President Donald Trump touted the first 100 days of his second term as the ‘most successful’ of any administration in history during a Michigan rally with supporters Tuesday evening. 

The president’s remarks came during Trump’s first major political rally since taking office, organized to celebrate Trump’s achievements throughout his second term thus far.

‘We’re here tonight in the heartland of our nation to celebrate the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country — and that’s according to many, many people,’ Trump told a roaring crowd of supporters. ‘This is the best, they say, 100 day start of any president in history — and everyone is saying it.’

‘We’ve just gotten started, you haven’t seen anything yet, it’s just kicking off,’ he added.

Trump’s first 100 days of his second term have seen the president aggressively assert his executive authority across a variety of policy areas. He has used his presidential powers to affect change most prominently in the areas of border security, trade, education, civil rights, technology and innovation. Trump also has notably used his executive powers to slim down the federal government’s bureaucracy, including through both spending and staffing cuts at various federal agencies.

While Trump supporters and other Republicans have touted the president’s accomplishments during his first 100 days, Trump’s latest poll numbers suggest that Americans as a whole are less thrilled with the way Trump has steered the nation thus far.

The president stands at 44% approval and 55% disapproval in the most recent Fox News national poll, which was conducted April 18 through April 21.

His numbers are also underwater in polls released the past few days by ABC News/Washington Post (42% approval–55% disapproval), New York Times/Siena College (42%–54%), CNN (43%–57%), Reuters/Ipsos (42%–53%), Pew Research (40%–59%), and AP/NORC (39%–59%).

Most recent national public opinion surveys, but not all, indicate Trump’s approval ratings in negative territory, which marks a slide from the president’s poll numbers when he started his second term in January. 

Prior to Trump’s rally in Warren, Michigan, the president spoke to members of the National Guard during a visit to Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Harrison Township. 

During the stop, Trump shared details of a new plan to swap out the base’s retiring A-10 Warthog aircraft with 21 brand-new F-15EX Eagle II fighter jets.

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Two of President Donald Trump’s diplomatic nominees were confirmed by the Senate on Tuesday, as a prominent NBA team owner awaited a late evening vote on his own confirmation.

Investors Tom Barrack and Warren Stephens were up for ambassadorship posts to Turkey, and the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland respectively.

Tilman Fertitta, owner of the Houston Rockets and CEO of Landry’s Restaurants group will face a confirmation vote later in the evening in the upper chamber to be President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Italy and San Marino.

Barrack’s nomination passedby 60-36 Stephens was confirmed 59-39.

Fertitta is a GOP donor and has spoken fondly of Trump’s business sense.

During Trump’s first term, Fertitta told CNBC the president was doing ‘a fantastic job for the economy.’

‘Businesses are booming, unemployment is low. He understands what drives this country,’ Fertitta said in 2018.

Fertitta’s praise of Trump often steers more toward business-focused than overtly-political, as in the CNBC interview.

Trump’s choice of Barrack played into two different aspects of the investor’s history.

Before he was a friend of the future president’s, Barrack served as an undersecretary in the Reagan Interior Department, focusing on energy policy including Middle East oil.

Barrack, who is fluent in Arabic, would therefore fit well with a Turkish ambassadorship.

Later in that decade, Barrack helped Trump secure financing for his short-lived ownership of the Plaza Hotel – during which time the future president famously told a lost Kevin McCallister its lobby was ‘Down the hall, and to the left’ in 1992’s Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

The two real estate moguls remained friends in the years after Trump ultimately gave up the Midtown landmark.

Barrack was a strong supporter of Trump’s first presidential campaign and raised millions for his first inauguration’s events.

Stephens’ family bank has a footprint in London, and he is a noted fan of the Tottenham Hotspurs Premier League soccer team, which draw parallels to his ambassadorship nomination.

The billionaire will be the eyes and ears for Trump in London, where the president has a cordial relationship, albeit one wherein lies a politically contrasting view of global politics, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the Labour Party.

Stephens has a history of donations to Republican causes and many Arkansas candidates, per OpenSecrets.

