Milestones and moments you may have missed from Trump's first 100 days

April 29 marks day 100 of Donald Trump's extraordinarily eventful second term as US president. Here's some of what you might have missed. Day one: Rioters are released from prison One of Trump's first Oval Office orders was to release supporters who'd been jailed over the US Capitol riot of January 6, 2021.

Trump told prison authorities to pardon almost 1,500 people, and commute the sentences of 14 others so they could be freed straight away. Trump said they'd been treated unfairly compared to other criminals. "Murderers today are not even charged," he said.



"These people have already served years in prison and they've served them viciously." Supporters quickly gathered outside the Washington jail where the prisoners were being held. Damien Rodriguez — who was at the Capitol on January 6 but not charged — was among them.

"I feel very happy for the families that are getting their political prisoners back," . The pardoned rioters included a group of men who bashed and repeatedly tasered police officer Michael Fanone. .

"The American people chose Donald Trump to be their president after he promised to pardon these individuals," he said. "These violent, vicious criminals who attacked cops for doing nothing more than their job." Trump came to appreciate the power of the presidential pardon in his first term, "and he seems to be committed to making extended use of that power now that he's back", says University of Michigan political scientist Michael Traugott.

"He's also now been extending the pardon power to other individuals, many of whom have direct or indirect ties to the administration," he says. "And if we had a stronger Congress, they could be taking a look at the president's pardon power and see if there was some way legislatively to constrain it, but this Congress is not going to do it." Day three: Troops are deployed to the Mexican border Two days after Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border (having also done this in his first term), the US military began deploying thousands of troops there.

In an executive order, the president said "cartels" and "criminal gangs" had overrun the border. "America's sovereignty is under attack." The initial deployment of 1,500 troops has since swelled to close to 7,000 marines and soldiers.

The crackdown has seen illegal border crossings grind to a halt, hitting their lowest levels in decades. The number of migrants trying to cross the border from Mexico had already . But Trump's moves, which also included indefinitely halting asylum for anyone coming through the southern border, had a dramatic impact.

Unauthorised border crossings fell from a record high of 250,000 in December 2023 to just over 7,000 in March, according to official figures. The Trump administration is so far having mixed success on implementing its immigration policies, says political scientist Michael Traugott. "The number of entries [across the border] has dropped because of enforcement, primarily," he says.

"And I think that has been successful, although the means of achieving it, I think, are hard to justify. "On the other hand, he also promised to boost the number of people who would be sent back to where they came from, and that has not been successful. That program is way under targeted goals, and I don't think we can tell yet whether he's going to be able to pick up the pace.

" Day 11: Trump blames diversity initiatives for a plane crash Less than a fortnight into his second term, the president was tasked with leading the nation through its deadliest plane crash in nearly 25 years. A commercial aircraft and a Black Hawk helicopter collided midair, killing all 67 people on board the plane as it plunged into the icy Potomac River in Washington DC. The next day, at a press conference, Trump attacked previous Democratic administrations and for the collision.

Asked how he could suggest this without evidence, Trump replied: "Because I have common sense." "I think it's disrespectful to the families," . "Even while he was making that comment, the air traffic control system was working around his head while he was saying it.

" Trump's focus on stripping away DEI policies had been made evident on day one, when he signed an executive order to remove all relevant programs across the entire federal government. It was one of several executive orders he has signed to dismantle the programs he says hinder a merit-based hiring process. The administration also ordered employees of federal DEI and accessibility offices to be put on paid administrative leave.

Some of America's biggest companies, such as Meta and McDonalds, have also reversed or scaled back their diversity and inclusivity programs to align more with the Trump administration's ideology. Reduced diversity in government departments and agencies will likely come at a cost, says political scientist Michael Traugott. "There's research that shows that diversity of viewpoints produces better results when the range of viewpoints is fully debated and becomes part of the conversation about which direction particular policy should go," he says.

