he says that the mood
at the White House is jubilant.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
They think that they're killing it. I think right now
they're happy with the flurry of executive orders. And I
think it's important to understand that this administration of this
landscape is like deferring to the President's avowed love of tariffs.
And I think a lot of people try to figure
out how to explain what's going on with this administration,
and like a lot of it just spoils down to
(00:54):
Donald Trump loves tariffs.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
On April second, which the President calls Liberation Day, a
pronounced a list of reciprocal tariffs tariffs on dozens of countries,
including on some of the US's closest trading partners. He's
paused those tariff hikes temporarily, but their scale and scope
has become a, if not the signature policy of his
first one hundred days. He's also upbended the United States's
(01:18):
approach to foreign policy, and he's given billionaire Elon Musk
carte blanche to restructure the federal government. And he's cracked
down on universities and law firms. The way the President
has made a lot of these changes is through a
flurry of executive orders.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Trump has done more than one hundred orders. Some of
them are significant, you know, like dismantling the Department of
Education or really dramatically trying to expand the president's powers
and immigration.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Some are really minor, like rolling back a Biden era
restriction on how much water can flow through showerheads.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
He one hundred percent signed an executive order on water pressure.
He signed on one of the days that the tariff
news was blowing up. And this has been a bugaboo
of his free years.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
From minor to major, Trump has rolled out his executive
orders with astonishing speed. Josh says that strategy has vulnerabilities
and has left Trump's orders open to legal challenges, but
he also says that speed has been one of the
administration's most effective tools. It's created the effect of flooding
the zone and allowed Trump to push the limits of
(02:22):
his power.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
We are seeing this plan put into place by Trump
allies over months and years, the dramatically reshape the country,
the government, the presidency, or try to, you know, with
the stroke of his sharpie signature.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I'm David Gera and this is the big take from
Bloomberg News Today. On the show taking stock of the
first one hundred days of President Trump's second term and
his efforts to reshape the American presidency, Bloomberg's Josh Winrove says,
one thing is certain. The first one hundred days of
President Trump's second term have looked very different from his
(03:02):
first term.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
It is almost night and day different from the first
term to the second term in terms of how they
hit the ground running. And for instance, no one really
knew who was in charge. Now there's like a clear
delineation of authority. There's much less infighting, there's much less
sort of public sniping and leaking and that sort of thing.
And of course they know the mechanics of government much
(03:25):
better than they did. He was a group of outsiders
in so many cases in twenty twenty five, it's staffed
by people who not only in many cases worked with
the president of his first term, but have spent months
over the past few years preparing for when they get
another kick at the can.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Josh says planning for Trump's second term actually started soon
after his first one ended, with some aids from his
first term, creating initiatives like Project twenty twenty five to
lay the groundwork for the policies the administration is now
rolling out.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
And so they were able to hit the ground running
in a very quick way, completely at odds with the
first term, where they were sort of, you know, building
the plane in mid air. Now again, a lot of
questions I think remain for them. Can all these executive
orders be codified? Will Republicans and Congress get together and
pass the bill? And of course Trump pledged quick wins
(04:14):
on things like foreign affairs, a deal in Ukraine to
and the fighting there and in Russia's invasion, Those have
of course proven elusive so far.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I want to talk about some of the administration's top
priorities during the first few months of this term, and
let's start with the economy. Start with trade. How much
has this rollout of these tariffs, of this trade policy
gone according to plan.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
They have clearly adapted. They would say that that's part
and parcel of the process here, you know. But for instance,
some of the early tariff announcements were on China, Canada
and Mexico. And on the Chinese tariffs they kept them,
but the Canada ones were delayed, enacted, clawed back, and
still to this day remained in effect separate from the
tariff regime that surprised everyone you know on April second
(04:58):
and sent markets into a tailspin. So there has definitely
been adjustment. They've of course exempted some things like smartphones
from some of their tariffs, but only because they plan
on hit England with entirely separate tariff and by the way,
one that is probably more legally sound and permanent and
on stronger legal footing and could stand the test of
time more easily. So yes, it has been chaotic. What's
(05:22):
also a fact is that he has said repeatedly that
he believes in tariffs, and it seems clear that some tariff,
and a big one is going to stay in place
one way or another. He told Time this month Time
magazine that if in a year tariff's of twenty thirty
or even fifty percent remain in place, he will consider
that a quote total victory.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
What do you take away from the way he's reacted
to feedback and pushback from some of his supporters. I
think of the investor Bill Ackman. I think of the
feedback that he's gotten in the markets when shortly after
what he called Liberation Day, we saw red light flashing
in the bond market. Is he reacting and what does
that tell you just about his willingness to change or adjust.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
He's essentially shrugged it off. We should know. Elon Musk
has been sending anti tariff messages as well, and has
seemed to have fallen from the sort of top tier
of President Trump's orbit just a little bit over the
course of this. Trump believes that tariffs are an end,
not just a means to an end, and that is
(06:26):
at odds with even some of his hawkage sort of
tariff friendly staff, like for instance, Secretary Besson, too are
reporting is said. Secretary Besson favors using tariffs more as
a tool to extract concessions, including reductions and other tariff levels,
reductions of non tariff barriers, investments like hey, Volkswagen, build
another plant in America rather than just having them for
(06:48):
the sake of having them. By the way, David, as
you know, there's a contradiction in so much of what
Trump is doing. Right, He's talked about tariffs both as
an on shoring thing and as a revenue tool. Those
things are of course in conflict with one another to
a certain extent, and so I think Trump is not,
you know, beefing with the bill Ackmans of the world,
(07:08):
or the Ken Griffins of the world, or the Elons
of the world per se, who have signaled, to varying extent,
some sort of unease with what is going on. And
he is at least acknowledging the market reaction, talking about
the yippie reaction that led to that April ninth, you know,
clawback where he brought about five dozen countries from numbers
above ten down to ten and then ratcheted up China.