Recipients have included former Sens. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., Mitt Romney, R-Utah, Bob Dole, R-Kan., ex-Arkansas Govs. Asa Hutchinson and Mike Huckabee, and media executive Steve Forbes’ presidential run in 1995.

Senate Democratic leaders spoke out Tuesday on President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office, and one lawmaker compared Republicans’ cooperation with the administration to the ‘Silence of the Lambs.’

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., led off by mockingly ‘congratulating’ Trump for being a ‘powerful and unifying force in only 100 days.’

‘With his embarrassing, insulting, petty and outrageous attacks, Donald Trump has given Canada a new national resolve,’ he said of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s victory over conservative Pierre Poilievre.

‘Now, if he could just be a positive, unifying force in the United States.’

It was Schumer’s deputy, however, who compared Trump’s first chapter of his second term to a horror show.

‘Through it all, my Republican colleagues have remained silent,’ Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said.

Durbin said Trump’s tariff agenda has raised commodity prices and damaged the stock market.

‘[W]hile their constituents saw their retirement funds drain and grocery bills skyrocket, Republicans remained silent – rinse and repeat this cycle,’ Durbin said.

‘Never in our nation’s history has a co-equal branch of government so willfully rolled over and ceded their power: It is the ‘Silence of the Lambs,” he said.

Later, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., lambasted Trump for his connection to a ‘meme coin’ that led fellow Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California to demand an ethics probe into an invitation to a tony dinner for coin holders at Trump’s golf club.

‘He has literally done something that is so unconscionable that he is selling attendance at the White House to people who buy his meme coin,’ Booker said, his voice rising as he spoke.

Fox News Digital reached out to Senate Republican leadership and the White House for comment.

Fox News Digital asked Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., about a Trump ‘truth’ suggesting the use of tariff revenue to lower the federal income tax in what Trump called the ‘External Revenue Service.’

Klobuchar chuckled and remarked, ‘I haven’t heard the latest one. I just know that if he continues with these tariffs across the board, and he’s trying to get in quick money that way, we are going to have markets dry up.

‘Even if the tariffs go away, or he negotiates stuff, it’s going to be hard to get those markets back,’ she said, adding economic allies will see the U.S. as an ‘unreliable’ partner.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., did not rule out 2028 presidential aspirations when asked by Fox News Digital about the viral video that had pundits guessing if she was soft-launching her campaign. 

‘I think what people should be most concerned about is the fact that Republicans are trying to cut Medicaid right now, and people’s healthcare is in danger. That’s really what my central focus is,’ the New York Democrat said when asked if she was considering a run for president, despite President Donald Trump’s assurances that he wouldn’t cut Medicaid. 

‘This moment isn’t about campaigns, or elections, or about politics. It’s about making sure people are protected, and we’ve got people that are getting locked up for exercising their First Amendment rights. We’re getting 2-year-olds that are getting deported into cells in Honduras. We’re getting people that are about to get kicked off of Medicaid. That, to me, is most important,’ Ocasio-Cortez said on Capitol Hill on Trump’s 100th day in office. 

Ocasio-Cortez has crisscrossed the United States with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on the ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ tour, and Americans have been speculating about whether the New York Democrat is launching a shadow campaign for president.

Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign account posted a video on X last week that invigorated those rumors as the four-term Democrat from New York City and a progressive leader proclaimed, ‘We are one.’

‘I’m a girl from the Bronx,’ Ocasio-Cortez said on a campaign-style stage in Idaho. ‘To be welcomed here in this state, all of us together, seeing our common cause, this is what this country is all about.’

FiveThirtyEight founder and prominent pollster Nate Silver signaled earlier this month that Ocasio-Cortez is the leading Democrat to pick up the party’s presidential nomination in 2028. In a draft 2028 pick with FiveThirtyEight’s Galen Druke, Silver chose Ocasio-Cortez as his top choice to lead the Democratic Party’s presidential ticket.

‘I think there’s a lot of points in her favor at this very moment,’ Druke said, adding, ‘Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has broad appeal across the Democratic Party.’

Americans have been reposting Ocasio-Cortez’s video across X, pointing to the video as proof of her 2028 presidential ambitions. ‘Get ready America. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will almost undoubtedly run for president in 2028,’ political reporter Eric Daugherty said in response to the video. 

