Politics

Here's What Trump Supporters Want From His First 100 Days

January 29th 2017

President Donald Trump's first term has officially begun, and his supporters are excited to see what it will bring for the country. 

melania-and-donald-trumpAP/David J. Phillip - apimages.com

On the campaign trail, Trump made a variety of promises on immigration, crime, terrorism, gun rights and abortion that his constituents want to see fulfilled. 

ATTN: talked to two Trump voters in different parts of the country about their hopes for this administration.  

Sara Galliano, 38, is from New Orleans, and she's a mother to a teenager in military school. 

Sara GallianoSara Galliano

Galliano said the most important issues to her are terrorism, immigration, and education, and she's excited that retired Marine Gen. James Mattis will be Trump's secretary of defense. 

"I believe that Mattis will bring a sense of urgency and seriousness to our fight against ISIS and terrorism in general," Galliano said. "He has the military expertise and kill history to get the job done effectively and efficiently."  

The Senate overwhelmingly confirmed the 66-year-old, who retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 2013, as Trump's secretary of defense on Friday. The vote tally was 98-1 with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand being the only "no" vote, voicing concerns that Mattis was not out of the military for the typically required seven years to be secretary of defense, and required a waiver to be confirmed. During his 44-year military career, Mattis led troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and The Washington Post's Dan Lamothe called him one of "one of the most influential military officers of his generation." 

Politico reported that a phrase Mattis coined even made it into a popular video game: "Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." 

donald-trump-and-james-mattisAP/Aude Guerrucci - apimages.com

Galliano added that immigration reform should be tackled immediately. 

She supports Trump's promised border wall. On the campaign trail, Trump said that he would build a giant border wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and make Mexico pay for it, which the Mexican government has refused to do so far. Estimates put the cost of the wall at anywhere from $15 to $40 billion. On Thursday, Trump called for a 20 percent tariff on Mexican imports to fund the project. 

"I hope that Trump builds the wall so we can support our Border Patrol agents in doing their jobs protecting our citizens," Galliano said.

The effectiveness of a border wall in addressing the United States' immigration concerns is up for debate. 

During a Jan 10. confirmation hearing, Trump's secretary of Homeland Security Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly said that the wall by itself cannot stop immigrants from coming to the U.S. 

“A physical barrier in and of itself will not do the job,” Kelly reportedly told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “It has to be really a layered defense.” Kelly said that the U.S would have to create polices that address the violence and poverty in the countries immigrants are fleeing in addition to a wall, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

Sara GallianoSara Galliano

She added that the federal government should stop admitting Syrian refugees until there is a better process to identify threats. 

Although Syrian refugees have been a focal point of national security debates, officials from the United Nations have disputed that there is a flaw in the admitting system. 

“Of all the categories of persons entering the U.S., these refugees are the single most heavily screened and vetted,”  Jana Mason, a senior adviser to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees told Time in 2015. 

End of border fence between the US and MexicoBigstock/1photo - bigstockphoto.com

But Galliano also thinks that the U.S. needs to tackle overall immigration reform to lose the "red tape" for people who should be admitted into the U.S. 

"We need to revamp the system so that it works. The reason why people are coming here illegally is because it's so complicated to get in the right way," she said. "If these people are being persecuted where they're from, they're not going to have what they need to come here the right way."

Comprehensive immigration reform efforts, which could have forged an easier path to legal immigration, have repeatedly stalled in Congress, and some of President Barack Obama's 2014 immigration executive orders fell after a U.S. Supreme Court tie vote in June last year. 

Marc Samardzija is 36 years old and lives in Cincinnati. 

 Marc Samardzija Marc Samardzija

He said that he's not a registered Democrat or Republican, but a "middle of the road conservative," and he voted for Trump in large part because he was disappointed with the administrations of both Obama and President George W. Bush.  

"We have strayed away from our roots and have become soft," he said. "While I woefully shake my head at some of the things that Donald Trump has said and done, I also acknowledge that having a 'more presidential' candidate hasn’t exactly been advantageous the last two decades."

barack-obamaAP/Gerald Herbert - apimages.com

He pointed to immigration and the economy as some of the most important issues for Trump to address this year, and he's hopeful that Trump will keep good jobs in the United States. 

"Our economic standing in the world has fallen considerably and the Midwest has essentially died," he said. "Observers from both coasts have failed to examine with care, the fly over states, including presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during the campaign. We are hurting."

Samardzjia's sense of a failing U.S. economy demonstrate the vastly different experiences of American voters. 

Bloomberg's Matthew A. Winkler wrote that the overall economy actually strengthened during Obama's administration. However, Rust Belt states like Ohio, where Samardzija lives, have lost thousands of manufacturing jobs since 2000, according to USA Today, and income inequality reached it's highest level since 1928 in 2013. 

In another example of how Trump supporters often defy expectations, and clash with the candidate they supported, Samardzija did say that he actually likes the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as "Obamacare." However, he said implementation of the law was too complex and complained about the high premiums offered on some the health care exchanges.

About 20 million people now use the Affordable Care Act for health insurance, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, but Republican members of Congress are currently taking steps to repeal it.

gop-health-careJ. Scott Applewhite/AP - apimages.com

The most important thing Samardzija wants Trump to do is put "America first." 

"Very simple, America first and everyone else a distant second," he said. "America is one of the few countries on Earth that could fully support itself and be fine without the rest of the world."

The next four years, at least, will test Samardzija's belief that the United States' can go it alone on a global scale. 

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