Trump's First 100 Days Just Broke a Record Nobody Wanted to Set
Trump's 100-day approval sits at the lowest of any modern president, markets posted their worst 100-day stretch since Nixon, and a new deportation legal battle is headed to SCOTUS — all before breakfast.
HIGH ALERT
The 100-day milestone collided with a negative GDP print, the worst stock market opening stretch since Nixon, a new SCOTUS-bound deportation legal battle, and the first visible cracks in Republican congressional unity — all in a single morning cycle.
Key Developments
Here's a number that will stop you cold.
**No president in the modern polling era** has entered Day 101 with an approval rating this low.
That's not an opinion. That's the data from six separate polling organizations — ABC/Washington Post, Reuters/Ipsos, AP-NORC, Gallup, Pew, and NBC — all landing in roughly the same place as the 100-day mark arrived Thursday.
The averages put Trump somewhere between 39% and 44% approval, depending on the pollster.
For context: even in his first term, Trump's 100-day number was around 42%. Reagan was at 67%. Obama was at 65%. George W. Bush, post-9/11 patriotism not yet factored in, was above 60%.
**This is a different kind of opening act.**
And it isn't just the polls telling that story.
The stock market — specifically the S&P 500 — posted its **worst 100-day performance since Richard Nixon's second term** in 1973, according to widely-cited market data circulating on X Thursday morning.
That's not a small comparison. Nixon's second term ended in resignation. His economy was being crushed by the oil embargo. The S&P dropped roughly 8% in his first 100 days back then.
Trump's first 100 days of 2025? Worse.
Think about what that means for your 401(k), your pension, your retirement account.
But here's what makes today different from the last briefing you read.
The trade war — which we covered from every angle yesterday — **just produced its first concrete legal casualty.**
A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the administration must pause deportation flights to third countries for migrants who were not given adequate notice or a chance to contest their removal.
The case centers on El Salvador and a specific use of the Alien Enemies Act — the same 1798 law the administration has been leaning on heavily.
The administration immediately said it would appeal to the Supreme Court.
**This is now the third major legal front** the White House is fighting simultaneously: tariffs in the Court of International Trade, deportation authority in the circuit courts, and a brewing separation-of-powers battle over congressional funding freezes.
Legal scholars on X were quick to point out that the Supreme Court has already weighed in once on the Alien Enemies Act deportation question — and that ruling, while narrow, did not fully endorse the administration's position.
Meanwhile, on the economic front, the GDP number dropped Thursday morning like a rock through a glass table.
**The U.S. economy contracted in Q1 2025** — the first negative GDP print since 2022 — coming in at -0.3%, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Stories Driving the News
The U.S. Economy Just Shrank — and the Explanation Is More Complicated Than You Think
The number came out Thursday morning and it hit like a cold bucket of water: **the U.S. economy shrank by 0.3% in the first quarter of 2025**, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis — the first negative GDP print in three years. The immediate reaction on X was fierce from both sides. Former Treasury official and economic commentator Mohamed El-Erian posted on X that the number was "a warning shot, not a verdict," noting that the surge in imports ahead of tariff deadlines mathematically suppresses the GDP figure and could reverse in Q2. But Democratic lawmakers were not waiting for nuance. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries posted: "Negative GDP. This is what happens when you run the economy like a demolition derby." **The White House's counterargument has real technical backing.** GDP is calculated as Consumption + Investment + Government Spending + (Exports minus Imports). When imports spike — because businesses are panic-buying foreign goods before tariffs land — that subtraction gets larger, dragging the whole number down. It's a known distortion. Some economists call it a "statistical artifact." But artifact or not, the Dow fell more than 400 points in early trading. Mortgage rates ticked up. And the headlines all said the same word: contraction. Here's why this matters to you directly — if the Q2 number doesn't bounce back sharply, the Federal Reserve faces an almost impossible choice: cut rates to stimulate growth, or hold them to fight any inflation the tariffs create. That tension could affect everything from your car loan to your home refinance for the rest of 2025.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happened in the morning briefing on Thursday, April 30, 2026?
Trump's 100-day approval sits at the lowest of any modern president, markets posted their worst 100-day stretch since Nixon, and a new deportation legal battle is headed to SCOTUS — all before breakfast.
What was the TrumpMeter score for Thursday, April 30, 2026?
The TrumpMeter score was 8/10. The 100-day milestone collided with a negative GDP print, the worst stock market opening stretch since Nixon, a new SCOTUS-bound deportation legal battle, and the first visible cracks in Republican congressional unity — all in a single morning cycle.
How are these briefings generated?
TRUMPED.AI briefings are generated every 4 hours using AI-powered research across multiple news sources, then synthesized into a structured summary designed to be read in under 60 seconds.