As rumors swirl over Ocasio-Cortez’s ambition for higher office, back at home in New York, a Siena College poll found Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s favorability is down, at 39% among New York state voters questioned in the poll, which was conducted April 14-16. Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez’s favorability soared to 47%.

The longtime senator from New York faced pushback from the Democratic Party in March for supporting the Republican budget bill backed by Trump that averted a government shutdown and stirred up outrage among congressional Democrats who planned to boycott the bill.

That growing disapproval among Democrats was reflected in the poll, and the shifting perception comes as DNC vice chair David Hogg, through his political arm, Leaders We Deserve, faced blowback from the DNC this week for investing $20 million into electing younger Democrats to safe House Democrat seats.

Ocasio-Cortez raked in a massive $9.6 million over the past three months. The record-breaking fundraising haul was one of the biggest ever for any House lawmaker. Ocasio-Cortez’s team highlighted that the fundraising came from 266,000 individual donors, with an average contribution of just $21.

‘I cannot convey enough how grateful I am to the millions of people supporting us with your time, resources, & energy. Your support has allowed us to rally people together at record scale to organize their communities,’ Ocasio-Cortez emphasized in a social media post.

Democratic strategist Joe Caiazzo, a veteran of Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, said that Ocasio-Cortez appears to be one of a small group of politicians in his party who ‘are test ballooning a potential 2028 run for the presidency’ as Democrats search ‘for a path out of the wilderness.’

‘We’re not really sure who or what it will be, but one of the pathways there is to drill down on economic populism. There are many people that occupy that lane and she is one of them. And there’s clearly energy behind what her and Bernie Sanders did criss-crossing the country.’

Colin Reed, a Republican strategist, said Ocasio-Cortez ‘shouldn’t be discounted’ by Democrats ‘who are standing in her way’ of running for whichever office she decides to seek — whether as a U.S. senator or president of the United States.

While Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders garnered plenty of national attention as they jetsetted across the country, Reed said their passion and energy might invigorate the progressive portion of the Democratic Party, but ‘her ideas are way too outside the mainstream to ever be electable at a nationwide level.’

‘Ultimately, in a Democratic base there’s always going to be a percentage of voters who are drawn to that message. The issue they run to is it’s just not the majority of Americans. The majority of Americans don’t want to transform our country into some sort of ‘European-style government rules all’ vision. That’s why America was founded in the first place — to get away from oppression, from an overbearing, overreaching government,’ Reed said.

As Democrats struggle to land on a consistent message and search for a clear party leader following Republicans’ November wins, there is an opportunity within the party to dominate the national Democratic narrative, Reed explained. 

‘Chaos loves a vacuum, and right now, there is a vacuum in leadership in the Democratic Party, and thus chaos is ruling the roost,’ Reed said. 

‘As long as those two are out there, they’re going to get attention because nobody else is doing anything. The house of cards will come crumbling down, especially when you’ve got two folks out there, Sen. Sanders and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, holding themselves out as climate warriors as they jet around the country on private jets spewing untold carbon emissions into the air. That hypocrisy is one that’s tough for a lot of folks’ stomachs,’ Reed added.

As President Trump marks his 100th day in office on Tuesday, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) says that it has cut at least $160 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government, including several high-profile cuts that have been highlighted over the past few months.

Questionable spending in USAID’s $40 billion budget, including ‘Sesame Street’ in Iraq

One of the most talked about DOGE targets in Trump’s first term was spending at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the Senate DOGE Caucus Chairwoman, who says she speaks to Musk about spending cuts every few days, published a list of projects and programs she says the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has helped fund across the years.

Ernst highlighted that the agency ‘authorized a whopping $20 million to create a ‘Sesame Street’ in Iraq.’ 

Under the Biden administration, USAID awarded $20 million to a nonprofit called Sesame Workshopto produce a show called ‘Ahlan Simsim Iraq’ in an effort to ‘promote inclusion, mutual respect and understanding across ethnic, religious and sectarian groups.’ 

