What to expect from Trump's (Second) First 100 Days with Axios Reporter Hans Nichols
On this week's episode of What's at Stake, Axios political reporter Hans Nichols sits down with Penta Washington office lead Bryan DeAngelis and Managing Director Ylan Mui to discuss President Trump's priorities and potential pitfalls during his first 100 days in office …for the second time.
The trio discussed several topics, including:
- Trump’s unique media strategy and how it differs from President Biden’s
- The effectiveness of the blitz of executive orders
- The political chess game swirling around Trump’s nominees and Congress
- Insights on tariffs, tax reform, and potential legislative hurdles
- Public sentiment and tipping points on key issues
You can subscribe to Hans’ newsletter, Axios Hill Leaders, here.
Transcript
Bryan DeAngelis: 0:06
Welcome to this week's episode of What's at Stake. We're your hosts, Bryan DeAngelis, Partner and head of the Washington office here at Penta.
Ylan Mui: 0:14
And I'm Ylan Mui, managing director at Penta, and today we're joined by Hans Nichols, a political reporter at Axios and author of Axios Hill Leaders. Previously, he was a correspondent for NBC News, where he reported on the Trump administration and breaking national political news. Recently, Hans has been covering Trump's return to the White House and Republican lawmakers' plans as they reclaim control of DC. Many companies are gearing up for what promises to be a busy year, and so, of course, we're excited to have Hans on the podcast to talk about what to expect from Trump's first 100 days in office. Hans, welcome.
Hans Nichols: 0:48
Oh, thank you. I'm excited to be here for the envelope of cash you put on the table. You shouldn't have done that. I don't think that's ethical, but thank you.
Ylan: 0:51
No problem, we'll take all those hundreds and send them your way. But to be serious for a minute, obviously Trump has been in office for just about less than a week as we record this podcast, but already there's been a flurry of executive orders. There has been a lot of work happening on Capitol Hill to confirm his nominees. What can we learn about what the next 100 days might look like from all the activities that we saw just this week?
Hans: 1:25
Yeah, their ambitions are as big as their promises and from day one they've made that clear. Just the sheer number of executives orders, just the scope to me is more interesting. You know, there's a little bit of inflation with the numbers, like they obviously want to get a nice round number that ended with zeros. So would there have been a way to do those and cram those in or split some of them apart? They did a lot and it's everything from sending shots across the bow of the OECD, like international tax. I mean, you could have anticipated that one. It wasn't crazy, House Republicans, have previewed their sort of angst over the OECD, sort of trying to impose their tax regimes on the sovereignty of the American people. But the scope to me was what got me, and the speed, and so it tells us something. Now, look, there'll be roadblocks, if the president wants to do anything enduring, he needs Congress, and you guys know Congress as well as I do, if not better. It's going to be hard.
Bryan: 2:24
Yeah, it's going to be a brick wall in some cases.
Hans: 2:27
Yeah, he's going to build the wall.
Bryan: 2:30
It's actually the wall that's going to be on.
Hans: 2:32
Capitol tight margins.
Bryan: 2:35
Very tight margins, yeah, and we're seeing some of that even in the nominations. He's still kind of building the team.
Hans: 2:42
So chopper talk is back. For those of us that covered the White House the first time around, chopper talk is when the president of the United States leaves on Marine One. Uh, it was probably around 22 degrees this morning. When you have the wind out there and chopper talk, it's cold and it's pretty warm for the president because he walks out in a coat and talks for a little bit and when he gets cold he can walk towards the Marine One and lift off. He didn't know where Mitch McConnell was on Pete Hegseth. He's like, well, we kind of always knew that Murkowski and Susan would be no on Pete and Mitch too. And he asked the press corps well, wait, what's Mitch done now?
Ylan: 3:20
What have you guys heard? It's a two-way conversation.
Hans: 3:24
So when McConnell was, yes, on cloture, we'll see how he is on final passage at 9 pm tonight. But Chopper Talk is back and I always say the most important thing about covering a Trump White House is stretch. Every morning you gotta stretch, make sure your hamstrings are loose, like you don't know what's coming, and just be very nimble.
Bryan: 3:44
This is Trump's whole kind of strategy right? Media strategy, but even just broader political strategy. You saw it in the EOs just like cover the whole field with everything and nothing gets one particular focus.
