Trump’s 100-Day Assault on the Rule of Law

One hundred days into the second presidency of Donald Trump, public opinion has delivered a harsh verdict on the administration’s performance. In a joint Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll released on April 25, the president’s rate of approval was 39%, lower than any 100-day rating since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s third term, 80 years ago. Trump began with a relatively low level of support in late January this year, and his job rating has dropped more than 5 points since then. On the other side of the ledger, 55% of those surveyed said they disapproved of Trump’s performance, and a full 44% disapproved “strongly.”(*1)

Respondents’ biggest concern was the expansion of presidential powers under the Trump administration. In his first 100 days, Trump signed an unprecedented 140 executive orders. Congress, apparently ceding power to Trump, has accomplished almost nothing in the way of legislation, despite Republicans’ control of both chambers. The concentration of policy-making power in the White House is as clear as day.

Truth as the First Casualty

Trump marked his 100-day milestone with a public rally outside of Detroit, Michigan. Speaking to a crowd of loyal supporters, he boasted of “the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country,” dismissing the findings of reputable surveys as “fake polls from fake news organizations.” Legitimate polls, Trump claimed, would show him with a job rating “in the sixties or seventies.”(*2)

There was no mention of the widespread alarm spawned by his “reciprocal tariffs,” including warnings of an economic slowdown. Instead, the president bragged about the businesses that have rushed to launch or expand production in the United States since he announced the new taxes. Trump threw out fantastic figures, falsely claiming that the price of eggs was down 87% since he had taken office. According to the latest available figures at that time, egg prices, a symbol of inflation, have soared under the second Trump administration.(*3)

The president’s exaggerated assertion that illegal border crossings were “down 99.999%” was at least closer to the truth. According to US Customs and Border Protection, 7,181 illegal aliens were apprehended crossing the southwest border in March 2025, a 95% drop from March 2024.(*4) On the other hand, Trump’s promised “largest deportation” in US history has fizzled owing to a lack of human and financial resources. According to an analysis by TRAC (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse) website, daily removals by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the period spanning January 26 and March 8 this year averaged 661, well below the daily average of 742 recorded during the administration of President Joe Biden.(*5)

Battling with the Judiciary

Frustrated, it seems, by the slow pace of deportations, the Trump administration has dramatically expanded its dragnet and begun treating all undocumented immigrants as criminals subject to immediate deportation.

In fact, even foreign nationals living in the United States legally have fallen victim to the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant campaign. In March, authorities seized Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia and summarily removed him to a prison in his native El Salvador, claiming, without proof, that he was an MS-13 gang member. It is true that Abrego Garcia entered the country illegally in 2011 or 2012, fleeing gang warfare. However, in 2019 he was granted a “withholding of removal” order on the grounds that he would face persecution if returned to El Salvador. After that, he lived in Maryland legally with his American wife and their three children. The administration has admitted that his deportation was an “administrative error,” and his case has gone all the way to the US Supreme Court, which has ordered the government to “facilitate” his release from custody in El Salvador. But the administration has refused to comply on the grounds that Abrego Garcia is a gang member, without sufficient evidence.

Abrego Garcia’s current whereabouts are unknown, but the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) where he was initially held is a notorious mega-prison built in late 2022 as part of a massive gang crackdown by El Salvador President Nayib Bukele. CECOT has been cited by human-rights groups for severe overcrowding, inhumane conditions, and torture.(*6) According to El Salvador’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Trump administration promised to pay the Salvadoran government US$6 million to house 300 prisoners in the facility for one year. The US District Court for the District of Columbia blocked the deportations, but more than 250 migrants from Latin America have been sent there anyway.

Most of the deportees consigned to CECOT are Venezuelans alleged to be members of the Tren de Aragua gang. Trump has invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1789 to justify their mass deportation without due process. The Alien Enemies Act (AEA) is a wartime authority that allows the president to detain or deport citizens of a nation that has declared war on or invaded the United States. During World War II, the law was used, notoriously, to justify the mass internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry. On May 1 this year, a federal court in southern Texas blocked the further removal of Venezuelans under the AEA in that judicial district, ruling that the summary deportations did not meet the law’s “invasion” requirement and were therefore unlawful. The decision was delivered by US District Judge Fernando Rodriguez, Jr, a Trump appointee. The administration plans to appeal.