Several more examples of questionable spending have been uncovered at USAID, including more than $900,000 to a ‘Gaza-based terror charity’ called Bayader Association for Environment and Development and a $1.5 million program slated to ‘advance diversity, equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities.’

Fox News Digital previously reported that nearly 15,000 grants worth $60 billion are set to be eliminated, according to internal documents. The grants amount to about 90% of foreign aid contracts and come after a review on spending by the State Department. 

DOGE’s efforts at USAID did not come without opposition, including a federal judge in Maryland who ruled that the moves were unconstitutional. In March, a federal appeals court granted the Trump administration’s motion to extend a stay allowing DOGE to continue operating at USAID.

Slashing DEI contracts across the board 

On the campaign trail and since taking office, President Trump has made it clear he aims to slash DEI spending in the federal government while making the case that a system of meritocracy should be the focus.

DOGE has announced over the last few months that it has cut hundreds of millions in DEI contracts. 

Earlier this month, DOGE announced it had worked with the U.S. National Science Foundation to cancel 402 ‘wasteful’ diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) grants, which will save $233 million, including $1 million for ‘Antiracist Teacher Leadership for Statewide Transformation.’

The Department of Defense could save up to $80 million in wasteful spending by cutting loose a handful of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, the agency announced last month. 

The Defense Department has been working with the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in slashing wasteful spending, DOD spokesman Sean Parnell said in a video posted to social media.

Parnell listed some of the initial findings flagged by DOGE, much of it consisting of millions of dollars given to support various DEI programs, including $1.9 million for holistic DEI transformation and training in the Air Force and $6 million to the University of Montana to ‘strengthen American democracy by bridging divides.’

The Trump administration announced earlier this month it is slashing millions of dollars in DEI grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) as part of its overall DOGE push.

In February, the Department of Education (DOE) said it is canceling more than $100 million in grants to DEI training as part of DOGE’s efforts. 

Cutting the federal workforce

DOGE has made efforts to cut federal spending by cutting the federal workforce, which it argues has become bloated with many employees doing jobs that are unnecessary or could be streamlined.

In February, DOGE terminated employment for 3,600 probationary Health and Human Services employees in a cut it says is estimated to save about $600 million in taxpayer dollars annually.

FOX Business reported in early April that over the previous two months, DOGE’s cutbacks have been attributed to 280,253 layoffs of federal workers and contractors at 27 agencies, according to Challenger tracking. There were an additional 4,429 job cuts attributed to the downstream effect of cutting federal aid and ending contracts, mostly at nonprofits and health organizations.

Roughly 75,000 federal employees accepted a deferred resignation program, Fox News Digital reported in February, which DOGE has argued will save the government money in the long run. 

‘Gold bars’: DOGE-inspired EPA locates $20 billion in waste

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), inspired by DOGE’s crackdown on federal spending, said it had located $20 billion in tax dollars within the agency that the Biden administration reportedly ‘knew they were wasting.’

‘An extremely disturbing video circulated two months ago, featuring a Biden EPA political appointee talking about how they were ‘tossing gold bars off the Titanic,’ rushing to get billions of your tax dollars out the door before Inauguration Day,’ EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said in a video posted to X on Wednesday, citing another video from December. 

The EPA found that just eight agencies were controlling the distribution of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to different entities ‘at their discretion,’ such as the Climate United Fund, which reportedly received just under $7 billion.

‘The ‘gold bars’ were tax dollars, and ‘tossing them off the Titanic’ meant the Biden administration knew they were wasting it,’ Zeldin said, vowing to recover the ‘gold bars’ that were found ‘parked at an outside financial institution.’

Zeldin said that the ‘scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history, and it was purposely designed to obligate all the money in a rush job with reduced oversight.’ 

In a Fox News interview, the EPA administrator praised DOGE’s work at the agency and said that the cost-cutting department is ‘making us better.’

‘They come up with great recommendations, and we can make a decision to act on it,’ Zeldin said.

Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report

President Donald Trump unveiled new plans Tuesday to swap out the retiring A-10 Warthog aircraft based out of Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Michigan with 21 brand-new F-15EX Eagle II fighter jets. 

