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(WASHINGTON) — Democrats, responding to the 100-day mark of President Donald Trump’s second term, argue that the American public’s opinion of the White House and Republicans in Congress — as well as consternation around high prices — give them an opening to flip the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026.

In a strategy memo obtained exclusively by ABC News, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the campaign arm of House Democrats, wrote, “In just 100 days, House Republicans and Donald Trump have lost the support of the American people and left a trail of broken promises that will cost them the House majority next year.”

Recent polls show approval ratings for Trump and congressional Republicans are underwater — although congressional Democrats have sometimes performed even worse. In a recent ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, Trump beats Democrats in Congress in terms of trust to handle the nation’s main problems.

The DCCC, however, argues in the memo that Democrats have momentum. The group pointed to ads from some Republican members during the 2024 campaign cycle where they said they would work to get costs down, claiming that they and others have abandoned those promises. The group also alleged that the recent budget blueprint passed by House Republicans will potentially lead to cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

Republicans have argued that the budget blueprint does not and will not threaten any benefits or entitlements and that Democrats are causing undue fear. Some also blame actions by the previous White House under Democratic President Joe Biden or factors outside of anyone’s control have caused higher prices.

“The DCCC and House Democrats will continue to fight back and hold Republicans accountable for their broken promises … With every new bill that gets introduced, committee meeting held, and amendment vote taken, the American people will know that Republicans don’t work for them, they work for the billionaires,” the Democratic group wrote.

And looking to 2026, the DCCC added, “Their trail of broken promises have helped to put House Democrats on offense with an expansive battleground map, including more initial Districts in Play than any cycle since 2018. The DCCC will continue to build upon this momentum on our way to taking back the House next year.”

Republicans held on to a slim majority in the House in the 2024 election.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the campaign arm of House Republicans, has expressed confidence that the GOP will hold the House in the 2026 midterms. The group celebrated Trump’s 100 day mark on Tuesday as a milestone for momentum for an agenda the group said is revitalizing the country.

NRCC chair Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., wrote in a statement on Tuesday, “In just 100 days, President Trump has reignited American greatness. He’s secured our border, put America back on top, and restored the American Dream. House Republicans will continue working with him and building on this historic momentum.”

The DCCC’s memo comes as Democratic officials and other figures mark 100 days of Trump’s second term in office, although the party is still divided over how to rebuild after its losses in 2024.

To mark the 100-day milestone, Democratic mayors and governors have been pointing to federal government spending cuts or new policies that they say have a deleterious impact on their states.

A few well-known governors, including Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker — who created buzz during remarks on Sunday in New Hampshire when he said that “these Republicans cannot know a moment of peace” — will be holding a virtual town hall on Tuesday night about “how Democratic governors are standing up to protect the people in their states,” according to the Democratic Governors Association.

Meanwhile, Democratic members of Congress and party officials have been marking the run-up to the 100-day mark with town halls and protests. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and House Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., staged an hours-long “sit-in” on the House steps on Sunday to protest Congressional Republicans’ budget plans.

Some Democrats have argued that the disparate responses to the administration are actually a strength for the party while it is locked out of power in Washington.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who was the running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, said at a talk on Monday night that the Democratic Party needs to “flood the zone” and “fill every single lane, and if there’s one that’s better than another, then let’s all pick that lane and do more of that.”

Harris herself is set to deliver remarks on Wednesday in San Francisco, one day after the administration’s 100-day mark, at the 20th anniversary celebration for Emerge, an organization that supports Democratic women running for office.

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(WASHINGTON) — On the campaign trail, and in the weeks leading up to his return to the White House, President Donald Trump vowed to hit the ground running — what experts describe as a “flood the zone” strategy to push forward on his conservative and controversial policies.

The pace has meant an often unprecedented first 100 days in office: “Trump speed,” the White House calls it.

Earlier this month, he told Republican lawmakers at a party dinner: “We’re setting records right now. We’re getting more things approved than any president has ever done in the first 100 days. It’s not even close. I had somebody say the most successful month — first month in the history. Now they said the most successful 100 days in the history of our country.”

How he’s done so, legal experts told ABC News, will have a long-lasting impact on the presidency and the federal government.

His main strategy has been to sign executive orders almost daily, including ones that challenge Congress’ power to fund and oversee federal agencies and programs, while others relentlessly test the limits of immigration enforcement.