Hans: 3:57
I think it is. I don't want to say it's 10X this time, but it seems like. It feels like the shock and awe aspect of it is, you know, there's only so much outrage that the system can handle. And so you, whether it's you know, immigration groups, whether or not it's you know immigration groups, whether or not it's you know, whatever groups are offended and want to motivate their base by what Trump is doing on a daily basis, there are limits to how much they can do that, just given the volume that's coming. And even like, for my like, I try to stay, you know, at the top of a variety of topics. You can't be a subject matter expert on everything, but like it's just a lot to really dig into. And you know he's, he's definitely much better prepared this time than he was last time.
Hans: 4:38
The story I love to tell about Trump, Trump won and anyone that's covered the White House -I covered the Bush Administration, Obama, Trump and and then Biden- in the first few days, with the Trump White House you could walk around the West Wing as reporters and just be like you had a meeting with Bannon, and so someone would take the meeting with Bannon and you'd go down the hall and see if the chief of staff was available, you could pull down. Like the idea of just having free reign on the upper part of the West Wing is just insane to reporters.
Hans: 5:05
It was great right, it was fun. But you know when you're in there, I had senior meetings the last couple of weeks of the Biden administration, sort of exit interviews, and you know you've got a 30 minute slot of time you get received in the lobby there and you're very aware that there's certain rooms you can't go to and there's just one room you go to with the meeting you're having. So the only counter to that is I was at Janet Yellen at the treasury on the last day because she left at 4 pm and I had a 3 pm meeting with an official there and then when I was done with that meeting the official was like OK, well, I guess someone else wants to go say hi to you, so you just get it. It's like a reporter on the loose in the Treasury and you're like this is amazing, you just get the last word.
Ylan
So do you expect to have that level of free reign in Trump 2.0?
Hans: 5:58
No, it'll be much tighter and as much as free reign there is, it's also a busier train station, if my metaphor isn't too sort of tortured. So on the first full day, so the 21st, I went there and boy, that briefing room was packed. I mean, there are people from there were reporters that I've not seen in a long time, a lot of foreign press. People are sort of jockeying for position. You know at the beginning of every administration everyone plays nice. You go up to say hi, it's going to be a pleasure to work with you. Hi, please leak to me like these are sort of like pro forma, conversations that you just kind of have to have.
Bryan: 6:35
Let's jump back to nominees for a second. So the breadth of picks on the nominees, too, also tells you a lot. You know there's some that look like they'll sail through. I mean Rubio, it looks like Besant will probably get some bipartisan support. You've got other you you know more controversial ones. Hegseth is yeah, a nailbiter.
Hans: 7:00
So you know, look, if Hegseth goes down, I mean it's very tight. You know it's either going to be JD Vance it's been clear to JD Vance can break the tie, but if they lose four Republicans, then Hegseth goes down, Right. I mean it's like that's like a really tight one. To me, the most interesting thing about Hegseth is how he rescued his nomination. And you know, had we had this conversation in early December, the smart money would have been that he's somewhat toast.
Hans: 7:25
Joni Ernst was very concerned that the granularity of the allegations was not out there, but the general ferment was, and they settled on a strategy which was one give no quarter. They didn't engage with Democrats, they had a sort of Republican-only strategy. So stonewall Democrats keep Republicans close and when any Republican starts hinting, possibly potentially, that they could be a no-MP, hegseth activate the MAGA base in the home state, and in this case it was Joni Ernst got a very clear shot across the bow that the attorney general might be challenging her Now. Joni Ernst is a popular senator. She's now what in her second, third term. But should she have? No one wants the prospect of a MAGA endorsed primary challenge in a state that's gone as Trumpy as Iowa has gone.
Bryan: 8:13
How many times can you play that card? Cause? That could come up again with RFK Jr. It could come up again with yeah. Bondi, like there's a couple other nominees, I don't, I mean, I don't know if there's any risk of inflation there?
Hans: 8:26
Yeah, that's basically the question, and you also get to spend it. I mean, this is a tortured metaphor, but you're writing that check in different banks. So they did it for Joni Ernst with Hegseth in Iowa. I mean, the RFK question is really a Senator Cassidy question. Cassidy has got a tough decision ahead of him. I mean, he's not he may have made the decision. He voted to impeach Donald Trump. He's up for reelection in 2026, and there is a popular-
Ylan: 8:53
He is a doctor.
