Trump marks his first 100 days in office with rally in Michigan
He is staging his largest public event since returning to the White House in a state that has been especially rocked by his steep trade tariffs and combative attitude toward Canada.
Mr Trump is making an afternoon visit to Selfridge Air National Guard Base for an announcement alongside Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
He is expected to speak at a rally at Macomb Community College, north of Detroit, allowing him to revel in leading a sprint to upend government and social, political and foreign policy norms.
His Republican administration's strict immigration policies have sent arrests for illegal crossings along the US-Mexico border plummeting, and government-slashing efforts led by billionaire adviser Elon Musk have shaken Washington to its core.
Its protectionist import taxes imposed on America's trade partners have also sought to reorder a global economy that the US had painstakingly built and nurtured in the decades after the Second World War.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)
Mr Trump has also championed sweeping US expansionism, refusing to rule out military intervention in Greenland and Panama, suggesting that American developers could help convert the war-torn Gaza Strip into a Riviera-like resort and even suggesting the annexation of Canada.
'I run the country and the world,' Mr Trump told The Atlantic magazine in an interview.
He told Time of his first 100 days: 'I think that what I'm doing is exactly what I've campaigned on.'
That does not mean it is popular. Only about four in 10 Americans approve of how Mr Trump is handling the presidency, and his ratings on the economy and trade are lower than that.
Additionally, 46% of US adults approve of Mr Trump's immigration policies, with about half of Americans saying he has 'gone too far' when it comes to deporting immigrants living in the country illegally.
The bottom line for the first hundred days is, lots of damage being done to the fundamentals of our government Max Stier, the Partnership for Public Service
Just 33% of Americans, meanwhile, have a favourable view of Mr Musk, the Tesla chief executive and the world's richest person, and about half believe the administration has gone too far in working to pare back the government workforce.
'The bottom line for the first hundred days is, lots of damage being done to the fundamentals of our government,' said Max Stier, founding president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, a non-profit dedicated to better government.
Mr Stier noted that there had been 'a lot of interest in this idea of trying to make our government more efficient, and what we've seen instead is the most substantial destruction of our core governmental capabilities in history'.
Michigan was one of the battleground states Mr Trump flipped from the Democratic column. But it has also been deeply affected by his tariffs, including on new imported cars and auto parts.
Michigan's unemployment rate has risen for three straight months, including jumping 1.3% from March to reach 5.5%, according to state data. That' is among the highest in the nation, far exceeding the national average of 4.2%.
Car maker Stellantis halted production at plants in Canada and Mexico after Mr Trump announced a 25% tariff on imported vehicles, temporarily laying off 900 US employees.
I'm not sure that he is at all interested in doing the smart thing. He is what I would call an in-your-face president Pollster Bernie Porn
Industry groups have separately urged the White House to scrap plans for tariffs on imported auto parts, warning that doing so would raise prices on cars and could trigger 'layoffs and bankruptcy'.
That seemingly would make the state an odd choice for Mr Trump to hail his own accomplishments.
'I'm not sure that he is at all interested in doing the smart thing,' said Bernie Porn, a Michigan pollster.
'He is what I would call an in-your-face president. 'This is what I'm going to do'.'
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday morning that Mr Trump would sign an executive order relaxing some of his tariffs on cars and auto parts, though Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the goal remained enabling vehicle makers to create more domestic manufacturing jobs.
Mr Bessent added that Mr Trump is concerned with 'jobs of the future, not of the past'.
The president is also visiting Selfridge, which was established after the US entered the First World War in 1917, and the community college campus in Warren. Both are near the Canadian border and home to many people with deep business and personal ties to that country.
'Michigan always feels very, very positively toward Canada,' said the pollster, who noted that its voters 'can't be reacting well to the kinds of things he's done'.
Typically, presidents use the 100-day mark to launch multiple rallies. But Mr Trump is doing only the Michigan stop before giving the commencement address at the University of Alabama on Thursday.
Administration officials say the Republican president is at his most effective staying at the White House, having meetings and speaking to reporters nearly every day.
Indeed, Mr Trump's Macomb Community College speech will be one of the few large in-person crowds he has addressed since Inauguration Day on January 20.
Except for a trip to tour hurricane damage in North Carolina and wildfire devastation in Southern California and a Las Vegas speech that included briefly chatting with gamblers on a casino floor, Mr Trump's early months have been characterised by little domestic travel.
The exceptions have been flying most weekends to golf in Florida or attend sporting events, including the Super Bowl and the Daytona 500, where Mr Trump relished the crowds but did not speak to them.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a press briefing at the White House on Tuesday (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
The limited travel to see supporters is a major departure from his first term, when Mr Trump held major rallies in Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky before celebrating 100 days in office with a Pennsylvania speech in 2017.
Also in the spotlight will be Ms Whitmer, who is frequently mentioned as a future presidential candidate. Long a Trump critic, Ms Whitmer has sought to find common ground with the president lately, visiting him at the White House and discussing the future of Selfridge specifically.
Ms Whitmer is concerned about the A-10 aircraft stationed at the base being phased out, though Mr Trump recently said he hoped to keep Selfridge 'open, strong, thriving'.
The Michigan pollster noted that Ms Whitmer has continued to criticise Mr Trump on key issues such as the environment. But, he added, 'she does, I think, more so than a lot of other Democrats, realise that the guy's in office, and it probably makes sense to try and — to the extent possible on those things where they agree — work together with him'.