"So I think it's probably a net loss." Day 15: Foreign aid staff are told not to come to work Foreign aid was one of the first big targets of the "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) — the Elon Musk-led team tasked with shrinking government and rooting out "waste and fraud". Under Donald Trump's orders, DOGE quickly moved to gut the US Agency for International Development (USAID), cancelling more than 80 per cent of its programs and telling most of its staff they were being fired.

Workers were locked out of email and computer systems and told not to come back to work. It created chaos for aid agencies abroad. "Everyone's scrambling trying to work what this means," Josie Pagani, CEO of charity ChildFund New Zealand, .

Trump labelled USAID a "left-wing scam". "We're giving billions and billions of dollars to countries that hate us." Smaller foreign aid agencies were also later targeted.

Slashing aid will not only hurt the recipients of the help, it'll also weaken America's position in the world, says Hans Noel, an associate professor of government at Georgetown University. "Foreign aid isn't just about: 'Let's just give some resources to people who need them,'" he says. "It's usually a part of a broader public diplomacy.

You know, the United States is giving resources, then they're in a position to advocate for American values and interests." Noel says US foreign aid is unlikely to be restored to previous levels, partly because many Americans oppose using taxpayer funds abroad. "The grants are gone, the programs are gone, and getting them back up to speed would be really, really hard.

" Day 16: Trump says the US should take over Gaza Throughout last year's election campaign, Trump vowed to bring lasting peace to the Middle East. When he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February, he floated a brazen and controversial vision for how he might do that. The president declared the US should seize control of Gaza, permanently displace the Palestinian population, and ultimately turn the devastated seaside enclave into "the Riviera of the Middle East".

"The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too. "Everybody I have spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent." Unsurprisingly, Netanyahu welcomed the president's "fresh ideas", but elsewhere, they led to shock and condemnation, including from countries across the Middle East and the United Nations.

Both Jordan and Egypt — which Trump proposed would accept the approximately 2 million displaced Palestinians — rejected the idea, which is also under international law. . "This project will fail," one said.

"If the people wanted to leave Gaza they would have left before, currently they can't, all the people would rather die in Gaza than leave." Trump's comments came during a delicate ceasefire which his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff had helped broker. After six weeks, Israel started heavily bombing Gaza once again, shattering hopes for an extension of the ceasefire.

Israel has now also blocked all food and supplies, cut electricity and placed Gaza under a complete siege. Palestinian health authorities say more than 50,000 Gazans have been killed by Israel's bombardment. While the Biden administration strongly supported Israel's campaign in Gaza, it also put Israel under some pressure to allow aid into Gaza for civilians.

Trump has adopted a more "hands-off" approach, says the University of Michigan's Michael Traugott. "The Biden administration withheld some shipments of weapons, and they had various conversations, we're led to believe, in which they had Israel forestall certain kinds of attacks. "So I think the difference is that the Trump administration has re-instituted the delivery of weapons, these large bombs in particular, and has been quiet in the last few months about the actions that Israel has taken re-entering Gaza.

" Day 40: Trump and Vance berate the Ukrainian president During the first month of his presidency, Trump repeatedly criticised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and praised Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump falsely claimed Ukraine invaded Russia, and called Zelenskyy a "dictator." Despite the public attacks, it appeared there was movement on a deal under which Ukraine would share critical mineral deposits with the US in exchange for ongoing military help.

Zelenskyy was invited to the White House to sign the deal, but the picture opportunity turned into a globally broadcast nightmare for the Ukrainian. Vice-President JD Vance accused Zelenskyy of showing insufficient gratitude to America, and Trump fired up after Zelenskyy suggested the US could feel the effects of Russian aggression. "Don't tell us what we're going to feel because you're in no position to dictate that," Trump said.

"You're gambling with World War III." Zelenskyy was whisked out of the White House before lunch was served. The deal was not signed and, in the following days, the US temporarily suspended military aid and intelligence sharing with the war-torn nation.

"It's absolutely unprecedented to have a head of state come to the Oval Office and be berated in such a personal way," Ohio State University historian Christopher McKnight Nichols . Left with little choice, Ukraine later agreed to an American proposal for a 30-day ceasefire. Trump spoke to Putin by phone, but Russia would not agree to the same terms.