Hans: 8:54
Let's point that out and and and has very firm opinions. Also, like, for I, I know Senator Cassidy halfway well. He's a really unorthodox thinker. Like, if you have a coffee with Senator Cassidy, um, you know, be be prepared to talk about. Like you know, C.S. Lewis and Louis Pasteur. Like he is, he's a smart, creative guy, but his basic calculus is can he win and what can he do to get on sides with Trump? Well, maybe Trump decides not to blow him up. But like, if, if Cassidy like hints that he's and he'll have a key, crucial role because he's on both finance and health. He's got a crucial role on the RFK hearing. He's got a crucial role on the RFK hearing. Like and he starts expressing some doubt expect some op-eds.
Bryan: 9:47
With the nominees. You know I don't want to say some of Trump's agendas on hold, but you know we're all sitting on the edge of our seat to see what he actually does on tariffs. We're waiting for those nominees to get through, which it looks like most of them might I don't want to say sail through, but aren't the more controversial ones. What are we expecting in terms of, like, the actual implementation of those folks coming in office? Or are we just more rhetoric on tariffs for a while?
Hans: 10:14
To me the big tariff question is does the president do it unilaterally, which he has the authority to do, over the 301 or two? I mean, is it 301, 250 or IEPA? Right, he never did IEPA last time but he threatened it with Mexico. You can do it unilaterally, the power it's not quite like the power of pardon, but you have a fair, broad sort of swath to kind of implement that as a president. But he's not going to get any credit for it on the tax cutting side unless he goes through Congress. So to me it's really just a do they count the beans and they do it through in the reconciliation process so they can count all the increased revenue as offsetting whatever tax cuts he's going to do on tips or social security or whatever he's going to do, the extension of the TCGA, or just get it done quickly.
Ylan: 10:58
But that's not the only reason for him to consider tariffs as a way to pay for the tax cuts that he's also proposed. I mean, there's questions of national security, there's just questions of fairness, or perhaps retribution, depending on how you look at it no right, but he can.
Hans: 11:13
I mean those are all fair points. Like the President can, it's a dial that he has and he can say I want to do and he's got to have an argument for that withstands legal but, like you know, like withstands legal scrutiny. But I don't. When I talk to administration officials and congressional officials they're they're not so much concerned about whether or not the president has the authority to do this on his own. They're just wondering, a about the durability and B, whether or not you get the credit for the revenues that it raises and if we want to get into CBO scoring.
Bryan: 11:44
I mean we can, just don't listen to this in the afternoon because we're going to go into baseline scoring here. But you know he is talking about like a Department of External Revenue that would require Congress to make a new agency. I mean, maybe there's some gray area.
Hans: 12:00
No, you're right. No, you're right. And if he wants to. But that's like I want to be careful here because I haven't done that much reporting on it, but I just like that's something that sounds good that I don't know. Creating new departments is like pretty tough, like the last time we did that was Homeland Security and the like you know shuffled a few things around.
Ylan: 12:20
Or CFPB, their favorite agency, right yeah.
Bryan: 12:21
Especially when you've got a doge community.
Ylan: 12:31
But you know, what is interesting to me, though, is why, on some of the EOs and some of the actions he's taken so far, you know he went full bore, the some of the immigration EOs. You know the the tick, tock, delay. But on trade it seems like he's still kind of holding back a little bit, keeping this big stick clearly visible, you know, to to all our trading partners. But I'm just curious your thoughts on why that one he didn't, he didn't press as hard as he did with some of the others.
Hans: 13:03
One, his base isn't clamoring for. And two, the president deeply understands that inflation. Well, his theory of the case is that inflation helped him get elected. That inflation, well, his theory of the case is that inflation helped him get elected and tariffs on the margins are inflationary to the extent that he's talking about them. They're I don't want to say they're hyperinflationary, super inflationary, but like it's a scale and the more you put on tariffs, the more. And he knows he needs to beat inflation.
I mean, this was a huge debate in the Biden administration when they were thinking about rolling back just a little bit of the China tariffs, right, and there was this like leak, and I still don't know if it's an authorized leak or it's a legitimate mistake.
