President Donald Trump's first hundred days: Rapid action brings ongoing legal challenges

WASHINGTON — In his first 100 days back in office, President Donald Trump has launched a blitz of executive orders that are testing the limits of presidential authority and the ability of the judicial branch to check those powers.

Trump promised on his first day back in office to act with "purpose and speed." Since then he has slashed federal agencies, disrupted foreign alliances, ramped up deportations and rolled out a tariff agenda that has rattled global markets, all via executive actions that have bypassed congressional approval.

Since reentering the Oval Office on Jan. 20, Trump has signed 181 executive orders and memorandums, according to media reports and data compiled by The American Presidency Project at the University of California — Santa Barbara, a figure unmatched by any of his predecessors. But the staying power of those orders remains to be seen, as the majority are being challenged in the federal courts.

There had been 211 lawsuits filed against Trump’s executive actions as of April 27, according to Just Security, a legal tracking website run by the Reiss Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law. Of those cases judges have issued 122 temporary pauses on Trump’s actions as judicial proceedings move forward, according to a New York Times analysis.

"From the second Trump presidency we’re definitely seeing a lot of determination to assert executive power and to take action and act swiftly and then respond as needed," said Meena Bose, executive director of Hofstra University’s Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency.

Trump, when asked by Time Magazine in a recent interview whether he was expanding his presidential powers, said: "I don't feel I'm expanding it. I think I'm using it as it was meant to be used."

Asked to assess Trump's first 100 days back in office, Long Island's congressional Republicans said the president made his plans clear on the campaign trail.

"The President is doing what he said he’d do — he’s advancing the agenda he was elected on," Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport) wrote in an email to Newsday.

Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville) in an email to Newsday said: "One hundred days in, President Trump is proving what decisive leadership looks like: focused, unapologetic, and committed to securing America’s future."

Long Island’s congressional Democrats argue that Trump has done little to work in a bipartisan fashion and has not delivered on his pledge to lower prices.

"There's been little genuine effort to reach across the aisle," said Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) in a phone interview. "I’m concerned about prices going up, and the stock market going down, and I'm very concerned about a broader sense of recklessness ... on tariffs, DOGE cuts and even the basic responsibility of upholding the law."

Rep. Laura Gillen (D-Rockville Centre) in an email to Newsday said: "I support the Administration’s work to get violent criminals, such as the MS-13 lieutenant picked up in Westbury earlier this month off our streets, but costs remain high and there has been little economic relief."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a letter sent to Senate Democrats on Sunday vowed to speak out "against Donald Trump’s disastrous policies every day."

Trump is expected to mark his 100th day back in office at a Michigan rally Tuesday evening.

Three-plus months in, here's a look at some of Trump's fast-moving actions:

Economy

The president was sworn into office with Wall Street bullish on his reelection, but banks and financial firms are now issuing bearish warnings about the increasing potential for a recession, due in part by the uncertainty over Trump’s tariff plans.

Trump rolled-out his sweeping plan to impose retaliatory tariffs on dozens of countries — including longtime allies — but issued a 90-day pause a week later, as markets tumbled and the U.S. treasury bond market dipped.

The president has said the pause will give the United States the opportunity to negotiate new trade deals and encourage investment in American manufacturing, but some Wall Street firms have raised concerns that Trump’s scattered approach to tariffs is spurring the decline in consumer confidence and may lead to economic contraction.

Immigration

Trump’s ramped up deportation campaign has led to a dramatic decline in border crossings, but has also teed up several battles between the administration and the federal courts, as Trump continues to defy court orders surrounding the due process rights of those deported.

The administration deported nearly 200 Venezuelan and Salvadoran nationals to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador in March, despite a federal judge ordering a stop to the flights. The administration has also balked at complying with a 9-0 Supreme Court order mandating the United States "facilitate" the return of one of those migrants who had a previous court order blocking his deportation to El Salvador due to fear of persecution.

Asked about the administration defying the Supreme Court’s order, Trump told Time: "I leave that to my lawyers."

In March, U.S. Customs and Border Enforcement reported 7,181 were apprehended trying to cross the border — a 14% decrease from February, and a 95% drop from the same period last year.

DOGE

Trump tasked billionaire ally Elon Musk to lead dramatic cuts to the federal workforce under the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), but labor unions have been successful in temporarily halting some of those cuts as a series of federal lawsuits work their way through the system.

"It remains to be seen how much [Trump and Doge] actually accomplished with the cuts to government because of all the injunctions that have been placed on his executive authority," said Christopher Malone, a political science professor at Farmingdale State College.

Even so, the downsizing of the federal workforce continues. More than 75,000 federal workers out of a civilian workforce of 2.4 million employees have accepted buyouts, according to data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and other cabinet heads have started to take the reins from DOGE to implement cuts.

Bose, from Hofstra, told Newsday in a phone interview that despite the judicial injunctions that have paused some layoffs and halted another round of deportation flights to a foreign prison, the pace at which Trump has moved could help him. 

The blizzard of activity, she said, highlights that there is “still a lot that is difficult to undo when a president asserts executive power very aggressively.”

By Laura Figueroa Hernandez

laura.figueroa@newsday.com@Laura_Figueroa

Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.