Smartt Takes: Politics, Policy & Astrology

Smartt Takes: Politics, Policy & Astrology

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Smartt Takes: Politics, Policy & Astrology
Smartt Takes: Politics, Policy & Astrology
Smartt Takes: My Experience Covering Trump's First 100 Days

Smartt Takes: My Experience Covering Trump's First 100 Days

A historical, personal, and political reflection

Lesley Smartt Brock's avatar
Lesley Smartt Brock
Apr 29, 2025
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Smartt Takes: Politics, Policy & Astrology
Smartt Takes: Politics, Policy & Astrology
Smartt Takes: My Experience Covering Trump's First 100 Days
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Good Tuesday evening,

I went to bed last night thinking about how I wanted to approach Trump’s first 100 days. What insights and reflections could I share that weren’t captured in Trump’s latest interviews, or by his tweets?

Not much, but I can offer my unique perspective. The significance of covering politics in this moment.

For the past ten years, we — as a society — have gotten used to Donald Trump. We’ve become accustomed to his social media rants. We hardly blink an eye at his manner of speech or the intonation of his voice— something we obsessed over in 2015.

We continue to take his word with a grain of salt, disregarding the promises we dislike and holding onto the ones we do. We’re used to his bombastic language and tendency to hurl insults at people he disagrees with politically or personally. It hardly even makes news.

Yet, when Trump reclaimed the presidency January 20, 2025, we were immediately reminded of just how little we still understand Donald Trump, how selectively we hear him even though he tells us exactly what he’s going to do.

Instead, many of us were caught off guard at the barrage of actions and the sheer speed with which he started taking action. We had been asleep at the political wheel for the past several years, not needing to cover more than one or two things a month. In January, it was one or two things an hour.

The sheer volume of Trump’s actions made it extraordinarily difficult to cover. Which was evidently the goal. High ‘muzzle velocity’— so much action it blurred media focus— overwhelming volume, no single event for the press to grab onto.

It worked. At least initially. Now, 100 days in, I feel like the overall news landscape is improving at identifying and covering significant news. Democrats too are finding their resistance footing. Even Republicans who are wary of some of Trump’s policies are slowly discovering their voice.

When people ask me about what the Democratic strategy, or how it’s been covering the news, I tell them they are one and the same. The first few months of this administration were simply just shock value.

Typically after experiencing an administration once, you would think people would know how to respond to it the second time. But Trump bucked every one of the last-standing norms. He hired loyalists from top to bottom, had the loyalists hire loyalists. In 2016, DC Republicans and clients would tell me…

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