(07:31):
But on balance, the market seemed to react positively to that.
So he's sort of shape shifting in real time and
responding to it and not really getting into flame wars.
But like he still is an avowed believer in.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Tariffs, sticking with the economy. Let's talk about taxes, and
you brought this up just a moment ago. The way
that he looks at tariffs is as a means by
which he could pay for extending tax cuts. What is
the administration's current plan for doing that.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
The tariff and tax policy is moving as quickly as
it could reasonably move. I mean, they are hoping for
significant progress on that in the next few months. And
what they will do is not only extend the expiring
tax cuts, which by the way, need action. Right barring
them doing something, they go away. These go the way
taxes go up as opposed to them just trying to
(08:19):
enact a proactive tax cut. But they do also want
to enact proactive tax cuts on top of that, including
his no tax on tips pledge. They've flirted with doing
a higher tax rate on millionaires or the Trump has
sort of sent mixed messages about that, seems to be
more or less distancing himself from it, at least politically,
so they're looking at ways to do this there. Republicans
(08:43):
in Congress are also looking at tools to kind of
game the math a little bit and make the tax
cut extension not count as a CBO score. Even though
of course it would count in terms of revenue, So
all these things are in the mix. Trump sort of
vision is that tax cuts else with tariffs, in particular
tax cuts for domestic manufacturing potentially will drive a rebound,
(09:07):
and that spending cuts led by Elon Musk and his
DOGE efforts and additional revenues tariff revenues will either shrink
the deficit or help facilitate those tax cuts.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
On that point, and this was a dramatic start to
this term, the work of Elon Musk and his small
team kind of going through various agencies and bureaus and
making cuts and laying off workers. Is there any evidence
to suggest that that's made any kind of a difference
in terms of what the government spending. Has it been
a cost saver? Broadly speaking, it's.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Been a cost saver, But the indications are that it's
much more modest than was initially pledged. Certainly compared to
mister Musk's initial projection of two trillion in the annual
savings on a federal budget of about seven trillion, I mean,
it's going to come in way, way, way, way way
below that. I mean they're talking about something like one
hundred and fifty billion memory serves right now, so they're
(09:58):
going to save money but much less. And what we've
seen a lot of reversals on is some of the
staffing cuts save made. You know, they fire people and
then have to bring them back, either because a court
tells them to or because they realize that people were
doing a job that they didn't want to do without.
But it has produced some savings and it's brought with
it a bit of a political impact, including potentially a
(10:20):
political price. But Trump has so far has sort of
been almost gleeful to be associated with it because he
wants to be seen to be breaking down the status quo.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Coming up an update on another policy priority for the
White House, immigration and how that's part of a bigger
fight over the limits of a president's power playing out
in courtrooms across the country. A hallmark of the first
(10:53):
one hundred days of President Trump's second term has been
his effort to broadly reshape immigration policy. Over the last
few months, he's repealed temporary protected status for Venezuelans, sent
additional troops to the US Mexico border, and use the
seventeen ninety eight Alien Enemy Act to speed up the
deportation process. So I asked Bloomberg's Josh Wingrove how the
(11:14):
implementation of these policies has gone so far.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Trump consistently says that he thinks the election was substantially
about the border, and so they wanted to come out
swinging on border things. Along the border. He's had success
in dramatically reducing border crossings. The numbers speak for themselves.
There's a lot of reasons for that. The tension and
the potential constitutional crisis has come on their efforts within
(11:40):
the country to sort of grab people and remove them,
which is an imperfect process and of course has led
to in at least a couple of cases, people being
sent away to an El Salvadori in prison that a
court has ordered the government to quote facilitate the return of,
as well as some admitted errors of the government in
(12:00):
its own deportations. Now, the politics of this are messy.
Democrats do seem split on this issue, but the ones
leaning into it, of course are saying that due process
matters whether you're a documented citizen or not, and so
to be able to sort of disappear anyone to an
El Salvadori in prison overnight raises of course, all kinds
(12:21):
of questions where you're headed. Though there's potentially a standoff
with the Supreme Court. Trump has said he will listen
to this Supreme Court, although in previous rulings, sort of
eye of the beholder on whether you believe that the
administration is hewing to the exact language of the Court's order.
