During his first 100 days in office, President Donald Trump has provoked mixed reactions among University of Iowa students.

His approval rating has dropped below 50 percent since his inauguration, falling to 44 percent — the lowest 100-day approval rating of any president, other than his own first term — in over 70 years.

Trump has issued more executive orders than any modern president, following his vows to vastly reshape the federal government. These included executive orders in an attempt to dismantle the Department of Education, define only two legitimate genders, overhaul the immigration system, and more.

Noah Pavelich, co-chair of UI Young Democratic Socialists of America, or YDSA, is upset with how much people are letting the president get away with.

“Regardless of who you are, what religion, what gender, sexual orientation, if we allow the administration to get away with deporting, if we allow them to get away with the rape, rampant transphobia and homophobia, it’s going to come back and bite all of us in the ass, sooner or later,” Pavelich said.

In his first 100 days, Trump signed 142 executive orders — 100 more than Biden, as a new president. Biden signed the second most of any modern president, coming behind only Franklin D. Roosevelt, who signed 99 executive orders in 1933.

Daelynn Wygle, a first-year UI student and secretary for Young Americans for Freedom, or YAF, an organization fostering conservative principles on college campuses, acknowledged that Trump has gotten a lot done in 100 days regardless of if the public views the directives positively or negatively, though she feels a majority of directions have been positive thus far.

“He’s done a lot, and personally I feel like most of it’s been pretty positive,” she said. “I realize this isn’t as much [Trump’s] thing as it is like Elon Musk and Vivek [Ramaswamy]’s, but [Department of Government Efficiency], in my opinion, that’s the one thing that I think I really like what’s been going on.”

DOGE is a government body created by an executive order from the president with the intention of improving bureaucratic efficiency and reducing waste throughout the federal government. Trump had selected Musk and Ramaswamy to lead DOGE, but Ramaswamy parted ways with the initiative hours after the inauguration to launch a campaign for governor in Ohio.

Pavelich said having an administration elected by the people is one of the most important parts of democracy, and having Elon Musk in office is a conflict of interest.

“[Musk is] a f*cking idiot,” Pavelich said. “There is a bull in a China shop, and we’re letting him go haywire.”

Pavelich is not alone in his disdain for Musk’s role in the U.S. government. He is among the majority of the public, reaching 58 percent in a recent national survey, who disapprove of his work in DOGE — a lower job approval rating than the president himself.

“I think he’s a gross, insecure Nazi. I don’t say that lightly, and I don’t see this as hyperbole,” Grant Anderson, second-year YDSA member, said. “We, as a country, shouldn’t let him anywhere near political influence. He should not be allowed to have the position he has: that of an unelected government official and advisor to the president. Because he’s a neo-Nazi.”

Tailor Varner, a UI third-year student, echoed Pavelich’s distaste with the Trump administration.

“I thought low of him [Trump], but he aimed lower,” she said.

Varner said directives from the administration have made her feel worse than expected about the state of the country, even considering her previously low expectations. She referenced proposed funding cuts to programs that expand the distribution of Naloxone — medication that is used to reverse an opioid overdose — and pulling the U.S. out of the World Health Organization again as two things that have made her feel that way.

Varner said though she is not surprised by any of Trump’s directives, she feels more strongly that the country voted incorrectly ever since the inauguration in January.

She said LGBTQ+ rights are among the most important issues to her, and moves by the president, including the executive order declaring only two official genders, make her increasingly concerned.

“If you’re president, you should be president of everyone and not just pick and choose who you accept and want to care for,” she said.

Varner said the revocation of student visas across the country has also been problematic. She said Trump supporters are all against people coming into the country illegally, but in her opinion, the administration has shown that illegal immigration is not the problem but immigration itself.

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“If they’re taking away student visas, and clearly it is not just the legality that matters, it’s just having immigrants here at all,” she said. “And I think that’s not a good sign.”

Jasmyn Jordan, a fourth-year UI student, national YAF chair, and former UI YAF chair, said while it has been hard to keep up with all of the news because of a busy school semester, she likes the work the administration has done.

“I do appreciate that Trump is resetting our country to the values that it was founded on, restoring law and order, restoring free speech and just ideals of freedom on our campuses and also nationwide,” Jordan said.

Jordan, who has attended several of Trump’s campaign rallies and even had the chance to meet the president, said he has met her expectations.

“I feel like a lot of the stuff he campaigned on, he’s meeting up with that, which I appreciate. Because as I said earlier, actions speak louder than words,” Jordan said. “So, I like that he’s doing what he said he would do.”

Jordan declined to comment on anti-DEI initiatives or the executive order attempting to dismantle the Department of Education from the administration.

Wygle said she approves of the anti-DEI initiatives along with the executive order attempting to dismantle the Department of Education.

“I understand why it’s kind of scary to some people. But I do think, as a whole, it is a good move,” Wygle said. “I think it’s putting us into a good place where we can get those same initiatives of bringing diversity to people and education, but I don’t think you necessarily need those institutions to do that.”

The New York Times reported that administration officials have begun to question the president’s obligation to provide due process, after he answered “I don’t know” to Kristen Welker asking if he agreed with Secretary of State Marco Rubio that citizens and noncitizens in the U.S.  were entitled to due process.

“We are approaching the point where ICE could deport anyone without any due process, and the backlash on the administration would be quite minimal,” Anderson said in an interview with The Daily Iowan before the article by The New York Times was published.

Anderson said Democrats didn’t impact the election as much as they should have. He said people need to be convinced that it is in their best interest to be progressive.

“They allowed the conversation to become conservative. The strategy of the Democrats, currently, is to become more conservative in the hopes that conservatives will vote for them,” Anderson said. “This normalized viewpoints of the right that are, in my opinion, harmful.”

While Pavelich believes having Musk in office is one of the worst things the Trump administration is doing, he blames the Harris campaign for the loss.

“No one was excited about her campaign. At best, they were excited to not have Trump again,” Pavelich said. “Kamala didn’t even make it back in 2020. She was never supposed to be a national political figure, and that’s not her fault.”

UI Democrats and College Republicans at Iowa did not respond to multiple requests for comment by the time of publication.