Dear John,

Tuesday marked Trump’s 100th day in office.

One hundred days in, Trump and his Administration show no signs of slowing the breakneck pace at which they are implementing the agenda set out in Project 2025: issuing illegal and unconstitutional executive orders, dismantling long-held rights, defunding vital health and social safety net programs and attacking the fundamental institutions of our very democracy, including the courts. Not to mention upending international relationships that compromise our national security, the mass firings of essential federal workers, and the economic chaos created by the tariffs. 

As contributing editor Carrie Baker reports, as of this week the Administration has achieved one-third of the objectives set out in Project 2025. To name a few: eliminating USAID’s sexual reproductive health and reproductive rights and gender equality programs; reversing prohibitions on healthcare discrimination based on gender identity; and enforcing the Hyde Amendment. Actions to implement another one-fifth of Project 2025’s objectives are currently underway, including things like rescinding the guidance that required hospitals to perform an emergency abortion to save a woman’s life under EMTALA; banning “critical race theory” and “gender ideology” from public school curriculum; and eliminating the Head Start program.

Ranking Democrats with the House Appropriations Committee released a tracker tallying the federal funds promised to Americans by Congress that Trump illegally has frozen or cancelled—a number that reached $430 billion at last count. These are funds for cancer research, infrastructure projects, and disaster relief. Grants for the Office of Violence Against Women. School lunch funds. 

Are you starting to see the pattern here?

Beyond the numbers of programs derailed, and dollar amounts of funding cuts, are the stories of people—real people, with names, whose lives will never be the same because of actions taken by this Administration. Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Mahmoud Khalil. And the ones who go nameless: the three U.S. citizen children, one of whom has cancer, who were deported along with their mothers and other siblings on Friday last week. 

It turns out a lot of people don’t like what they are seeing: a new poll by Navigator finds that “half of Americans say Trump’s first 100 days have been more bad than good,” and only 1 in 3 think there’s been “more good than bad.” What’s more, the poll finds that 1 in 4 Trump voters “regret their choice or are disappointed,” including 43 percent of non-MAGA Republicans  

The past 100 days have felt like some of the longest of our lives. But they’ve reinforced for me the imperative for those of us who still have our freedom to fight back and speak up on behalf of those who cannot. Speaking up looks different for everyone: some of us are calling our elected representatives and showing up to their town halls. Others are marching in the streets. Maybe you’re redirecting your spending dollars away from companies that have rolled back their DEI initiatives. Or maybe fighting back looks like just making new connections in your community, and talking to your neighbors. 

We’re going to need each other in the fight ahead, more than ever. 

Onward,

Kathy Spillar

Executive Editor

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