Keith B. Richburg

Asian Angle | First 100 days of President Trump: like a drunk stumbling down a highway

Full of sound and fury about tariffs, border walls, North Korea and travel bans, all of the leader of the free world’s bluster has thus far signified next to nothing

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US President Donald Trump receives a figurine from a group of county sheriffs. Photo: AP

Keith B. Richburg

Published: 6:00pm, 29 Apr 2017Updated: 4:53pm, 3 Jul 2017

The first impression of the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency begins with a question: has it really only been 100 days?

There’s been such a frenzy of activity by this preternaturally distractible US president that it seems hard to believe he has only been in office since late January. Trump has been a godsend to journalism. Newspaper subscriptions and online page views are up, and audiences are rushing back to cable news channels, all to see what Trump and his team will do next.

It’s a bit like seeing a drunk staggering blindly down a busy highway – you know something very bad is going to happen, but you can’t stop yourself from looking. Or maybe it’s more like watching a hostage video, which you know is heading towards a horrific ending, but you simply cannot turn away.

Will Trump really launch an attack on North Korea that might unleash a nuclear war in Asia? Will the Syrian bombing lead to a new American intervention in the Middle East? Did the US really just launch a trade war with Canada over yogurt and cheese? Will the Senate investigating committee really unearth evidence that Trump’s advisors were colluding with Vladimir Putin to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign?

Kellyanne Conway, senior adviser to US President Donald Trump, made headlines when she suggested Americans buy products branded by Trump’s daughter Ivanka. Photo: Bloomberg

Did Sean Spicer really just say that Hitler never used chemical weapons? And was that Kellyanne Conway on television hocking Ivanka Trump’s jewellery and fashion line? And what, precisely, are “alternative facts”?

So much has transpired that after “No Drama Obama”, it seems that crazy is the new normal in the White House, just like orange is the new black.