While Donald Trump is preparing to cross the symbolic course of his first 100 days at the head of the United States, the White House launched a week of celebrations on Monday emphasizing the policy of border repression, a central theme of his presidency. The event occurs while the last surveys reveal a fall in the popularity of the 47th American president.
In the White House gardens, photos of immigrants accused of crimes such as rapes or murders have been placarded in the background of television transmissions. Tom Homan, the president’s senior advisor on border issues, has argued before the media that the efforts made on the border have experienced “unprecedented success” and that “we are going to continue on this momentum, at full speed”.
Karoline Leavitt, spokesperson for the presidency, said that the administration was “the beginnings of the largest expulsion campaign in American history”. A second press briefing, reserved for “new media”, was organized in the afternoon. Pro-Trump influencers were able to ask complacent questions.
The White House says it has expelled around 139,000 people since the start of the mandate. If the expulsion figures have sometimes been lower than those of Democratic President Joe Biden, Donald Trump collaborators reject this comparison, believing that the number of people crossing the border is now much lower.
More confident during his second term?
Tuesday, Donald Trump will celebrate his 100th day of mandate in Michigan, during a rally in the county of Macomb, industrial bastion north of Detroit. He also plans to travel Thursday at the University of Alabama to give a speech there, after having traveled little since the start of his mandate.
Interviews with the media have also been scheduled, including an exclusive interview in the Oval Office with ABC News broadcast on Tuesday evening. He also exchanged with journalists from the magazine “The Atlantic” – a media which he regularly criticizes.
In this interview, the tenant of the White House claims to feel more powerful during this second mandate: “The first time, I had two things to do-direct the country and survive, with all these crooks,” he said. The second time, I run the country and the world. ”
He highlights a more loyal team and a more frontal relationship with the judicial system, which he accuses of braking his program.
While Franklin D. Roosevelt had inaugurated the tradition of 100 days in 1933 by ambitious reforms against the Great Depression, Donald Trump is today more enthusiastic than his first mandate, when he described this period as “artificial barrier” in view of his political and judicial reverse.
Trump is trying to take the opportunity today to mark the start of an ambitious program he continued in his first months. Karoline Leavitt stressed that Trump had already signed almost as many decrees as Joe Biden in a full mandate.
Dubious Americans
But this presidential offensive does not convince all Americans. According to an AP-Noc survey, the Americans are almost twice as likely to estimate that Mr. Trump has given priority to bad challenges. About half of the Republicans judge his priorities right. A quarter of the Republicans believes that good and bad priorities are balanced, and about one in ten estimates that the president focuses on bad things.
Among his supporters, the percentage of Republicans considering him as a “good” president has fallen by around 10 percentage points since January. Other surveys highlight growing dissatisfaction levels on its economic policy and commercial decisions, in particular concerning customs duties.
Donald Trump castigated the results on social networks, calling them “false surveys from false information agencies”.
While he is trying to combat illegal immigration, the president was accused of going beyond executive powers, in particular by defying legal decisions, imposing alleged members of venezuelans in Salvador or by refusing to comply with a decision of the Supreme Court ordering the facilitation of the return of a man expelled by mistake.
If its massive expulsion program remains unfinished, the White House intensifies its efforts to encourage people in an irregular situation to self-express themselves, in particular by heavier fines and incentives at the start, in the form of plane tickets and allowances.
Its administration highlighted the sharp drop in the number of illegal border crossings as an early and significant sign of success.
Trump planned to sign at least two executive decrees later Monday concerning immigration, including one ordering officials of the States and the Federal Government to publish a list of “sanctuary cities” jurisdictions.
