Tuesday marked 100 days since President Donald Trump was sworn into his second term in office. In Kentucky, where Trump won by a more than 30 percentage point margin, his wide-ranging and radical changes to the structure and workings of the federal government have begun trickling down to affect the state.
The president’s turbulent policy agenda has generated over 200 legal challenges thus far, and left Kentucky businesses scrambling to respond to shifting tariffs, funding cuts for federally-supported initiatives, and new rules targeting diversity, equity and inclusion in schools.
Trump pardoned dozens of Kentuckians involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, paused essentially all refugee admissions (except for white South Africans known as Afrikaners), cut staff at national parks including Mammoth Cave and gutted federal black lung research.
At least one poll shows a majority of Kentuckians still approve of Trump's job performance even as the president’s approval rating nationally has sunk to 42%, according to a NPR/PBS/Marist survey released Tuesday.
Andy Westberry, a spokesperson for the Republican Party of Kentucky, said these first 100 days have shown Trump is “delivering for Kentucky” and isn’t “afraid to disrupt the system to get things done.” He pointed to executive orders that promise to revitalize the coal industry and disaster declarations that are providing federal aid to the state.
“President Trump entered office with a mandate to restore common sense, secure our borders, and rebuild American strength,” Westberry said in a statement. “In just 100 days, he’s done exactly that—and Kentuckians are already seeing the results.”
Unsurprisingly, the Kentucky Democratic Party reached a very different conclusion about the changes Trump has instituted in his first several months in office. In a statement, KDP Chair Colmon Elridge said the first 100 days have been historic for the wrong reasons.
“In his reelection campaign, Trump promised to focus on the economy and lowering prices. But instead he spent the past 100 days focused on personal grievances, continued to divide us with culture wars, and singlehandedly tanked the American economy with destructive tariffs,” Elridge said. “As the Kentucky GOP applauds these heartless cuts, one thing remains clear: Donald Trump plans to build an America where working families get less while paying more.”
Kentucky Public Radio has closely followed the administration; here’s how Trump’s policies have affected the state.
Tariffs
Tariffs — both those in effect now and threatened for later — have had a sweeping effect on the state and national economies.
One of Kentucky’s signature industries, bourbon, was hit with retaliatory tariffs as Canada and other international bourbon consumers responded to Trump’s tariffs. And further retaliation isn’t off the table, with the future of Trump’s proposed tariffs still in question as the president frequently fluctuates on his tariff policies. For now, the industry has avoided retaliation from the European Union, which is under a universal 10% tariff.
“The return of retaliatory tariffs on American whiskey will have far-reaching consequences across Kentucky,” Kentucky Distillers’ Association President Eric Gregory said. “That means hard-working Americans — corn farmers, truckers, distillery workers, barrel makers, bartenders, servers and the communities and businesses built around Kentucky Bourbon will suffer.””
Kentucky’s steel industry could get a boost from a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum, but the volatility of the tariff structure is challenging for many of those in the industry. On Monday, the Trump administration signaled they would ease those tariffs to give automakers a break, as they are facing a 25% import duty on both steel and car parts separately.
Meanwhile, some Kentucky agriculture groups have expressed grave concerns with the tariffs. Kentucky soybean farmers generate more than $1 billion in economic output annually, but could endure significant impacts due to tariffs and retaliatory tariffs, particularly from China — Kentucky's largest export market for soybeans. Trump’s agriculture secretary said the administration is already prepared to provide bailouts, if needed, just as the president did during his first term.
Trump says the tariffs are needed to reverse the country’s trade deficits and bring factory jobs back. Kentucky lawmakers have expressed mixed reactions to the trade policy. Some, like GOP state Senate President Robert Stivers, have employed a wait-and-see approach.
“There's no doubt there are risks, but I think the rewards are worth the risk at this point in time,” Stivers said. “And I did talk to individuals in the bourbon industry … They're able to stand down for a bit to see what happens in the overall economic picture.”
