As a candidate, Joe Biden pitched himself as the anti-Donald Trump.
And as president, he has so far kept his focus on trying to be the opposite of his predecessor.
On some fronts, he’s been successful. NBC News kept track of several key metrics that show how Biden, Trump and Barack Obama compared during the first 100 days of each of their presidencies.
The numbers help to show how much Biden has attempted to undo his predecessor’s legacy. Some key findings.
- Trump vowed to remake the government using executive orders he said would quickly undo many of the Obama administration's policies. According to NBC News’ count, he signed 29 in his first 100 days. But Biden, who vowed to undo many Trump policies using executive orders, signed more than 40 in his first 100 days, according to the Federal Register. (Obama signed 19.)
- Trump, through his first 100 days, signed 29 pieces of legislation into law. Biden, on the other hand, has signed only 11, according to the White House. But his Covid-19 relief package was much larger than any of the measures Trump enacted during the same time frame. Thirteen of those were measures that undid Obama-era rules and laws, including one that had banned mentally ill people from being able to buy guns.
- While Trump received a lot of attention for the large number of federal judges he appointed to the bench in his four-year term, Biden has actually outpaced him in judicial nominations through 100 days, having already made 14. Trump nominated two through his first 100 days and Obama, three.
- By the 100-day mark, Biden has held a similar number of solo press conferences and visited a similar number of states as Trump did; neither had yet visited any foreign countries.
- What about golf? Trump hit the links far more than Biden did in 100 days. A lot more.
Another telling comparison is how the approval ratings through 100 days of all three presidents stack up. At around the 100-day mark, 53 percent of Americans said they approved of the job Biden was doing. At the same point, just 41 percent said the same of Trump. Obama, by contrast, saw 65 percent of Americans approve of the job he was doing 100 days in.
Explore the interactive to see how the presidents compare.
