We Can Do Hard Things
100 Days of Trump: What to Know, What to Do & What’s Coming Next | Jessica Yellin
Thu, 01 May 2025
407. 100 Days of Trump: What to Know, What to Do & What’s Coming Next | Jessica Yellin Amanda and Webby Award Winning Journalist, Jessica Yellin, dive deep into the first 100 days of Trump's second term in office, discussing the implications of his administration's actions and policies. -The importance of the first 100 days in a presidency—and what Trump’s actions during that time reveal. -How proposed Medicaid cuts are tied to tax breaks for the wealthy.-The dire consequences of RFK Jr. and DOGE on our healthcare system-Why denying due process to anyone endangers due process for everyone.-What actions you can take now to drive change—and why waiting on Congress isn't an option. Jessica Yellin is the founder of News Not Noise, a pioneering Webby award-winning independent news brand -- dedicated to helping you manage your “information overload.” She is the former chief White House correspondent for CNN and an Emmy, Peabody and Gracie Award-winning political correspondent. You can follow her on Instagram at Jessica Yellin. And also, to get real time, clear and brilliant reporting, go to substack.com and search for her page newsnotnoise and subscribe there. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Why are the first 100 days of a presidency important?
Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. And Jessica Yellen and I are here to say, you did it. Congratulations. You did the hard thing of surviving the first hundred days of the Trump administration. This is the landmark occasion that we are talking about today. Both why is everyone talking about the first hundred days?
What does it mean and what we can extrapolate from that to expect of the next 1600 days? It's okay. It's okay. Just chunk it day by day. So Jessica. Hi. Thank you for always being here and telling us what we need to know and not telling us what we don't need to know. So we don't have to crowd our heads with unnecessary anxiety that we can just know everything.
what we need to know and what is useful and helpful to the world. So thank you. I don't know how to say, I don't want to say happy first hundred days. I want to say I'm happy to see you. I'm happy to be alive at the same time as you, as we endure and persevere.
That is a very sweet sentiment. Thank you. I'm happy to have this time when we can digest together because sometimes it gets a little intense doing all this work out here. Yeah.
So yeah, you're in it every, every day in the weeds of it. And then we appreciate you coming to synthesize with us what it means in context. So, okay. I would like to start with, it seems like everyone in the world is saying first hundred days, first hundred days. And so can you talk to us about why it seems a little bit of an arbitrary marker of time. So tell us why a hundred days matters.
Why do we care? Why is it everywhere? So
Just going back, the idea of a first hundred days benchmark came about from Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency. In 1933, he gave, I think it was in a radio address where he talked about the first hundred days. He was referring to Congress, but it's come to refer to the president's first hundred days to see how much they can get done in 100 day period. In other words, like
This is the period in which we're going to sign bills, issue executive orders, launch our major programs and have a real impact. And it's because Roosevelt did actually succeed in doing all those things to a very different end. He it was all meant to address the Great Depression and he launched the New Deal, which is what Trump's still taking apart.
It's kind of become this idea other politicians have used and other presidents to say, this is a period in time when you're going to measure how effectively I do my job and understand what are the key aspects of my agenda. Am I hitting my promised goals and how will the public react to what I've given them?
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Chapter 2: What major actions has Trump taken during his first 100 days?
And you're going to have Dr. Jeremy Faust, who you just mentioned, he's going to be on an event on your Substack. So y'all should tune into that and listen to it. Jessica has him on her News Not Noise Substack and all of the interviews are so helpful to me to listen to. So- Tune in there, everyone. Thank you for shouting that out. I forgot to.
So Jeremy, he's great. And he really makes it clear. And he keeps me calm. Another thing, and I know we're moving through these things like each one of these could be an era defining change. But another important thing to mark is the tech bros and what Elon Musk has done with the data, both ripping out our federal bureaucracy and pulling apart, you know, he's kind of essentially gone into
behind closed doors and ripped out some of the plumbing. So we don't know what's not going to work soon. That's one thing. And the other is we don't know what he's done with the data and what's going to happen there. And that's a big open question mark for me that I track. I'll say on that, they're trying to roll out Doge in the States. So this isn't over.
What do you mean? They're like taking the federal infrastructure and want to do the same to the states?
So a lot of this is being sort of advised by outside groups. And some of these outside groups that are kind of giving the Trump world direction and ideas about what to attack inside the government are now using the same playbook and going to states with Republican-dominated legislatures or Republican governors where they have some... freedom to move politically.
And they're trying to deploy a doge entity in each state. So it's not from Trump. It's from these outside groups. And so, you know, certain red states are going to see this too, or efforts at it.
So the puppet masters of Trump are starting to puppet master the state executives. Yes.
And then in the federal level, you know, there's this misconception that because Elon Musk is stepping back from Doge, that's going to kind of ramp down. And I heard one person doing a video saying, so that just dissolved and went away like everything else Trump's done. Not true. Mm-mm.
Basically, what happened is that Elon Musk used servers, right, used tech to burrow into agencies and give officials more visibility deeper into the bureaucracy than anyone's had before. And now, basically, Project 2025 guys are at the laptops looking for what they want to target. And so that is still playing out. And it kind of leaves...
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