What Donald Trump’s First 100 Days Will Look Like

President-elect Donald Trump has plans to enact a sweeping conservative agenda during his first 100 days in office.
Trump will return to the White House in January after securing 270 Electoral College votes and carrying pivotal swing states in the race against Vice President Kamala Harris, four years after voters rejected him in the polls in the race against President Joe Biden. In his victory speech, Trump touted his victory as a “mandate” to enact an array of policies.
Doing so will require cooperation from Congress, and Republicans in the Senate and House of Representatives are broadly more supportive of Trump than when he won in 2016. But there are still a handful of moderate Republicans who could be a check on the more far-reaching parts of his agenda, and Republicans won’t have enough Senate votes to overcome the filibuster.
The first 100 days of his administration will likely focus on passing some of his top campaign promises surrounding immigration and the economy, as well as appointments to key cabinet positions.
Here is an overview of what those first 100 days may look like.
The economy is what helped carry Trump to a second term, and it will likely be a priority in the first 100 days in office. Exit polls showed that Americans were broadly unhappy with the direction of the country and economy, which remained a key priority for Trump on the campaign trail.
Trump has advocated policies like removing taxes on tipped wages and slashing taxes. A memo from House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, reported by Axios’ Juliegrace Brufke, indicated that House Republicans would focus on locking in tax cuts, rolling back what he views as “excessive regulations” and cutting government spending.
Representative Andy Harris, the Maryland Republican who chairs the House Freedom Caucus, said he believes Republicans are inclined to pass some of these policies, including his promise to cut taxes on tips, in an early reconciliation package, and a larger reconciliation bill addressing taxes for Fiscal Year 2026.
But there are some limitations to reconciliation—anything in this bill must bedirectly related to spending and revenue, so this process can’t be used to enact other aspects of Trump’s agenda.
Trump is also expected to focus on immigration in the early days of his presidency.
Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s national press secretary, told Fox News soon after Trump was declared the winner that his day-one agenda would consist of launching mass deportations of undocumented immigrants living in the country.
He may do so by revoking temporary protected status that presently allows migrants to legally work in the U.S. or use local police for deportation programs, reported NPR. But these efforts will likely face many challenges.
According to the American Immigration Council, this would cost $7.3 billion. Efforts to conduct mass deportation would also likely face many legal and logistical challenges.
Trump has also pledged that he would order more fracking and use of oil on the first day of his presidency. Fracking emerged as a key issue in Pennsylvania, a state he narrowly carried, as Harris’ former opposition to the practice became a sticking point to voters in areas where oil drilling is a key component of the local economy.
“I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity during a town hall event in December 2023.
Scalise, in his memo to his House colleagues, also wrote that a priority would be to “unleash American energy” by mandating lease sales, opening federal lands to “increased energy exploration and production” and repealing environmental policies from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
With respect to the culture wars, Trump has also pledged to sign executive order for schools pushing “critical race theory” or “gender insanity” on day one.
Republicans have sought to pass legislation preventing schools from discussing sexual orientaton and gender idenity to some students, arguing those topics should be handled by parents rather than teachers, but critics view these policies as an attempt to unjustly target members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Trump has also said he would try to bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table on the first day of his presidency.
“They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done—I’ll have that done in 24 hours,” Trump said in 2023 at a CNN town hall.
While experts have been skeptical that the war will actually end within the first day of Trump’s presidency, the president-elect will have broad authority to change the U.S. approach to Ukraine, which under the Biden administration has been defined by unwavering support for Kyiv as it defends itself against the Russian invasion launched in February 2022.
As the war reaches its third anniversary, Trump could take actions to reduce the amount of U.S. aid given to Ukraine, as he has been critical of the Biden administration’s handling of the conflict.
During the first 100 days off his first administration in 2017, Trump focused on policies including efforts to defang the Affordable Care Act—though Republican efforts to repeal the legislation would ultimately fail in Congress—and implementing a travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East.
The early days of Trump’s presidency may also be defined by cabinet appointees. He is expected to begin picking his nominees for future roles like attorney general or positions overseeing the treasury, defense and the border in the coming weeks.
In 2017, most of his nominees received bipartisan support from both Republicans and Democrats. Only Betsy Devos, nominated to lead the Department of Education, received pushback from some Republicans—Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska opposed her nomination, but Vice President Mike Pence broke a tie in her favor.
In the days after his victory, Trump announced one key White House position, saying he plans to name his campaign senior adviser Susie Wiles as his chief-of-staff, a position the Senate will not have to vote to confirm.
Speculation is already abound about who Trump may pick for these key roles. Names like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Elon Musk, Richard Grennell and Mike Pompeo have been raised as potential appointees—but Trump hasn’t made any public comments about who he plans to appoint to his cabinet.