Today marks Day 100 of President Donald Trump’s second term, and every major public opinion poll swings negative.
The Washington Post and CNN have the president’s approval rating hovering at 40 percent—the lowest since Dwight D. Eisenhower took office in 1953. But even respondents to Fox News’ latest poll disapprove of Trump’s job performance by 55 percent, and 78 percent think his policies are hurting the economy.
Regardless, 89 percent of Trump voters remain satisfied with their choice.
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Which ruined my plans to give the Most Shocked to Learn that Trump Didn’t Care About Them Either Award to everyone who cast their vote for him in 2024. From working poor whites who lost their jobs to the billionaires watching the tariff debacle and the stock market in freefall, voters who thought that Trump was going to stick to screwing over Black and Brown people, migrants, and transgender folks got quite the surprise. But hey, they still seem to like the guy, so …
The point of these awards is to remind a public benumbed by a fast-flowing river of bad news, misinformation, and rapidly changing circumstances of some of the more disgraceful moments of Trump’s first 100 days. It’s always worth shaming people who have taken a vow to serve the people and uphold the Constitution, only to toss both into the wood chipper.
The Pandora’s Box Award goes to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, whose response to Trump’s first 100 days has ranged from deference to mild, muddled pushback. Last week, Trump slammed the Court for an unsigned order that basically said: “Stop shipping off people you claim are criminals to El Salvador without formal charges or due process until we say so.” Yesterday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt implied that the administration would consider locking up any judge that “defied” them on obstruction charges.
Roberts wrote the majority opinion for last summer’s ruling granting Trump, and any future president, immunity from prosecution for official acts in office. Which explains the footage of Trump patting Roberts’ shoulder following his address to Congress earlier this year, saying, “Thank you again. I won’t forget.”
The Most Vichy-Like Award is a three-way tie. First to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for learning nothing from Mitch McConnell’s leadership of the chamber’s Republicans back in 2008, when Democrats controlled all three branches of government. McConnell responded by declaring that “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” He led a unified war of obstruction geared at denying Obama victory on any aspect of his agenda. Not a single Republican supported the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
By contrast, Schumer, in an act of traitorous capitulation, needlessly caved on the government spending bill he had initially opposed alongside other members of his own party.
And second, to Mark Zuckerberg, who owns Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, and to Jonathan Greenblatt, who heads the Anti-Defamation League. Though both men are Jewish, Zuckerberg said nothing about Elon Musk’s two strangely Nazi-like salutes at Trump’s inauguration; Greenblatt publicly defended Musk’s raised arm as “an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm.” The gaslighting jokes write themselves.
United States Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem earns the Dumbest and Most Cynical Misinterpretation of the Oath of Office Award.
Qualifications from last week alone include“ICE Barbie”—a nickname the camera-ready secretary has earned for her love of bizarre publicity stunts, which include Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and a shoot at El Salvador’s notorious CERCOT prison—deporting three U.S.-citizen children ages 2, 4, and 7 to Honduras alongside their mothers. Including one kid who has Stage 4 cancer but was sent out of the country without medication or consultation with doctors.
Honorary Mention in this category goes to Kash Patel, Director of the FBI. Not to be outdone by Noem, Patel had his agents arrest a judge for refusing to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to cart off a guy appearing before her without the proper paperwork, then helping him leave by a side door.
The What, Me Worry? Eugenics Award goes to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who called for an “autism registry” that will be filled with the confidential health information and the identities of all autistic U.S. citizens. (Disclaimer: all resemblance to the Nazi regime’s registration of the “weak minded and physically disabled” as a precursor to deciding who was fit to live is purely coincidental.)
The Security is for Suckers Award goes to that loveable scamp of a Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. The former Fox News talk-show host and white-supremacist-tattoo enthusiast was already in hot water for sharing detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen in a private Signal group chat that inadvertently included an editor from The Atlantic. And then news broke last week that Hegseth personally convened a second Signal group chat about the same top-secret operation with a group that included his wife (a former Fox News producer), brother, and personal lawyer. Hegseth, no wimp, went on the offense by ranting to journalists that the real problem was leakers and then ordering a makeup studio to be installed at the Pentagon.
The I Will Be Your Father Figure Award goes to Elon Musk for perching his four-year-old son, X, on his shoulders while responding to press questions about his decisions as head of the new Department of Government Efficiency. Clearly, some consultant thought that carrying little X would signal “loving father figure” for Musk, who froze USAID overnight, leaving $500 million worth of American-grown-and-paid-for food intended to feed starving people rotting in warehouses and ports around the globe. While also leaving the $22 billion that SpaceX holds in government contracts with the Department of Defense untouched.
My takeaway from that tableau? Only an unwitting toddler would willingly act as Musk’s human shield.
The Willing Executioners Award goes to Attorney General Pam Bondi. Trump’s pick for the nation’s top cop appears to be qualified largely because of her loyalty to him, her willingness to ignore the Constitution, and her eagerness to flout any court decision with which she or her boss disagrees. Plus, of course, her resemblance to Barbie. The guy has a type.
Bondi is fronting for an administration that wants to see if it can bypass constitutionally guaranteed rights, including the rights to legal due process and free speech, without any real pushback from politicians, elected officials, Silicon and Social Media Titans, media entities, or the public.
Trump and his ilk are not looking for approval. They’re gauging what kind of obstacles might stand in their way as a means of determining which strategy to use to eliminate them.
Our response, or lack thereof, will be their answer.