But, um, well, the sherpa at the time, uh, so sort of hinted that, well, maybe you can like exempt, you know things like underwear and bicycles from the Chinese tariffs and like if, the if, the fate of the of the consumer sentiment, and you know animal spirits rest on the fate, on on whether or not bicycles come down, and you know 6%, uh, or underwear may, but like, the notion that tariffs are inflationary is not something that economists really dispute and it's almost orthodox.
Hans: 14:10
Now, how much? I think the Peterson Institute had some stuff on that like you know, if you would have taken away all of Trump's China tariffs, or tariffs on China's goods and again it was like $250 to $300 billion in goods, like real money, it would have been, like you know, less than a third of a percent of whatever we were seeing, and I don't know if it was CPI core or CPI headline, but like and again, this is all modeled by economists, so they don't know but like it makes a difference on the margins. But Trump's not talking about marginal tariffs, he's talking about across the board. You know whether, depending on the day when it's 25, 10, 60, these are, these are big numbers.
Bryan: 14:46
And so much of of inflation is psychological, as you were hinting at. Like it's the headlines of inflation going up. Feeling it, they get the American people fired up. So he's he's a media genius you know, so he understands that, and he's surrounded himself with people that understand that.
Hans: 15:02
Yeah, and like, I mean like we all. That's why gas prices drove Biden nuts, because you see them every day and as someone who has a lot of kids kids who eat a lot of eggs like we all see the egg number every day. You know I don't see it every day, every other day.
Bryan: 15:15
Yeah, you feel that price, but then, like even the point percentage, you get the headline of inflation up, like you're seeing that over and over and over again.
Hans: 15:22
Yeah, my question on that is always like you know, people are getting their news so many fractured ways. They're getting their news from something like this Like you know, um, in the old is sort of in like sort of a broadcast era 1990s, like you know, peter Jennings era I'd imagine that news drove more sentiment. Now it feels like news is so a la carte that it doesn't drive sentiment as much on some of the things, but the other sort of interesting thing I think that's a whole nother podcast.
Bryan: 15:54
Yeah, yeah, right, okay, that's my podcast. It is yeah, yeah, yeah, because you probably know more of the explanation from Jennings than just that yeah, yeah but. I know Alon wants to talk taxes, so we'll yeah, but I know I'm on stock taxes. You read my mind, Brian actually.
Ylan: 16:08
So yes, I want to. I want to take us back to taxes, because you know, it seems that so far Congress has kept up with the speed of President Trump's first tax reform bill and potentially even go beyond that with additional tax cuts.
Hans: 16:19
I mean, that could be a legislative, that will be a legislative grind, and I'm curious what you think about if that's going to be the brick wall in Congress that Trump finally runs into. It's the most likely brick wall. But this is the sort of Trump's convinced that he has the magic to force House Republicans to hold hands and jump on one big bill, and I don't know if he does Right. Right, I mean. I, like you, know there's some diff in you know you guys remember this from your time spending out there.
Bryan: 17:08
There are some members of Congress that think they're more important than they actually are, and they will no way.
Hans: 17:12
And we're used to it.
Ylan: 17:12
On the Senate 535 of them.
Hans: 17:14
It's almost like we're used to it on the Senate side. But, like you know, joe Manchin kind of taught Congress that you can basically write a bill with a thin majority. And now there're you know they're not a thousand, but there are a dozen potential mansions on the House side, whether or not they have been talking about this for a long time on, like the SALT deduction, which I think will be a big issue, or it's just people that have their quirks.
Hans: 17:37
And like someone's going to have. I mean it's, it could be I could call it a quirk to them. It could be something that they feel deeply about and they feel that consensual constituents sent them to Washington. So, uh, yeah, it's and we'll, we'll have a better sense of the direction. Um, I mean there's on on what house Republicans in the Senate and Senate Republicans are going to do after Trump speaks. Uh and done in uh Doral on Monday, uh, you know, Monday, I guess I was at the 27th. So everything's going to be, and that's why I'm pretty confident anything I say here will not get overtaken by events, because nothing's going to matter until Trump weighs in and makes the decision and he's been avoiding making the decision, but sooner or later he's going to have to make the decision on the one bill versus two.
