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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

President Trump marks tough first 100 days

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WASHINGTON: Donald Trump marked his 100th day in the White House on Saturday facing the sobre realities of a presidency stamped by disruption, confusion and a struggle to convert campaign promises into tangible achievements.


That hasn’t stopped the president — who has both hyped and dismissed the significance of the 100-day mark — from claiming to run the most successful administration in US history, a message he’s expected to take to supporters in a campaign-style rally. Under a relentless spotlight since stunning the world in November with a victory over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, the 45th president of the United States has seen his bid to tear up his predecessor’s landmark healthcare reforms founder in Congress, where many of his other legislative priorities have also run up against cold political gamesmanship.


Funding for his promised wall along the US border with Mexico was stripped from a federal funding bill in order to prevent a government shutdown.


His tax plan, unveiled last week in the hope of burnishing his first 100 days with a success story, has been savaged as a multi-billion-dollar giveaway to the wealthy that will send the national debt soaring.


Trump has signed dozens of executive orders, including several that roll back Obama-era regulations on industry or lift bans on oil and gas drilling, efforts Republican lawmakers and voters widely praised.


But US courts twice blocked his most high-profile order, a temporary ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries entering the United States. Trump has put on a brave face nevertheless.


“The first 100 days of my administration has been just about the most successful in our country’s history,” the real estate billionaire said in his weekly address on Friday, despite having called the 100-day milestone arbitrary, “a false standard.”


Democratic lawmakers have gleefully described his opening century mark as a slow-motion train wreck, a period of dramatically diminished stability, legislative failures and broken campaign pledges.


That was the message carried by much of the news media on Saturday.


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