President Donald Trump soaked in the adulation from the crowd gathered at Macomb Community College in Michigan on Tuesday evening, an event marking the first 100 days of his return to the White House.
“I miss you guys,” Trump declared from the podium, looking right at home under the glaring stage lights. “I miss the campaign.” Speaking to his supporters, he boasted, “We’ve accomplished more in three months than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years.”
Trump, the first convicted felon to take on a second term at the presidency, has actually emerged with few legislative accomplishments — the fewest in a U.S. president’s first 100 days, in fact, since the 1950s. However, Trump has led a campaign of overreach and fear that has included threatening America’s top universities and violating their First Amendment rights, deporting many migrants as well as U.S. citizen children without due process, defying the nation’s judicial system, and ramping up the American police state.
When addressing the crowd on Tuesday, Trump attacked federal judges blocking his actions. “We cannot allow a handful of communist, radical-left judges to obstruct the enforcement of our laws and assume the duties that belong solely to the president of the United States,” Trump said. “Judges are trying to take away the power given to the president to keep our country safe.” The president vowed: “Nothing will stop me in the mission to keep America safe again.”
It’s not just liberal judges who are halting Trump’s actions. The Supreme Court — which conservatives control 6-3, after Trump put three justices on the court — recently halted his administration from shipping more immigrants to El Salvador without due process.
In an especially sickening moment of the event, Trump directed those gathered to toward large screens displaying the migrants he deported to El Salvador’s notorious prison system, which is known for human rights abuses. “The worst of the worst are being sent to a no-nonsense prison in El Salvador,” Trump crowed, urging the audience to “watch this.”
Dramatic music played as clips showed the imprisoned men having their heads shaved off, bent over, and forced into prison cells. As the video concluded, the crowd roared in approval and chanted, “USA! USA! USA!”
Earlier this year, the president deported hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador without due process, citing the Alien Enemies Act, a notorious 1798 law used to justify the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Their removal was made in defiance of a judge’s order.
While Trump and his administration have claimed those immigrants are members of terrorist gangs, the vast majority of them “have no apparent criminal convictions or even criminal charges,” according to reporting by 60 Minutes.
“They used to say — the fake news — ‘To be a great president, you have to serve two terms,’” Trump said at some point in the night. “So now we’re going to serve two terms.”
In response, some in the crowd help up three fingers and shouted: “Three!”
Despite Trump’s plummeting popularity, the president has continued to float the idea of a third term. In a Time interview published last week, he said, “There are some loopholes that have been discussed that are well known. But I don’t believe in loopholes.” Trump then claimed that he has been “inundated with requests” to serve a third run.
