This week’s White House Report Card finds President Donald Trump cruising into his second 100 days with another major promise kept and a fact-check on Democratic lies about his plans.
Despite liberal claims that he would cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, Trump offered up his “skinny budget” plan to slash spending that didn’t touch the sacred-cow programs. Instead, he made good on campaign promises to cut funding to bloated bureaucracies and even moved to end taxpayer funds to liberal media favorites NPR and PBS.
The signals from the economy were mixed, though jobs surged more than expected. And Trump, again, called for rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.
Much more than in his first administration, Trump’s team appears to be strong and united, but there have been a few exceptions. Notably, the president demoted national security adviser Mike Waltz to the United Nations after the Signal app affair, and he was warned by loyalist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) of taking positions his base doesn’t like.
Photos show Mike Waltz literally checking Signal during the cabinet meeting (via Reuters) pic.twitter.com/XCxn6Tja4I
— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) May 1, 2025
Conservative grader Jed Babbin said that the week was a winner, in part because the president made good moves overseas and stopped taxpayer funding of public TV and radio.
Co-grader John Zogby, a Democratic pollster, said recession warnings are flashing and highlighted polling that showed voter concerns about the president’s policies.
Jed Babbin
Grade: B+
There was a lot of good out of the White House this week, some confusion and a bit of bad news.
The bad news was that the U.S. economy shrank a little in the first quarter of 2025. Some say that news is a precursor to a recession, but that seems very unlikely given the other economic news.
The confusion came with the dismissal of national security adviser Mike Waltz, a key figure in the Signal app mishap when he or one of his staffers added Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to a supposedly confidential conversation between Cabinet members. Waltz was demoted in a new nomination to be the next United Nations ambassador. That move either indicates confusion in the White House or shows how little the U.N. means to Trump. I’d bet on the latter.
Probably the biggest news was that any nation trading with Iran will no longer be able to do business with America. It’s the sort of secondary sanction that could put Iran out of business altogether depending on how it’s enforced. China buys about 15-20% of its oil from Iran. Will Chinese imports be banned? How these secondary sanctions will work isn’t clear but it’s bad news for the ayatollahs which is always good news.
More came with the signing of an agreement with Ukraine to mine rare earth metals there. REMs are essential to making computer chips which makes them essential to everything from cell phones to fighter planes. Our usual supplier, China, has banned exports of REMs to the U.S. It will probably be years before those metals begin flowing to the U.S., but it’s a very good thing that the agreement has been signed. It certainly signals a continuation of aid from Washington to Ukraine.
Trump also ordered the end of funding for PBS and NPR, their liberal credentials immaculate. Both make enough money to get along very well without tax dollars fattening them up even further.
John Zogby
Grade: D
Even though applications for jobless benefits spiked last week, the April unemployment rate held steady at 4.2% and the number of new jobs created grew by 177,000. This was well over the 135,000 that experts predicted.
President Donald Trump suggested that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was ready to accept the loss of Crimea and the fundamentals of a minerals deal offered by the U.S. By week’s end, there were mixed signals. That is pretty much what best describes Trump’s week.
The U.S. had negative GDP growth for the first time in years, but Trump said things were the best they had ever been. Talk of recession is in the air, and he has told Americans that they just need to sacrifice, as 74% now say they live paycheck to paycheck — and he is at Mar-a-Lago.
Another judge, a Trump appointee no less, ruled against the administration’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act for swift deportations, calling it illegal. Two weeks ago, after dissing the hyper-loyal New York Rep. Elise Stefanik‘s nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations and watching her step away from her GOP congressional leadership posts, Trump said the U.S. probably does not need an ambassador to the U.N. He has alienated most of the international body’s membership anyway. Then this week, he accepted the resignation of his national security adviser Mike Waltz, and nominated him to be ambassador to the U.N. Ouch!
In the meantime, he appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to fill in for Waltz — perhaps because either no one in their right mind would take the job, or Rubio’s day job doesn’t pay enough, and he has to moonlight.
Trump’s average job rating is 45% positive and 52% negative, but it is 10 to 12 points down in six of the last eight polls. He is negative 14 points on the economy, down 21 points on inflation, and off three on immigration. But he’s good with the jobs news.
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Jed Babbin is a Washington Examiner contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in the administration of former President George H.W. Bush. Follow him on X @jedbabbin.
John Zogby is the founder of the Zogby Survey and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His latest book, Beyond the Horse Race: How to Read Polls and Why We Should, was just released. His podcast with son and managing partner and pollster Jeremy Zogby can be heard here. Follow him on X @ZogbyStrategies.