Rep. Rudy Yakym is upbeat about Trump’s first 100 days despite low public approval

WASHINGTON (WNDU) - President Trump’s first 100 days in office can be described differently by different people.

Recent polls, including one by FOX, have the president’s approval rating dropping to an average of about 45 percent.

Indiana’s 2nd District Congressman Rudy Yakym was fairly energized as he assessed the first 100 days of the Trump administration.

The republican congressman maintains new legislation wasn’t needed to secure the nation’s southern border. Yakym says all that was needed was a new president.

And while the president took action on the border through executive orders, Yakym says it is Congress that will have to enact the tax cuts the president covets.

“For the Hoosiers that I represent, at the end of this year, they’ll get a $1,700 tax increase on average for a family of four unless we put that into our ‘one big, beautiful bill,’” Yakym said.

It is the president who coined that phrase, “one big, beautiful bill.”

The measure would indeed extend tax cuts enacted in the president’s first term, fund more border defenses and mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

To pay for the cuts, Republicans are focused on dramatic cuts in government spending, including social safety net programs tens of millions of Americans depend on.

Experts say even with the cuts the “big, beautiful bill” could result in a steep increase in the federal deficit. That’s not a topic being regularly discussed by GOP leaders.

This week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was dispatched to the southern border — the border seemingly a popular talking point for Republicans, including Yakym.

“We’re going to give the president the resources he needs to permanently secure the border, and we’re going to ensure that we fund our military through a number of initiatives in this ‘one big, beautiful bill,’” Yakym said.

When Republicans constructed a framework for the “big, beautiful bill,” it was hailed as evidence of Republican unity. But right now, the budget resolution has separate targets for savings and expenditures in the House and Senate. Ordinarily such differences would be resolved long before passage.

President Trump will mark his first 100 days in office on Tuesday with a rally outside of Detroit in Macomb County, his first since returning to the White House earlier this year.

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