Mounting Attacks on Judges

Trump is not merely ignoring court decisions. He is openly attacking the judiciary. After James Boasberg, chief judge of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, issued his March 15 order blocking the deportation of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, Trump took to Truth Social, his own social media platform, to demand Boasberg’s impeachment, calling him a “radical left lunatic of a judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by [President] Barack Hussein Obama.” He then doubled down on the theme of impeachment in a March 18 interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham. “We have very bad judges,” said Trump. “These are judges that shouldn’t be allowed. I think at a certain point, you have to look at what do you do when you have a rogue judge.”(*7)

The escalating attacks on the federal judiciary elicited a rare rebuke from US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. On March 18, Roberts issued a statement saying, “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”(*8)

Since then, attacks on the courts have only escalated. On April 25, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel announced the arrest of Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on charges of obstructing immigration officers and concealing someone to prevent an arrest. The incident occurred on April 18, when ICE agents entered the Milwaukee County Courthouse to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican national who was there for a hearing on battery charges. Dugan is said to have helped the man leave through a back door to avoid arrest.

The seizure of migrants at courthouses is quite controversial, since it is likely to discourage them from appearing for their scheduled hearings or trials. Moreover, the arrest of a sitting judge is extremely unusual. Appearing on Fox News, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a warning: “If you are harboring a fugitive,,, we will come after you and we will prosecute you. We will find you.“(*9)

Meanwhile, federal judges who have ruled against the administration, including Boasberg and Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barret, are enduring threats and harassment against themselves and their families, campaigns carried out via social media.(*10) People like Elon Musk, who owns the social media company X (Twitter), and far-right provocateur Laura Loomer, whose fringe views have influenced Trump’s personnel decisions, have used the Internet to drum up hostility against such judges and disseminate photos of their families. Their online followers have then rallied to the attack and threatened the safety of the judges and their families.

Defending the Separation of Powers

One of the cornerstones of the US Constitution is the separation of powers. The idea is to prevent tyranny by distributing the government’s powers among three distinct branches—legislative, executive, and judicial—that check and balance one another. The federal courts have the power to review orders issued by the president and laws enacted by Congress and to strike down those deemed to be in violation of the Constitution or statutory law.

But in Trump’s America, the limits to judicial power have been laid bare. If the White House persists in defying the judiciary, what can the courts do? They have only federal marshals to help them enforce their decisions, and federal marshals are under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice, led by staunch Trump loyalist Pam Bondi.

At his 100-day rally, Trump attacked the “communist, radical-left judges” for working with the “radical-left Democrats” to obstruct his mass-deportation drive. “They’re racing to the courts to help them, but this is not what the people want. This is not what they voted for in record numbers. I won the election,” he said, and declared, “Nothing will stop me.”(*11)

This problem seems to have been anticipated in the Federalist Papers, a collection of articles that Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay published in 1788 to elucidate the Constitution and promote its ratification. In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton characterized the courts as the ultimate guardians of the Constitution, but he also pointed out that the judiciary was inherently weak. While the executive “commands the sword,” and the legislature “commands the purse,” the judiciary has “neither force nor will, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.” Because of the inherent weakness of the judiciary, Hamilton insisted, it was essential that judges be completely independent and not subject to willful removal by Congress or the president.

Trump has brazenly defied the judiciary on the grounds that his policies represent the will of the people, expressed in the 2024 election. The only way to stop him is for the people to clearly assert their will with respect to the rule of law. In an April poll by the Pew Research Center, nearly 80% of respondents said that if a federal court rules that an action by the Trump administration is illegal, the administration must follow the court’s ruling and stop its action. Nearly 90% said that the administration was obliged to abide by such a ruling from the Supreme Court.(*12)

In addition to his onslaught against the courts, Trump has taken action to punish lawyers and law firms that previously helped investigate or prosecute him, adding to the growing sense of crisis. On May 1, Law Day in the United States, bar associations and legal professionals held rallies and demonstrations in cities around the country, vowing to protect the rule of law.

The traditional 100-day presidential “honeymoon” period is over, and already thoughts are turning to the 2026 midterm elections. Along with the usual economic and social issues, voters this time will have some serious thinking to do about presidential power and the rule of law.

(Originally published in Japanese on May 12, 2025. Banner photo: Demonstrators protest against the “fascist regime” of US President Donald Trump, Washington, DC, April 28, 2025. © AFP/Jiji. )