Trump shared details of the new fighter jet mission during a speech to National Guardsmen at the Michigan base for an event commemorating his 100th day in office. 

Selfridge will become the fourth military installation to operate the fighter jet, which only entered operational service in July 2024. 

‘Fresh off the line. That means they are brand new,’ Trump said. ‘They’ve never been anywhere. This is where they’re going to be for a long time. And I saw one of them, flew over my head, and I said, ‘What the hell is that?’ That plane has serious power. So this is the best there is anywhere in the world, the F-15EX Eagle II. This will keep Selfridge at the cutting edge of Northern American air power.’

The next-generation fighter jet is currently only operating at three other bases, all National Guard: Portland Air National Guard Base in Oregon; Fresno Air National Guard Base in California; and New Orleans Air National Guard Base in Louisiana. 

The fighter jet is an updated version of the F-15C Eagle aircraft that the Air Force introduced in 1989, and features bolstered fuel efficiency, radar and avionics, according to the Air National Guard. The jet is designed to work alongside other Air Force aircraft, including the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II fighter jets. 

‘America’s military will soon be stronger and more powerful than ever before, and Selfridge Air National Guard Base will remain at the center of the action,’ Trump said. 

Trump’s announcement comes amid lengthy debate between Congress and the executive branch about how to phase out the A-10. While Congress put a stop to former President Barack Obama’s administration’s attempts to retire the aircraft, Trump’s first administration called to keep the aircraft in service. 

Meanwhile, former President Joe Biden’s administration moved to start retiring the aircraft more aggressively in 2023. 

The Air Force introduced the A-10 in 1977, and the aircraft experienced combat for the first time during the Gulf War. 

In March, Trump shared that Boeing would build the Air Force’s next-generation fighter jet, known as the F-47. An experimental version had been covertly flying for years, he said. 

The Next Generation Air Defense initiative that the Biden administration put on the back burner will oversee the effort. However, the Trump administration revived the program. 

‘I’m thrilled to announce that at my direction the United States Air Force is moving forward with the world’s first sixth-generation fighter jet,’ Trump said in March. ‘Nothing in the world comes even close to it, and it’ll be called the ‘F-47,’ the generals picked that title.’ 

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said her department has a ‘massive plan’ for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program reforms, as the Trump administration continues to make spending cuts throughout the federal government.

The USDA recently announced that they will be pushing for additional safeguards to ensure illegal immigrants are not illegally getting on food stamps, Fox News Digital reported, but there are other changes expected to be made.

‘The Biden administration increased that program through some discretionary spending by almost 40%,’ Rollins told Fox News Digital in an interview on Friday.

Spending on the food stamps program soared from $63 billion in 2019 and to $123 billion as of 2023, which is still high despite pandemic-related changes, according to the Cato Institute.

‘You’ll be seeing a big announcement in the coming weeks on this. Another step, another five steps, another 10 steps toward more accountability, toward more intentionality, and toward a much more efficient and effective government program,’ she continued.

The Republican Cabinet secretary quelled fears about whether cutting spending will impact Americans who rely on SNAP to put food on the table, saying that the reforms will help put a renewed emphasis on the mission of the social service.

‘This administration will not let any child go hungry. So as we make these reforms and as we cancel future contracts that we don’t believe were within the original intent or mission of the program, or the USDA, or the government, you’re going to hear the Democrats and the left basically start, you know, yelping about how we hate children and old people and we’re stealing the food out of their mouths. That could not be further from the truth,’ Rollins said.

She also anticipates that certain health-based reforms will be made for the program administered by state governments. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. backs not allowing soda to be bought with food stamps, according to Scripps News, and Rollins has also backed efforts by states like Arkansas to limit the purchase of candy and soda with SNAP.

‘What we are doing is ensuring those hungry people actually get the food that they need. And of course, the layer on that is the [Make America Healthy Again] movement, hopefully more nutritious food than we’ve been able to serve before,’ the secretary added.

I’m so proud of President Trump and his just resolute conviction in working to make America great again and across every single government agency, and I think this food stamp piece is a really big part of it,’ she added.

Over 42 million Americans use SNAP benefits monthly as of 2023, according to USDA’s Economic Research Service data.