They of course argue that they are. But the immigration
fight is proving more unpopular as time goes on. The
(12:45):
low hanging fruit for Trump of closing the border, cracking
down on gangs and criminals, all that is popular. What
is less popular is sort of extra judicial dead of
knight grabbing of people, documented people and sending them away.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Josh, the courts are the crucible in which the president
is fighting this fight over the limits of executive power.
I'm curious, as you watch all of these many fights
unfolding and courts across the country, what are the conflicts
that you're paying the closest attention to that will tell
you what the limits of that power, in fact are.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
It's probably the immigration cases. But I think the administration
does view this as a fight over executive power, and
in their mind they are arguing that it is their
power to reshape the bureaucracy and the agencies and the
departments that is being stymied either by the bureaucracy or
by court orders on behalf of the bureaucracy. Of course,
(13:43):
if they find themselves as they have, in sort of
open conflict with a court order, that gets into a
pretty cut and dry clash of the executive and judicial
branches pretty quickly. But right now Trump is definitely, by
definition testing and trying to remake what he and conservatives
(14:05):
believe has been this sort of mandate creep of the
bureaucracy that has made it impossible for presidents to get
anything done expeditiously.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Then, of course there's President Trump's approach to foreign policy.
In addition to his America First trade policies, he scrapped
USAID ending programs critical to promoting America's soft power overseas
and changed how the US interacts with its allies on
the world stage. Talking about how much the United States's
role in the world has changed over the first hundred
(14:36):
days of President Trump's second term, and I think there's
probably no clearer example than how it has regarded and
dealt with in Ala and Europe, with Ukraine, how much
is that emblematic of the way the US now sees
its traditional allies what we've seen in terms of how
that relationship is deteriorated.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
President Trump is just very transactional on these things, and
with you, he is surprised at G seven counterparts by
coming in and saying, Russia is in a strong position.
You know, We've got to end this war. Otherwise Russia's
going to run rough shot all over Ukraine. The view
of the virtually the rest of the G seven was
(15:12):
that Putin was kind of on the ropes and that
if you kept giving weapons to Ukraine that things might turn.
But it is true that appetite for this conflict to
continue is waning in many corners of the world, and
so we'll see where it goes. But Trump is pulling
back on what are traditional alliances, or at least alignments
of American either military power or foreign policy, or interest
(15:36):
abroad or soft power abroad. But the question is is,
of course, is there a price for this, right like
shutting down elements of the State Department will create lanes
invariably in corners of the world for Russia and China
to expand its influence. Shutting down USAID will curtail the
ability of the US to demonstrate soft power around the world,
(16:00):
and waging these teriff fights will of course upset not
only other governments and countries that have traditionally been US allies,
but the people in them. Trump wants to sell more
US goods abroad. It is a fair question whether Europeans, Canadians,
Japanese Australians are going to want to buy US goods
when they feel their country is being batted around on
the teriff fight. So you know, he has, I think
(16:22):
a clear approach here. The response, I think is very unclear.
And we don't know where the tariff stuff is going
to settle. We don't know where the sort of boycott
effective consumers abroad is going to settle. We don't know
where the economy is going to settle. We don't know
what Vladimir Putin will do with this deal that's been
hanging on the table for weeks ish.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
One hundred days an arbitrary metric milestone. You've been talking
to President Trump's allies and aids. How do they see
it and what do they say about it? As a
jumping off point for the next hundred days and two
hundred days and the rest of his term.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
There is a reason why, whether it's one hundred or
two hundred or fifty or whatever people tend to measure
the early days of administration. It's because you lose steam
and you try to do things, You try to get
things through the Congress before the midterms, when, of course, historically,
although not necessarily always, the governing party loses at least
the House. And so Trump is raising the clock and
(17:23):
that is why he's rushing things in one hundred days,
and that's why they teed up over one hundred executive
orders to roll out in those one hundred days. Going forward,
in the next hundred days, I think we're going to
focus a ton on trade. They're trying to get something
done with China, and they have a series of other
national security slash foreign policy discussions with Iran of course
(17:45):
in Ukraine that they're trying to get some sort of
resolution on. And so I think he's going to try
to pivot his attention to that, and he will continue
to face pressure about what all these tariffs are going
to do to the American economy and the American markets
and the American bond market, what have you, and he'll
no doubt be under pressure to adjust as things go.
(18:05):
But the dream of the administration is that they land
a reconciliation bill, they get the tax cuts they wanted,
the tariff stuff, settles in a place that markets can
live with, and that they notch a bunch of wins
on foreign policy. That is their dream. But of course
there are warning signs flashing on literally all of those.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura.
This episode is produced by David Fox and Julia Press,
with support from Rachel Lewis Krisky. It was edited by
Tracy Sanielson, Justin Sink, and Josh Wingrove. It was fact
checked by Adriana Tapia and mixed and sound designed by
Alex Sagia. Special thanks to Bloomberg's White House team. Our
senior producer is Naomi Shaven. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso.
(18:53):
Our deputy executive producer is Julia Weaver. Our executive producer
is Nicole Beemster Boor. Sage Bauman is Blomberg's head of Podcasts.
If you liked this episode, make sure to subscribe and
review The Big Take wherever you listen to podcasts. It
helps people find the show. Thanks for listening. We'll be
back tomorrow.
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