Trump's first 100 days by the numbers: How he compares to recent presidents

Matthew Medsger, Boston Herald on Apr 29, 2025

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The first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency truly have been the best and worst of times, depending entirely on who is providing the perspective or the metric being used.

The night before he took the oath of office for a second time, the president promised the “most extraordinary first 100 days of any presidency in American history” and, in his estimation, the first months of his semi-historic second non-consecutive term are unequaled in American history. It’s a claim he’s made more than once.

“100 very special days. Make America great again!” Trump declared Tuesday morning.

In an address to Congress in early March, the commander-in-chief said “it has been stated by many that the first month of our presidency — it’s our presidency — is the most successful in the history of our nation.”

In early April, the president declared that “we’re setting records right now. We’re getting more things approved than any president has ever done in the first 100 days. It’s not even close. I had somebody say the most successful month – first month, in the history. Now they said the most successful 100 days in the history of our country.”

But according to recent polls, Trump enjoys a historically low approval rating at this point in his presidency — with one recent poll showing him as low as 39% — and currently stands at an average of 45% approval.

Data from the American Presidency Project shows that at the same point in their administrations, former Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush stood at 57%, 65%, and 62% approval, respectively. Among all presidents serving since Dwight D. Eisenhower, Trump is the only chief executive to post a negative approval rating during their first 100 days, and his score in 2025 is an improvement only when compared to the 41% approval rating he enjoyed at the start of his first term.

Trump also hasn’t seen many of his campaign promises into actual laws, despite the Republican Party holding majorities in both the House and the Senate.

So far he’s signed five bills passed by Congress, and only one of them — the Laken Riley Act — represents a significant legislative victory.

At this point in his presidency, Biden had signed 11 bills into law, Obama 14, and Bush 7. During his last term, Trump’s first 100 days saw at least 30 bills become law.

By sheer number, Trump is winning on the number of executive orders he’s sent to the Federal Register.

As of Monday evening when he signed three more, the 47th President had signed more than 140 executive orders into effect. By day 100, Biden had signed 42 executive orders — at the time the most among modern presidents — Obama had put his name to 19, and Bush had signed 11. At the end of Trump’s original first 100 days, he’d signed 33 executive orders.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, on Monday, noted that Trump has already signed more orders, proclamations, and memorandums than most presidents do over four years in office.

The 47th President’s frequent use of regulation-by-pen has been met with hundreds of lawsuits from attorneys general and private parties across the country, many of them aimed at stopping his orders.

While many previous past presidents have seen the stock markets grow during their first months in office, this century only Trump and Bush have overseen an early term stock market downturn. Bush’s market crash was credited to the “dot com recession” of the early 2000s. Trump’s comes following his unilateral decision to set a wide swath of tariffs on trade with much of the rest of the world.

According to Market Watch, Bush’s first 100 days saw the S&P 500 drop by 6.7%, while after Trump’s first 100 days the S&P 500 is on track to be down by about 8%. During Biden’s first 100 days the S&P 500 charged forward by 10.9%, while Obama oversaw 2.8% growth over the start of his first term. During Trump’s previous first 100 days, the S&P 500 grew by 5%.

The White House, in fact sheet shared Tuesday, said that Trump’s tariff plan is helping to bring investment into the U.S.

“President Donald J. Trump has secured over $5 trillion in new U.S.-based investments in his first 100 days, which will create more than 451,000 new jobs as he sets the stage for a new era of American prosperity,” the White House wrote.

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