Other presidents on both sides of the aisle have tried to flex their executive muscle, such as President Joe Biden’s EO to require 50% of cars and light trucks sold to be zero-emission electric vehicles by 2030, according to Tabitha Bonilla, research assistant professor at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.

“Every president over the last few decades have been trying to add more power to the executive branch and forward their agenda,” Bonilla told ABC News. “Trump is taking that to the extreme.”

As an example, experts cited Trump using legal and financial threats to punish universities and law firms for alleged political opposition and failure to “align” with his agenda, as well as his wholesale firings of top career officials, replacing them with loyalists.

James Sample, a constitutional law expert at Hofstra University, said that Trump’s playbook appears to be straight out of Project 2025, a blueprint for “taking the reins of the federal government” prepared for years by Trump’s most conservative allies in anticipation of his comeback — although Trump claimed to never have read it.

Trump and his supporters said his actions are justified because unelected bureaucrats and judges, they claim, had seized control from presidents — the one person elected nationwide, they argue, and granted total executive power by the Constitution.

Regardless, Sample said, the tactic should raise a red flag.

“The purpose of a blitzkrieg is to overwhelm the opposition,” he said.

While Trump’s tactics have been met with little to no protest from the Republican lawmakers who control the House and Senate, the judicial branch has often been ready to stem the flood through rulings and injunctions in dozens of court cases.

Still, experts told ABC News, that even if all of Trump’s moves are blocked or even reversed, they have done both serious short-term and long-term damage.

“It’s all about implanting the narrative,” Bonilla said. “Trump’s policies and rhetoric have pushed everything to the right and hurt our strength on the global scale.”

Floodgates opened

Since Trump took office on Jan. 20, he has issued more than 140 executive orders on various policies as of Monday, shattering records and upending widely held interpretations of federal law and the Constitution.

President Joe Biden, by comparison, issued 162 EOs in his entire term, and Trump issued more than 30 executive orders during the first 100 days of his first term, according to historical records.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles told Fox News in March that in this second term, the Trump team knew it needed to act fast, citing the midterm elections in November 2026 that could change the congressional map.

“This 18 months is our time frame. One hundred days, certainly six months into the year, and 18 months, are sort of our benchmarks,” she said.

The “flood the zone” goal has been long-touted by Trump’s allies.

His former White House political adviser Steve Bannon appeared to coin the idea during Trump’s first term. After Trump left office, conservative activists and Trump loyalists crafted a proposed battle plan for a second term.

In a 2023 speech, Russell Vought, a chief architect of Project 2025 and now Trump’s current director of the Office of Management and Budget, laid out one strategy at his Center for Renewing America, a pro-Trump Washington think tank.

“I want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected because they are increasingly viewed as villains. We want to put them in trauma,” he said in a speech reported by ProPublica.

Video of his making that speech was brought up during Vought’s confirmation hearings earlier this year but he repeatedly avoiding answering questions about his provocative rhetoric and plans.

Many of Trump’s EOs have dealt with Elon Musk’s brainchild — the Department of Government Efficiency, which has slashed agency budgets and tens of thousands of federal employees throughout the country, while others have pushed forward the president’s crackdown on immigration, such as the end to birthright citizenship and deporting migrants as alleged foreign invaders under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.

Bernadette Meyler, the Carl and Sheila Spaeth professor of law at Stanford Law School, told ABC News that executive orders have always been a tool presidents have used to set their agenda, even if just symbolically.

“It is an effective tactic. It’s difficult even for courts to react rapidly,” Meyler said.

Conservative groups have long advocated for a federal government shakeup and agued that the president needed more power to make the country more efficient.

“What he’s doing is kickstarting what will ultimately be our legislative agenda,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said in January after Trump’s first round of executive orders.

The Heritage Foundation, the far right think tank that helped to produce Project 2025, has contended that Trump’s efforts are essential and fast action can make the government more efficient.

Lindsey Burke, director of the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation, and Jonathan Butcher, a senior research fellow at the think tank, referenced this idea in a statement last month after Trump issued an executive order for a drastic reduction in force for the Department of Education.

“Reducing the bloated bureaucracy will give state and local education officials more decision-making authority,” they said.

War of words, resistance to courts

Legal experts said another effective aspect of the “flood the zone” tactic was Trump’s multiple media appearances and photo ops, where he continues to make controversial and provocative claims.

Meyler contends Trump’s war of words is part of a deeper tactic to undermine the public’s trust in the federal government.