Hans: 18:17
But what the priorities are, how much? It's? I mean the top line numbers, what sort of accounting? I will say gimmicks, because I think they're gimmicks, but I think all CBO accounting is a little gimmicky and, if you question my judgment on that, just like they're always off right, like the Inflation Reduction Act.
Hans: 18:36
The reason why they had a credible claim of calling it the Inflation Reduction Act was because it actually raised more revenue and it was. It was definitely deficit neutral, the first way they described it and it raised more revenue and so therefore would have downward pressure on inflation. That has not been the case, for two reasons. One, republicans gutted the IRS provisions, which actually took money away from the IRS but will lead to less revenue because of less enforcement and the tax credits are so popular. Like Goldman Sachs will not that they know, but like the estimates are anywhere from like 1 to 1.5 trillion on a bill that was supposed to cost zero. So, like CBO, scores are always wrong, you just have to pretend that they're right at the moment. And I think the big sort of sleight of hand that they're thinking about and if I had to guess I'd say this is the direction they're going is they're just going to pretend that extending the Trump tax cuts don't cost anything.
Ylan: 19:21
It's the current policy baseline.
Hans: 19:30
Current policy baseline versus current law baseline. So you're like, and so everyone. Just now, the I spent, you know I took a break from the Obama white house to cover Europe and I was really interested in sort of the Greece situation and like what, what would happen if you just spent too much. And like we're, you know, close to depending on what you consider public debt, but we're close to 100% of public debt versus GDP. The deficit number is not fudgeable. So if deficits are 6% of GDP, that's not like. And sooner or later and I know I sound like a crazy person, but sooner or later the bond markets are going to have a say on this. The 10 years getting it's like four, six far five. I don't know. You can probably look at it more frequently than I do. Sooner or later, bond markets are not going to allow us to keep borrowing. Now I say that and you can invite me back in 20 years and I could be saying the same thing and I could still be wrong.
Ylan: 20:12
And we're at 200% of it.
Hans: 20:16
You just felt like it's just the way. It's the world's reserve currency. But I'm always reminded and this is like a line we'd use in covering the Greek debt crisis a lot on the Hemingway's line on bankruptcy, like how did you go bankrupt? Well, first slowly, then quickly, right, and so when these things happen, like you know, they do happen quickly.
Hans: 20:33
But that does not seem to be a primary concern of any lawmaker right now, yeah, but Besson's sort of 3-3-3 plan, right, he wants to get the deficit spending at 3%. He wants 3% growth. You know, 3 million barrels of oil and then the 3% deficit to GDP ratio and I think the latest CBO projection was like 6.6 this year. Right, that's a big, that's a big delta. Now they can close some of that gap with additional tariffs, but they're going to lose some of it if they extend all the tax cuts. But they're going to lose some of it if they, you know, extend all the tax cuts. So you know, but they'll. They're going to argue that with growth, growth, growth, dynamic scoring that we're just going to have a booming economy and we're going to grow our way out of the, out of debts.
Bryan: 21:14
Maybe you know, does Trump. You raised a good point a minute ago. With, with the margins in the house, you're basically a United States Senator, and that's respect. Like you can be joe mansion yeah, and hold up the whole thing, and I think, unlike what we were talking about with nominations, you can do it on issues that trump also cares about. So does he have the, I guess, stomach to really start to get into the weeds?
Bryan: 21:40
if we're, I mean, I think we're sitting here Christmas eve voting on this thing yeah but like, as it gets, gets into that he's going to have to put some pressure on members.
Hans: 21:48
Yeah, he's, he is putting pressure, but he's also doing a lot of soft power too, right. Look at sort of the charm offensive he has on members of Congress, like he's had them into the assault people to the white house. He had the sort of. He even had some, you know, the Jared Golden types, I think, or the Don Bacon, excuse me, Announced he's going to meet every Republican yeah.
Hans: 22:07
Like he invited them all down to Mar-a-Lago. So he is, like you know, there there are only so many rounds of golf president can play with a wavering member of Congress, but he's willing to do it. Now I think he's a little bit high on his own supply is probably the wrong way to refer to it, but he's pretty confident because he did get Johnson through on one vote and that you know. So he, you know, in the case of Speaker Johnson, the president of the United States said jump. And after some back and forth, members of Congress said how high? Yeah, now I think it'll be a little bit different with this big, one, massive bill. But you know that's what we're going to spend our next 11 months, if not longer, trying to figure out.