The US is continuing efforts to broker a deal, but Trump has warned the US could give up if there's no meaningful progress soon. Trump and Vance's "humiliation of Zelenskyy" made clear that the US "wasn't really interested in supporting Ukraine anymore", says Angela Stent, the author of Putin's World: Russia Against the West and with the Rest. The US says it's continuing to try to broker a ceasefire, but it wants Ukraine to cede territory to Russia and agree it will never join NATO.

"No Ukrainian president could accept these terms," Stent says. "The war might continue, but still, the US-Russian relationship will improve, because that's really what both President Trump and, of course, President Putin wants." Day 53: A journalist is added to a group chat about military plans When defence secretary Pete Hegseth shared attack plans in Yemen with colleagues via a chat app, he didn't realise a reporter had also been added to the chat.

Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic had been inadvertently looped in by national security adviser Michael Waltz. He then reported what was shared, triggering . Many national security experts said the information — including bombing targets and timings — clearly should have been classified and more carefully handled in line with protocols.

Trump pushed back on pressure to discipline Waltz or Hegseth, saying: "It's all a witch-hunt." The Pentagon's chief spokesman, John Ullyot, later resigned and wrote that the scandal was the start of "a month of total chaos" at the Pentagon. Several top advisers and managers left the agency in what Ullyot called "a strange and baffling purge".

The New York Times later reported Hegseth had posted essentially the same attack plans in a second group chat, which included his wife, brother and personal lawyer. Hegseth blamed disgruntled former employees for leaking against him. The Pentagon's spokesman, Sean Parnell, has argued there "was no classified information in any Signal chat, no matter how many ways they try to write the story".

"My assessment of the news is that Pete Hegseth can't last very long," says the University of Michigan's Michael Traugott. "We can't afford to have a loss of central control or command in the Department of Defense and large numbers of staff who don't have confidence in the person who heads the agency. "So they're going to try to fend this off, they're going to claim that this is the work of leakers who are anti-Hegseth and so on.

But I don't think, in the end, that's going to hold." Day 55: Hundreds of migrants are flown to a Salvadoran jail Donald Trump campaigned on the promise of implementing "the largest domestic deportation operation in American history" and he didn't waste any time getting started. A day after invoking a rarely used wartime law, the Trump administration deported hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

The government said all the men were members of a foreign "terrorist" gang, and therefore did not deserve due process. Trump said they went through a "strong vetting process". "This was a bad group, and they were in bad areas.

" But court documents suggest officials were able to rely on tattoos, clothing and social media posts as proof of gang membership. Family members and advocates say this resulted in innocent men being targeted. One for example was a gay makeup artist fleeing persecution, whose lawyer argues he was jailed because of "mom" and "dad" tattoos on his arms.

The deportations set off an ongoing legal stoush and ignited fears of a constitutional crisis. A federal judge tried to block the deportations and later found the government showed "wilful disregard" for his order. Another high-profile deportation case — that of Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia — has been at the centre of a separate court fight.

The 29-year-old was sent to the Salvadoran jail despite a 2019 court order to protect him from being returned to his home country. The government admitted the deportation was an "administrative error" but the Trump administration has since argued it's powerless to bring him back. The Supreme Court ruled the White House must facilitate his return but it for doing "nothing" to retrieve him.

Undeterred, Trump has doubled down on his deportation blitz, even suggesting he'd like to send US citizens to prisons in El Salvador in the future. Many experts fear a constitutional crisis is brewing as the White House takes on the courts. "Increasingly, they're defying court orders, and that's also a defiance of the Constitution," Georgetown University law professor David Super says.

But he believes the Supreme Court's efforts to put the brakes on some of the administration's moves could prove consequential. "If a court that is this conservative, and probably agrees with most of what they're doing, subsequently says that what they're doing is unlawful, that's going to be very hard for the administration to explain away," he says. "That may start to free some Republicans in Congress to push back on the administration more than they have been.