She noted even with courts issuing injunctions, Trump’s statements and resistance to judge’s orders with aggressive appeals has still moved the needle more toward the right.

“It can seem he is doing a lot even without of lot of judicial action,” Meyler said.

How much steam is left?

Trump and his allies have been adamant that they will stick to their plans to reassert the powers of the executive branch long after the first 100 days are up and are vowing to take all of their cases up to the Supreme Court if necessary.

As of Sunday, there have been 217 court cases against the second Trump administration, according to an ABC News accounting, and a large majority of those have led to temporary restraining orders, reversals and, in some cases, full-on blocks of Trump’s agenda.

“In the first Trump administration, we saw a lot of executive actions in the beginning and then saw it slow down,” Bonilla said. “We will be living in the space of a lot happening all at once for a while, but at some point, there is going to be a moment where there is so much that [the executive branch] can’t keep up.”

Meyler agreed but added that Trump, the Project 2025 architects and their allies have stated that they are willing to work with Congress to get their agenda passed through legislative channels.

“That might secure his policies, and slow things down, and avoid the courts,” she said.

That pivot will meet more resistance, especially as we approach the midterms, according to Meyler.

“It’s easier for some than others because of various practical matters, but there is a tipping point,” she said. “People are already protesting and Trump’s public ratings are dipping.”

Still, future presidents will likely emulate the “flood the zone” tactic in their first weeks, according to Meyler.

“Over the long course of presidential history, there is rarely a retraction of presidential power,” she said.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump, upon his return to the White House, appears to have quickly turned one of his more ominous campaign promises into reality.

Among his first acts after being sworn in inside the Capitol Rotunda was to strip the security clearances from 51 former intelligence officials who signed a letter during the 2024 campaign describing a news story abut the public release of emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop as potentially part of a Russian disinformation operation.

In the days that followed, he removed protective details for former officials who received threats over their work, including retired Gen. Mark Milley, Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others. Trump’s reasoning at the time was, “You can’t have a security detail for the rest of your life.”

Trump told supporters at his first 2024 rally, back in March 2023: “I am your retribution.”

Now, 100 days into his second term, his list of targets appears to be growing. And much of the action is aligned with his own political interests.

“He’s really taking it to the next level,” said Nick Akerman, a former federal prosecutor who helped investigate President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.

Some predictable Trump targets have included former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris, whose access to classified information he revoked. (While it is the norm for former presidents to receive briefings, the move against Biden came after Biden stripped Trump of having access to them in 2021, citing his “erratic behavior.”)

Trump’s list of his critics who he said should no longer have access to classified material also included Hillary Clinton, his 2016 opponent; former Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who investigated his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack; New York Attorney General Letitia James, who prosecuted his company for fraud; and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who led the hush money case against Trump that resulted in the first-ever criminal conviction of a former president.

Trump also signed executive orders against some of the nation’s top law firms.

Perkins Coie, which represented Clinton’s 2016 campaign, was the subject of an order mandating its lawyers have their security clearances stripped. The executive action also sought to terminate any government contracts that might exist with the firm or other entities that it represents, bar agencies from hiring employees of Perkins Coie and prohibit the firm’s staff from accessing government buildings.

Trump also took aim at WilmerHale, which has ties to former special counsel Robert Mueller, with an order alleging it engages in “conduct detrimental to critical American interests” in its pro-bono work. Trump ordered his administration to suspend the security clearances of WilmerHale employees and also requires government contractors to disclose any business they do with the law firm.

Richard Painter, who served as a White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, criticized Trump’s attacks on law firms as an affront to the rule of law.

“The executive orders against law firms are a fundamental infringement on the right to counsel and the right of lawyers to represent clients of their choice without retribution by the government,” Painter said.

“The First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances includes the right to legal representation in court for anybody, even Democrats,” Painter added.

Several universities have found themselves in Trump’s crosshairs as his administration made demands regarding campus policies and governance. Harvard University, after refusing, had $2.2 billion in federal grants frozen.

News media, too, hasn’t been spared.

The Associated Press was barred from White House events because the outlet wouldn’t refer to the Gulf of Mexico only as the “Gulf of America,” after Trump’s order renaming the body of water, though the outlet appeared to gain back some access as the White House instituted a new policy lumping wire service reporters into a broader collective of print outlets. The White House has also suggested funding for NPR and PBS, which Trump accused of being left-leaning, is a waste of taxpayer money.

