The Atlantic

How Many of His 'Day One' Promises Did Trump Fulfill?

The president laid out 18 promises in a “Contract With the American Voter,” but he only managed to check off a handful by Monday.
Source: Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

“On Day One.” The notion of immediately turning the page on policy is a staple of presidential transitions, from Franklin Roosevelt’s “first 100 days” on, but Donald Trump made the promise of things he’d get done on his first day in the White House into a special mantra throughout the campaign.

The full list, as Tim Murphy chronicled, included some things that were either wildly implausible and evidently figurative, or things that are impossible to assess. (How would you “fix” the Veterans Affairs Department on Day One? What does it mean to start taking care of the military?) But Trump also laid out a set of 18 specific, discrete promises for his first day in office in what he called a “Contract With the American Voter.” So how did he do?

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