President Trump heralded his administration’s first 100 days as being “just about the most successful in our country’s history.”
Using his weekly address to tout a “renewal of the American spirit,” the president took his message straight to the Rust Belt states that helped seal his 2016 presidential election victory.
“You asked the people of Michigan; you asked the people of Ohio; you can ask the people of Pennsylvania,” Trump said. “See what’s happening. See the car companies come roaring back in. They don’t want to leave. They want to stay here. They want a piece of the action.”
Noting the progress under his watch to reboot efforts to complete the Keystone and Dakota pipelines as well as his claim that he was a key figure in negotiating down the cost of the F-35 fighter jet program, Trump said the U.S. is creating jobs and cutting costs.
Notably absent from Trump’s address was any mention of the so-far bumpy GOP effort to pass an Obamacare repeal-and-replace bill or his repeatedly blocked travel bans. But he did celebrate the U.S. departure from President Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership as being “a turning point for our nation” and his recently sworn-in Supreme Court pick, Neil Gorsuch, as a “truly great judge.”
“My administration is the first in the modern political era to confirm a new Supreme Court Justice in the first 100 days — the last time it happened was 136 years ago in 1881,” Trump said.
He also touted his administration’s efforts to crack down on border security and drug cartels and rising economic confidence.
A “fundamental change” has occurred in how the federal government deals with the American people, Trump argued.
“For too long, politicians cared more about special interests than they did about a very successful future for all Americans,” Trump said. “They took our taxpayers’ money, and sent their jobs and wealth to other countries. Not anymore. From the first day of my administration, I have governed by a simple idea: My only allegiance is to you, our wonderful citizens.”
Though Trump recently downplayed the “ridiculous” 100 days standard set by the media, which has come under heavy scrutiny amid a lack of a major legislative accomplishment, Trump did tell the Washington Examiner that he would give his administration “an A” on its first 100 days.
Trump will mark the milestone at a rally in Harrisburg, Pa., later today.