Trump signed orders directing the Department of Justice to investigate two individuals who worked in his first administration who became outspoken critics of his leadership.

Chris Krebs, resigned from his job at a private cybersecurity firm after Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to review Krebs’ actions while leading the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) — a job Trump appointed him to in 2017. Krebs has long assured the 2020 election was secure, criticizing Trump for spreading debunked claims of election fraud.

“For those who know me, you know I don’t shy away from tough fights. But I also know this is one I need to take on fully — outside of SentinelOne,” Krebs said in a social media post announcing his resignation. “This will require my complete focus and energy. It’s a fight for democracy, for freedom of speech, and for the rule of law. I’m prepared to give it everything I’ve got.”

Miles Taylor, the deputy chief of staff to former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, was also the target of an order from Trump directing the Justice Department to launch an investigation as Trump alleged he may have committed “treason.”

Taylor penned a 2018 New York Times op-ed describing Trump as “detrimental to the health of our republic” and a 2019 book about the first administration under the pseudonym “Anonymous” before going public in 2020.

Trump’s targeting of various individuals and institutions come after he, for years, accused President Joe Biden of weaponizing law enforcement.

“Those days are over and they are never going to come back. They’re never coming back. Now, as the chief law enforcement officer in our country, I will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred,” Trump said as he spoke at the Justice Department in March.

Republicans have praised some of Trump’s moves, namely against universities and some news outlets.

“The vast majority of the American people do not want to prop up these institutions,” Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik said when the Trump administration made demands of Harvard and other schools. Stefanik added, “Higher education has fundamentally lost its way, and it’s increasingly out of touch, and the tuition rates go higher and higher. So we need to defund across the board, and President Trump is rightly holding these schools accountable.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, while criticizing NPR and PBS, said, “The American people support the free press, but will not be forced to fund a biased political outlet with taxpayer funds.”

But critics said it’s Trump who is wielding the powers of the presidency to go after political opponents in sweeping fashion.

“All of these things are much more blatant and much more out in the open,” Akerman said, attributing Trump’s boldness, in part, to the Supreme Court’s blockbuster ruling last year granting presidents some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts.

Painter’s message for Trump, as a former White House ethics chief: “He’s got to focus on carrying out his agenda as president, not just going after his personal enemies and political enemies.”

“Using the presidency to go after political enemies is a very dangerous thing, very dangerous for democracy, and he shouldn’t be doing that,” Painter said.

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(WASHINGTON) — While final seat totals are still pending, Canadian broadcasters have called that Mark Carney led the Liberals to victory in Canada’s election on Monday.

It is still not clear whether the Liberals will form a minority or majority government. As of Tuesday morning, the Liberals had won or were leading in 168 out of 343 ridings. Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives are set to remain in opposition, with 144 ridings so far. Parties need 172 seats to form a majority.

Carney’s victory cements the Liberal Party’s decade in power, replacing former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who had been leading the country since 2015.

Carney stepped in as prime minister-elect when Trudeau resigned in March.

In a social media post on the day of Canada’s election, President Donald Trump suggested that Canadians should vote for him in order for Canada to become the 51st state.

“Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half, increase your military power, for free, to the highest level in the World, have your Car, Steel, Aluminum, Lumber, Energy, and all other businesses, QUADRUPLE in size, with ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES, if Canada becomes the cherished 51st. State of the United States of America,” Trump said on Monday, seeming to refer to himself as the candidate.

He added, “America can no longer subsidize Canada with the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year that we have been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!”

Despite Trump’s suggestion, Canadians cannot vote for him since he is not on the ballot. There are 16 registered political parties in Canada — with the Liberals and the Conservatives being the most dominant. Other parties include the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, the United Party and the Canadian Future Party.

In response to the president’s post, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre issued a sharp reply, saying Trump should “stay out of our election.”

“The only people who will decide the future of Canada are Canadians at the ballot box. Canada will always be proud, sovereign, and independent, and we will NEVER be the 51st state,” Poilievre wrote in a post on X. “Today, Canadians can vote for change so we can strengthen our country, stand on our own two feet, and stand up to America from a position of strength.”

Canadian Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader Mark Carney posted a video on X on Monday with the message: “This is Canada — and we decide what happens here.”

Canada has a parliamentary system, meaning if the Liberals win a majority of seats in the election, or are able to form a minority government with members of another party, Carney will continue to serve as prime minister.

Nearly all of the polls for the election are expected to close by 9:30 p.m. ET on Monday.

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