However, several Kentucky lawmakers have also been the top opponents of the president’s trade policy, arguing for free market principles and equating the tariffs to taxation. Both of Kentucky’s Republican senators — Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul — have made their strong antagonism toward tariffs known.
“Tariffs are a terrible mistake. They don't work. They will lead to higher prices,” Paul said in speech on the Senate floor. “They are a tax, and they have historically been bad for our economy.”
Funding Cuts
Kentucky Public Radio has reported on a plethora of funding cuts — and the ensuing lawsuits — that the Trump administration has made thus far. Led by the Department of Government Efficiency, the cuts have stretched from arts and humanities funding to public health programs to COVID-era funding for local school districts.
Some of those funds have been unfrozen after federal judges weighed in. For example, a judge temporarily stopped a Trump administration attempt to end billions in COVID-era health grants, roughly $148 million of which was promised to Kentucky. The state said the cuts would delay some childhood vaccine orders, impact addiction treatment services and community health workers across the state.
The administration also cancelled hundreds of veteran services contracts, some of which they promptly restored after criticism. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs reversed its termination of several contracts with a veteran-owned business based in Kentucky two weeks after they were cancelled.
Other programs appear to remain axed for now, like a USDA program that provided funding for schools and food banks to invest in local produce. The administration said that several of the cancelled programs were pandemic-era or wasteful and therefore no longer relevant.
Kentucky’s public universities are also bracing for funding impacts and pulled back on spending in response, with the University of Louisville instituting a hiring freeze and the University of Kentucky predicting $40 million in National Institutes of Health cuts over the next year.
Emergency Response
Since Trump took office, Kentucky has already experienced two severe weather events that left large portions of the state recovering from major flooding and wind damage. While Trump has approved two major disaster declarations, freeing up more federal funds, he has also left portions of the state’s request for aid pending.
After the April flooding, Trump approved individual assistance for Kentuckians in 13 counties, but did not address the portion of the request asking for public assistance and hazard mitigation for the entire state.
Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, who has been highly critical of other aspects of the Trump administration, has offered praise for FEMA’s handling of the state’s disaster response, while noting a denial of FEMA aid would be disastrous for the state.
As western and central portions of the state were recovering from the flooding, Kentucky counties and cities were notified that the administration was cancelling millions of dollars in infrastructure grants, some of which would have funded flood mitigation projects in Louisville.
Trump has also issued executive orders on to reduce environmental regulations, crackdown on immigration and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Here are a few more of the direct impacts on Kentuckians:
- Bolstering Coal: Several Kentucky lawmakers joined Trump as he signed a slew of executive orders designed to suppress some regulations on coal production and coal-fired electricity while temporarily waiving some air pollution requirements. Two Kentucky utilities sought the coal pollution exemptions. Meanwhile, the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration has seen major staffing cuts and researchers that monitor the health of coal miners were laid off en masse from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
- Refugees and Immigration: Shortly after gaining office, Trump paused nearly all refugee admissions in the country, including those who already had flights booked into the country. Kentucky has several hubs for refugee admissions. The pause, along with the administration's increasingly hardline response to immigration, has caused significant anxiety within refugee and immigrant communities in Kentucky. The administration also cancelled — and then reinstated — the visas of several international students and recent graduates at Kentucky universities.
- Anti-DEI Efforts in Schools: In line with state level efforts to ban diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in higher education, the Trump administration has broadly targeted DEI across American society. Two Kentucky families are among those suing the Department of Defense over book purges in schools they run. The Kentucky Department of Education also capitulated to a Trump administration demand that they sign an agreement to have no diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public schools.
- Jan. 6 Pardons: As one of his first acts in office, Trump granted full pardons to dozens of Kentuckians convicted of crimes committed during the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Eight of those released from federal prisons as a result of the pardons were convicted of assaulting police officers who were defending the U.S. Capitol building.
State government and politics reporting is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
