The Excerpt
BONUS | Opinion: What do you think of President Trump's leadership in his first 100 days?
Mon, 28 Apr 2025
We asked: Do you support President Trump's actions so far? What concerns you about what he and his administration have executed on? Readers across the country shared their opinions with us. Forum is a series from USA TODAY's Opinion team, dedicated to showcasing views from across the political spectrum on issues that Americans are starkly divided on. If you'd like to weigh in on a different topic, you can find more questions at usatoday.com/forum. And if your submission is selected for print, we might invite you to add your voice to a future special bonus episode like this one. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to [email protected] Transcript available hereSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What are Americans saying about Trump's leadership?
Here's what readers told us.
Chapter 2: How does Sarissa Fortune view Trump's policies?
I do think America is better off under Trump's leadership. I really think that he's doing a lot of things that really needed to be done for the past probably couple of decades and has the most, I believe, transparent administration in probably modern history, really.
That's Sarissa Fortune, a 45-year-old who lives in Newcastle, Pennsylvania. She supports Trump's trade and immigration policies.
I support everything. I support the illegal aliens being deported if they're here illegally. I feel that there are so many people that work so hard to come here the legal way that set roots. The one thing I do not agree with, though, is I believe the dreamers should be able to stay. I do absolutely 100%.
percent agree with the fact if you did not come in this country illegally, if there is a judge in any type of court that has said you are here illegally, you have every right to be deported. I'm not concerned about the economy. Wall Street, of course, is a mess right now, but that's I'm not worried about Wall Street. Yes, I do have money in a 401k, as a lot of Americans do.
But I trust President Trump. I trust the tariffs. I trust the process. I believe that we should be making everything here. We shouldn't rely on a country that threatens to cut off our electric if they're upset with us. We already have so much tension with other countries, especially China, but we deserve fair trade. We deserve... to make everything here, to not have to rely.
We used to have tons of jobs, millions of jobs here, and they all went overseas again. So bringing the jobs back, making fair trade, I feel, honestly, if it takes a couple months, it took us how many years to get here? It's not going to fix overnight, you know, fix itself. But people have to trust the process, I think. And I absolutely trust the process.
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Chapter 3: What concerns does Diana Lane have about Trump's impact?
Diana Lane is from Boulder, Colorado. She has concerns about Trump's leadership, particularly regarding the impacts she sees on the economy and scientific research. She's 56.
Chapter 4: What are the economic implications of Trump's actions?
Chapter 5: How do readers feel about Trump's approach to trade?
We used to have tons of jobs, millions of jobs here, and they all went overseas again. So bringing the jobs back, making fair trade, I feel, honestly, if it takes a couple months, it took us how many years to get here? It's not going to fix overnight, you know, fix itself. But people have to trust the process, I think. And I absolutely trust the process.
Diana Lane is from Boulder, Colorado. She has concerns about Trump's leadership, particularly regarding the impacts she sees on the economy and scientific research. She's 56.
There's a lot of things that make me concerned. One of them is really these just chaotic economic policies that we're seeing leading to rising prices. You know, our retirement accounts are plummeting as so many people's are. I just stopped looking because it's so bad. There's like little ups and then it's just this steady down. We're at risk of recession, which is really scary.
We're all being harmed by these tariffs. We're all paying the price. And it's really upsetting. I'd like to see them stopping all the illegal actions that Elon Musk and the Doge team have been taking, and particularly around privacy. where they're going into these government databases, they're breaking all of these privacy rules that the government has set up.
There seems to be evidence of them taking data out of these government systems, and we don't know where the data's going. That's just incredibly upsetting. I mean, efficiency, okay, it's a good thing, right? We don't want to pay more for taxpayers, but this isn't efficiency at all. And, you know, one of my kids has a disability.
There's really sensitive information in the social security databases. about my kid, right? Who's getting access to that? Who's seeing that? Like there's supposed to be all of these rules and safeguards and they just, from what we can tell, they're being completely disregarded.
Bob Phillip is 41 and lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He shared that he admires Trump's aggressive tactics, seeing them as necessary to secure the country's future.
I think it's going to take time. And I think everybody wants to see some countries actually get some good trade negotiations because it's scary. And I totally understand that, too. But it's like I see the effort being made at a very fast and aggressive pace to try to get things undone in some cases, but also to push things forward.
The amount of debt we have is so staggering, and I don't want America to be the next Greece. I don't want us to come in irrelevant country. I've been blessed. I grew up in the 80s. I've lived a really good life in America that I think was a time where a lot of people, not everybody believes this, but a lot of people did prosper and felt this was a strong place, a strong economy.
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