The Presidency / The First Year

Gold plate on back of chair that says "the president"

Joe Biden at one year

Presidential experts evaluate the 46th president's first year in office

Watch the event
First Year 2017 logo

Donald Trump at one year

White House veterans and Miller Center scholars evaluate the 45th president's first 365 days

Watch the event

Featured Video

First Year Project Introduction

Watch this overview of the First Year Project

Reagan waving

The Presidency

Memories of the attempted Reagan assassination

Early in President Reagan’s 1st year in office, March 30, 1981, John Hinckley Jr. attempted to assassinate the president. Through the Miller Center's Reagan Oral History Project, members of his administration remember the day.
Miller Center
Money

Trade

From the Director: The global economy and the rhyme of history

On Monday, the Miller Center will release a new set of First Year Project essays suggesting how the new president might address the global economy. Some of the leading economic policy minds in the country—including noted GOP economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who examines one of the critical issues in this article—lay out an agenda on some of our thorniest policy challenges. 
William Antholis
Miller Center
Trump and Gorsuch

Supreme Court

Supreme Court appointments in the president’s first year

Seven presidents—more than half of those who have served starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt—had the opportunity to nominate a member of the nation’s highest court during their first year in office. But no president in this period had a Supreme Court vacancy waiting for him as he entered the White House, giving him the opportunity to nominate a justice in the first two weeks of his presidency.
Barbara Perry
Miller Center
Slaves in front of quarters

Race and Racism

Stop blaming the victims

The real—and perhaps the only—long-term solution to the dynamic Obama identified requires a major infusion of resources and policies that would empower residents in overpoliced communities to transform their own conditions on their own terms.
Elizabeth Hinton
Harvard University