One hundred days ago, a Harvard-educated, self-made constitutional scholar handed over the White House keys to a stubby-fingered, cheddar-colored colostomy bag in a cheap toupee. To celebrate the fact that Donald Trump has yet to reduce the country to a pile of rubble smoldering under the dark cloud of nuclear winter while roving gangs of neo-Nazis ride around on state-sanctioned pussy-grabbing tours, we thought we’d compare the first 100 days of the last two presidents.
We split them into categories and chronicled the good (yes, Trump did some good things; did I mention how he hasn’t started a thermonuclear war yet?), the bad (no, we can’t list them all; the internet isn’t big enough) and the ugly (well, that part is kinda obvious). We present to you a scientific, peer-reviewed comparison of Barack Obama’s vs. Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office.
Inauguration
Crowd size:
They say a picture says 1,000 words, but sometimes it says only one: “Damn.”
Who watched:
Obama’s first swearing-in was watched by 37.8 million, while Trump had an American Idol-finale-like viewership of 30.6 million. Twenty-five million people livestreamed Obama’s inauguration on CNN, while 16.9 million watched Trump.
Performers:
Obama: He opened with Bruce Springsteen, then had a line of star speakers and performers including Mary J. Blige, Aretha Franklin, Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, Steve Carell, Tiger Woods, U2 and an unknown, upstart little singer—I think her name was Beyoncé.
Trump: Toby Keith, Three Doors Down, some white people whose names I won’t list because you wouldn’t know them anyway, Jon Voight, some more white people, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Piano Guys (no, I’m not being snarky; that’s the actual name, not to be confused with “Some Muhfuckas Playing the Keyboards”) and ... umm ... that’s about it. Oh, don’t forget that Chrisette Michele built some bridges or something at one of his inaugural balls.
Cabinet
Obama: Obama’s Cabinet featured Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, banker Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary, Superior Court Judge Eric Holder as attorney general, CEO of Chicago Public Schools Arnie Duncan as secretary of education and physicist Steven Chu as secretary of energy. By the end of March, only one Obama Cabinet member (Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of health and human services) had not been confirmed by the Senate.
Trump: Trump nominated Betsy DeVos, a lady with no experience or training in education, as secretary of education. He put Steve Mnuchin, a banker who made a fortune foreclosing on people and who ran a bank into the ground, in charge of the Treasury Department. He put a brain surgeon with no background in housing or urban development in charge of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and a politician who promised to close the Department of Energy in charge of the Department of Energy.
Scandals
Obama: Zero.
Trump: Russian election collusion, white supremacist chief of staff, the Russian-prostitute pee report, the income tax thing, the nepotism debate, the business-blind-trust thing, the anti-Semitism, the tweets, accusing a former president of a felony, the Angela Merkel handshake, the golf, the Mar-a-Lago trips, the Senate investigation, the House investigation, Jeff Sessions and the Russians, Carter Page and the Russians, Jared Kushner and the Russians, Michael Flynn and the Russians, Rex Tillerson and the Russians ...
Legislation
Obama: His first piece of legislation was the Lilly Ledbetter Act, requiring equal pay regardless of age, race or gender. During his first month in office, he signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—the stimulus package credited with saving the economy of the entire world. The act also increased education funding by $100 billion, lowered taxes for the middle class, created programs for low-income workers, reined in Wall Street and provided $105 billion for infrastructure. He signed legislation to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Trump: He tried to repeal and replace Obamacare, but that failed miserably. He allowed internet companies to sell your personal information. He signed a law that made it easier for mentally ill people to buy guns. He cut Planned Parenthood funding.
Executive Orders
Obama signed 19 orders, including these:
- Ended torture at Guantanamo Bay
- Established a White House Council on Women and Girls
- Limited lobbyists from contacting the White House
- Raised pay for federal workers
Trump has signed 28 executive orders, including these:
- Cut Obamacare funds
- Banned Muslims from seven countries from entering the U.S.
- Promised to build a wall
- Some bullshit about Blue Lives Matter
- Put Omarosa in charge of HBCUs
- Banned Muslims again
- Rounded up Mexicans
- Rolled back environmental protections
- Rolled back LGBTQ protections
Domestic Policy
Obama: Obama made it legal for researchers to use stem cells and moved toward climate change protections in his first month. He also began a weekly address to the country to update Americans about the government and started a campaign for a “nuclear-free world.” During his first few weeks in office, he pledged energy independence and signed legislation that moved the auto industry toward higher fuel-efficiency standards. He signed a children’s health care act. He forced GM’s CEO to resign amid scandal.
Trump: Trump made Mike Pence have sex with Mike Pence, named the offspring Neil Gorsuch, nominated the baby for the Supreme Court and got the Senate to confirm the first clone to the Supreme Court. He also banned sanctuary cities and saved a few dozen jobs at a factory in Detroit. A few days before his 100-day mark, like a teenager cramming for a final exam, he jotted down some ideas that basically said he was going to cut everyone’s taxes and force IRS agents to go door-to-door and wash everyone’s dishes. He put that on a sheet of college-ruled notebook paper, had someone type it up, sent it to the press and called it a “tax plan.”
Foreign Policy
Obama: Reached out to the Muslim world and assured them that we were not anti-Islam, and promised to end two wars. He eased tensions with Cuba and with Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, making the Latin world happy. He attended the G-20 summit, and Germany’s Angela Merkel became his bestie, while England’s Queen Elizabeth had to reprimand Italy’s prime minister for shouting to get Obama’s attention. America’s president was basically the cool kid in class.
Trump: Reached out to the Muslim world, slapped them and assured them that we were anti-Islam while threatening to start two wars. He insulted the president of Mexico and prime minister of Australia over the phone in his first week. He kissed up to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, embraced China’s Communist leader and made calls to a human rights violator who storm-trooped his way through a Turkish election. After warning Obama to stay out of Syria, he bombed Syria (which hampered its air force for a full three or four minutes). After saying that America doesn’t need NATO, he’s now begging NATO to help him deal with North Korea. America’s president is basically the kid in class who the teacher patiently exhorts to “sound it out” when he has trouble reading aloud, as he drags his paste-eating fingers across the page, attending school only for recess so that he can bully the brown kids in the playground.
Personal Time
Obama: Obama found time to visit Sasha at school and played basketball with friends on a White House court. He visited Camp David to relax and went for a Valentine’s Day dinner in Chicago with Michelle. He was criticized for appearing on talk shows and having too much fun in the White House. He played golf one time at Andrews Air Force Base.
Trump: More than a quarter of the time he has served as president has been spent at Mar-a-Lago eating chocolate cake, golfing and doing white-people things. (I only refer to it as white-people things because I don’t know what goes on at golf resorts, or what white people do on the weekend besides clean out their garages, roam Wal-Mart or go skiing.) Trump does not live with his wife, because ... I actually don’t know, except that I assume her gag reflex isn’t strong enough to handle the possibility of seeing his light-bulb-shaped body in the nude.
News reports say that Trump spends all of his spare time watching cable TV news and tweeting. He also installed a button in the Oval Office that orders a Coke. Congratulations, America; you elected a teenage princess as president.
Approval Ratings
Obama: 65 percent
Trump: 41 percent
There you have it—a full breakdown of Trump’s vs. Obama’s first 100 days. After a comparison of the two, there is only one question that needs asking:
Don’t you just feel “great again”?