Ylan: 22:47
Well, the charm offensive has worked on a lot of corporate CEOs, as we saw from who sat closest to him during the inauguration to his uh, his, his speech at Davos, and it seems like the business community has really embraced him and maybe even fell, felt a little bit free.
Hans: 23:04
Yeah, real vibe shift. I don't know if that's charm just yet. I think that's more like CEOs want to get on sides with Trump. So you know it was like. You know it was like Brian when he was in college. You're just so handsome. Everyone was just lining up to meet him right.
Hans: 23:27
So yeah, like that's I mean that is a different podcast Like corporate America deciding, like actually I'm pretty Trumpy too and sort of the 180 degree to turn on everything from, I mean, DEI to ESG. It was most crystallized at Davos, but like, we'll see if it's lasting and we'll see if Trump accepts it, right, I mean, we've all had 11th hour conversions. Does Trump accept those conversions? Didn't seem like he was in a very forgiving mood when he was talking to people at Davos.
Bryan: 24:03
Yeah, yeah, so maybe last question this is Trump 2.0. You were there for Trump 1.0 and covered it at some point. This and it happens to a lot of presidents, but the honeymoon period ends, the shine comes off. I mean it. It happened around immigration in Charlottesville last time, but you know Americans didn't like seeing children and families separated. Immigration is a big issue here on the border. Like, is it immigration or is it something else that, as a reporter covering this, you're watching like what could be the tipping point where he starts losing that?
Hans: 24:41
Uh, immigration is probably the most likely candidate right just because it's so sort of intertwined in the economy. But they're aware of that right. Like are they going to start raiding meatpacking houses and uh and factories in Iowa, Nebraska?
Hans: 24:49
I don't know right if I don't like, you know there's, there's, um, there are the, you know you can start with sort of the clear criminals and the ones that are like have been remanded or released or whatever. So there are ways to avoid that. I would think that it's just something. I mean, I don't know, maybe I just like the ghost of Don Rumsfeld is in my head, but it's like it's an unknown. Unknown, yeah, and like if you look at, I think you're right to diagnose the precipitous or the sort of defining moments in Trump one. But if you look at Biden, it was Afghanistan and he never, recovered Never.
Hans: 25:21
And um and uh, I don't you know if I had a crystal ball here on what the like. Is China going to cross the straight? Is there going to be another pandemic? I mean, there's just the universe of things that can go South, that a president can get blamed for is an infinite, but it's close, and so I would. I would. That would be my overall take.
Hans: 25:43
My second take is that I don't see half of the country and by half I mean like sort of the 40 to 45% true MAGA to really ever abandon the president. And they are, they, they. He clearly has the loyalty of like just not just sort of the traditional Republicans, I mean, but like just the hardcore base and to some extent like suburban swing voters are moving in that direction. He can lose them, right, but like, have you got? Have we had this podcast six months ago? I guarantee you we would have been talking about the phantom Nikki Haley voters. And where and where are the phantom Nikki Haley voters? Yeah, they. And where are the phantom Nikki Haley voters? They apparently didn't exist. And so we just live in such a fractured media environment that people that support the president are going to want to hear the news that they want to hear, and they want to hear the explanations for why he may not have been able to deliver. And it's we're still going to have. Yes, he won a clear victory.
Ylan: 26:36
It's still a tight it's still a very tightly divided country.
Hans: 26:41
So, and if the economy goes south, like I suspect, 2028 is a real uphill battle for JD Vance or whoever decides they want to challenge him and like we'll be back here having a similar conversation. I just it's a very divided country and there are no easy ways to fix that, whether we're talking executive or legislative.
Ylan: 27:03
Well, Hans, thank you so much for taking some time to talk with us today before you head back over to Capitol Hill. We really appreciate it and we'll have you back in four years to see what happens next.
Hans: 27:12
Thanks for it, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Maybe sooner, maybe sooner, you bet.
Ylan: 27:16
To our listeners remember to like and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts and to follow us on X at PentaGRP and on LinkedIn at PentaGroup. I'm your co-host, Ylan, and, as always, thanks for listening to What's At Stake.