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Glasgow Times
16 minutes ago
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US strikes three Iranian nuclear sites
Iran's state-run IRNA news agency, quoting a provincial official, confirmed attacks on Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz nuclear sites. The decision to directly involve the US in the war comes after more than a week of strikes by Israel on Iran that have moved to systematically eradicate the country's air defences and offensive missile capabilities, while damaging its nuclear enrichment facilities. US and Israeli officials have said that American stealth bombers and the 30,000-pound (13,500-kg) bunker buster bomb they alone can carry offered the best chance of destroying heavily-fortified sites connected to the Iranian nuclear programme buried deep underground. 'We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,' Mr Trump said in a post on social media. 'All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home.' Mr Trump added in a later post that he would address the national audience at 10pm eastern time, writing: 'This is an HISTORIC MOMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ISRAEL, AND THE WORLD. IRAN MUST NOW AGREE TO END THIS WAR. THANK YOU!' Trump said B-2 stealth bombers were used but did not specify which types of bombs were dropped. The White House and Pentagon did not immediately elaborate on the operation. The strikes are a perilous decision for the US as Iran has pledged to retaliate if it joined the Israeli assault, and for Mr Trump personally, having won the White House on the promise of keeping America out of costly foreign conflicts and scoffed at the value of American interventionism. Trump told reporters on Friday that he was not interested in sending ground forces into Iran, saying it's 'the last thing you want to do.' He had previously indicated that he would make a final choice over the course of two weeks, a timeline that seemed drawn out as the situation was evolving quickly. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned the United States on Wednesday that strikes targeting the Islamic Republic will 'result in irreparable damage for them'. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei declared 'any American intervention would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region'. Trump has vowed that he would not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon and he had initially hoped that the threat of force would bring the country's leaders to give up its nuclear program peacefully. Israel 's military said Saturday it was preparing for the possibility of a lengthy war, while Iran's foreign minister warned before the U.S. attack that American military involvement 'would be very, very dangerous for everyone.' The prospect of a wider war threatened, too. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said they would resume attacks on U.S. vessels in the Red Sea if the Trump administration joins Israel's military campaign. The Houthis paused such attacks in May under a deal with the US. The US ambassador to Israel announced the US had begun 'assisted departure flights,' the first from Israel since the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, that sparked the war in Gaza. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at Thursday's press briefing that Trump had said: 'I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.' Instead, the U.S. president struck just two days later. Trump appears to have made the calculation — at the prodding of Israeli officials and many Republican lawmakers — that Israel's operation had softened the ground and presented a perhaps unparalleled opportunity to set back Iran's nuclear program, perhaps permanently. The Israelis say their offensive has already crippled Iran's air defences, allowing them to already significantly degrade multiple Iranian nuclear sites. But to destroy the Fordo nuclear fuel enrichment plant, Israel appealed to Trump for US bunker-busting bomb, which uses its weight and sheer kinetic force to reach deeply buried targets and then explode. The penetrator is currently only delivered by the B-2 stealth bomber, which is only found in the American arsenal. The bomb carries a conventional warhead, and is believed to be able to penetrate about 200 feet (61 meters) below the surface before exploding, and the bombs can be dropped one after another, effectively drilling deeper and deeper with each successive blast. The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that Iran is producing highly enriched uranium at Fordo, raising the possibility that nuclear material could be released into the area if the GBU-57 A/B were used to hit the facility. Previous Israeli strikes at another Iranian nuclear site, Natanz, on a centrifuge site have caused contamination only at the site itself, not the surrounding area, the IAEA has said. Mr Trump's decision for direct US military intervention comes after his administration made an unsuccessful two-month push — including with high-level, direct negotiations with the Iranians — aimed at persuading Tehran to curb its nuclear programme. For months, Mr Trump said he was dedicated to a diplomatic push to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. And he twice — in April and again in late May — persuaded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off on military action against Iran and give diplomacy more time. The US in recent days has been shifting military aircraft and warships into and around the Middle East to protect Israel and US bases from Iranian attacks. 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Daily Mail
22 minutes ago
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President Trump addressed the nation on Saturday night after a military strike on Iran that he said 'completely and totally obliterated' the country's three major nuclear enrichment facilities. The full remarks from the president are below: Thank you very much. A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive, precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime. Fordo, Natanz and Esfahan. Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise. Our objective was the destruction of Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world's number one state sponsor of terror. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not. Future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier. For 40 years, Iran has been saying. Death to America, death to Israel. They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs, with roadside bombs. That was their specialty. We lost over 1,000 people and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East, and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate in particular. So many were killed by their general, Qassim Soleimani. I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen. It will not continue. I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we've gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel. I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they've done. And most importantly, I want to congratulate the great American patriots who flew those magnificent machines tonight, and all of the United States military on an operation the likes of which the world has not seen in many, many decades. Hopefully, we will no longer need their services in this capacity. I hope that's so. I also want to congratulate the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan 'Razin' Caine, spectacular general, and all of the brilliant military minds involved in this attack. With all of that being said, this cannot continue. There will be either peace, or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left. Tonight's was the most difficult of them all, by far, and perhaps the most lethal. But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill. Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes. There's no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight. Not even close. There has never been a military that could do what took place just a little while ago. Tomorrow, General Caine, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will have a press conference at 8 a.m. at the Pentagon. And I want to just thank everybody. And, in particular, God. I want to just say, we love you, God, and we love our great military. Protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you.