" Day 73: Trump unveils tariffs for 185 countries Donald Trump started introducing new tariffs early in his presidency, but his "Liberation Day" announcement promised to be the motherlode. In the White House's Rose Garden, flanked by a myriad of American flags, he announced an astonishing change to American economic policy, saying: "For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered." Using what turned out to be a crude calculation based on current trade levels, he revealed the punishments for a long list of countries he said were ripping off America — tariffs of up to 49 per cent.

Over the coming week, markets see-sawed furiously. Then, amid a major sell-off on the all-important bond market, Trump made an about-face. He paused the country-specific "reciprocal" tariffs for 90 days, but the 10 per cent "baseline" remains in place.

The tariff on China though eventually settled at 145 per cent after back-and-forth retaliation between the world's two biggest economies. The Trump administration says it's negotiating new bilateral deals with its trade partners, but it's unclear what will happen to the paused tariffs "In the United States, these tariffs will affect people's standard of living, their ability to produce and export and import," says Angela Stent, a foreign policy expert from the Brookings Institute. "A worst-case scenario would be, for instance, if China and the United States are not able to quote-unquote 'work out a deal' on this, and that will clearly raise global tensions, and it's really then a global trade war.

" Day 85: Trump freezes billions in Harvard University funds Harvard, America's oldest and richest university, has found itself at the frontline of a fight between the Trump administration and higher education across America. Trump accuses universities of pushing left-wing and "woke" ideals, and of mishandling pro-Palestinian campus protests. His administration has made demands that many universities have agreed to under threat of funding cuts.

But Harvard refused to bow to the orders — which included cancelling diversity-based admissions and hiring initiatives, overhauling leadership, banning face masks and increasing campus policing. So Trump froze billions of dollars in Harvard funding, declaring: "Harvard is a joke, teaches hate and stupidity, and should no longer receive federal funds." At the time, Harvard law professor Andrew Crespo said Trump "wants to change what we're teaching.

" "He wants to make sure we're only asking questions that he wants to ask and giving the answers that he wants to be giving," . Trump has also threatened to revoke Harvard's tax-exemption status and block it from enrolling international students. Harvard is now suing.

The White House is investigating Harvard and 59 other universities for alleged antisemitism, including Ivy League schools Cornell, Princeton and Brown, which have all had funding threatened or suspended. Harvard is now suing the administration. Georgetown associate professor Hans Noel thinks the university could have some success.

"I do expect that the courts will find that, for the most part, the federal government can't tell institutions how to run things just because they don't like their outcome," he says. But, he says, it's also likely less federal money will flow into higher education in future. "I don't think a lot of people appreciate just how much there is, and because of that, people will be saying 'we shouldn't be spending this money'.

" Day 93: Elon Musk says he'll step back from DOGE The work of the world's richest man as Trump's chief cost-cutter has made him one of America's most polarising figures. Opponents have targeted his companies — particularly car-maker Tesla — with protests, boycotts and even vandalism. After , Elon Musk said his time spent working with DOGE would "drop significantly".

Trump called the public backlash unfair. "Everything he does is good, but they took it out on Tesla." DOGE says it has saved taxpayers more than $US150 billion — much of it characterised as "waste and fraud" — but many of its published "receipts" have been disputed after independent analysis.

Some cuts — such as to — were hastily reversed. A Reuters tally found 260,000 public servants had lost their jobs. Among the most controversial cuts have been the firings of thousands of health workers, and the freezing of hundreds of science and medical research projects that were already underway.

So much has been changed and cut so quickly, it's been hard for Americans to keep up and respond, political scientist Hans Noel says. "I think a big part of what the first 100 days have looked like has been a 'let's move fast and break things' Silicon Valley kind of model," political scientist Hans Noel says. "Certainly the Musk stuff has been like that.

A lot of ...

seeing what they can get away with." The dramatic scale and pace of change makes the future hard to forecast. "So I think we're going to look back at this first 100 days, and probably the time after it, as a lot of movement where maybe we didn't even notice the thing that was the most significant at this point, until it takes some time for the consequences to shake out.

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