Donald Trump walked his talk by signing a slew of executive orders soon after taking the oath as the 47th US President Monday, looking to quickly implement his agenda.
Trump’s plans also include declaring a national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border, ordering construction on his border wall to resume, and terminating diversity programmes in federal agencies.
The first order he signed before a crowd at the Capital One Arena revoked approximately 80 executive actions that had been signed by former President Joe Biden.
He also signed a freeze on new regulations, as well as a hiring freeze on federal workers. And Trump also withdrew — again — from the Paris climate treaty.
When he was done signing the orders, he threw some of the pens he’d used into the crowd.
Related posts
- Donald Trump takes oath as 47th US President, heralding ‘Golden Age’
- Hush Money Case: Judge to Sentence Trump Before Inauguration
- US election: World Leaders soak Trump with Congratulatory messages
The orders are part of a broad plan that’s expected to include more than 50 items in total signed by the new president following his inauguration, as he seeks a quick Day 1 start. Trump will sign more orders when he returns to the White House after leaving the evening rally, officials said.
Other orders his team has said he’d sign by the end of the day include a directive to bring an end to birthright citizenship, transition officials told reporters in a call ahead of the actions Monday.
Birthright citizenship has been understood to be required under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
Democrats and some legal groups have vowed to challenge in court any Trump attempt to do away with birthright citizenship.
“With these actions, we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense. It’s all about common sense,” Trump said in his inaugural address.
Immigration overhaul
Trump’s other executive orders on immigration would reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy from his first administration for those seeking to enter the U.S. through Mexico, while another is set to designate cartels and migrant gangs, specifically MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
Mexico’s Foreign Ministry told NBC News that Trump was making the move on his “Remain in Mexico” policy unilaterally, without the country’s agreement, which could be a hurdle for implementation.
Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the border would allow the Defense Department to deploy the U.S. military and the National Guard to the border. Asked what the rules of engagement would be for the military deployed to the border, the Trump transition officials said that would be up to the Defense Department.
“We have to set our country on the proper course,” Trump said of his immigration plans Sunday at a rally for supporters. “By the time the sun sets tomorrow evening, the invasion of our borders will have come to a halt, and all the illegal border trespassers will, in some form or another, be on their way back home.”
Trump declares ‘‘America’s decline’’
Bold Donald Trump declared that “America’s decline is over” as he reclaimed the presidency on Monday, promising a crackdown on illegal immigration and portraying himself as a savior chosen by God to rescue a faltering nation.
“From this moment on, America’s decline is over,” Trump, 78, said inside the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, the symbol of U.S. democracy that was invaded on January 6, 2021, by a mob of Trump supporters intent on reversing his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden.
The inauguration completes a triumphant return for a political disruptor who was twice impeached, survived two assassination attempts, was convicted in a criminal trial and faced charges for attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss.
He is the first president in more than a century to win a second term after losing the White House and the first felon to occupy the White House.
“I was saved by God to make America great again,” Trump said on Monday, referring to a gunman’s bullet that grazed his ear in July.
He did not take immediate action on the economy or inflation, two issues that helped him win re-election.
He said he would declare a national emergency at the southern border with Mexico, dispatch troops there and resume a policy forcing asylum-seeking migrants to wait in Mexico for their U.S. court hearings – all a prelude to what he described as an unprecedented operation to deport millions of immigrants. Republican colleagues applauded and Democrats sat stone-faced.
Shortly after the inauguration, U.S. border authorities said they had shut down a Biden program that allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter the U.S. legally by scheduling an appointment on an app. Existing appointments were canceled.
While Trump sought to portray himself as a peacemaker and unifier during his half-hour speech, his tone was often sharply partisan.
He repeated false claims from his campaign that other countries were emptying their prisons into America and voiced familiar grievances over his criminal prosecutions.
With Biden seated nearby, Trump issued a stinging indictment of his predecessor’s policies from immigration to foreign affairs.
“We have a government that has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders, but refuses to defend American borders, or more importantly, its own people,” Trump said.
Numerous tech executives who have sought to curry favor with the incoming administration – including the three richest men in the world, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg – had prominent seats on stage, next to cabinet nominees and members of Trump’s family.
Trump said he would send astronauts to Mars, prompting Musk – who has long talked about colonizing the planet – to raise his fists.
Trump vowed to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and repeated his intention to take back control of the Panama Canal, one of several foreign policy pronouncements that have caused consternation among U.S. allies.
Trump speaks at Capitol
Following his address, Trump stopped by the Capitol’s visitor center and delivered a longer, informal speech to supporters in which he voiced suspicion about election processes, characterized those imprisoned for taking part in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack as “hostages” and suggested the congressional probe into the events of that day was illegal.
“I think this was a better speech than the one I made upstairs,” Trump said.
Trump took the oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend” the U.S. Constitution at 12:01 p.m. ET (1701 GMT), administered by Chief Justice John Roberts. His vice president, JD Vance, was sworn in just before him.
Outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump in November, was seated next to Biden in a section with former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016, sat with her husband Bill. Obama’s wife, Michelle, chose not to attend.
The ceremony was moved indoors due to the extreme cold gripping much of the country.
Trump skipped Biden’s inauguration and has continued to claim falsely that the 2020 election he lost to Biden was rigged.
Biden in last-minute pardon
Biden, in one of his last official acts, pardoned several people whom Trump has threatened with retaliation, including General Mark Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who Trump has suggested should be executed for holding back-channel talks with China. Milley’s portrait was removed from the Pentagon shortly after Trump’s inauguration.
He also pardoned five family members minutes before leaving office, citing fears that Trump would target them.
Trump said he would issue orders to scrap federal diversity programs and require the government to recognize only genders assigned at birth.
“As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” Trump said, as Democratic U.S. Representative Sarah McBride, the first transgender person to serve in Congress, quietly smiled in the audience.
Trump will not immediately impose new tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico as he has pledged to do, an official said, an unexpected development that unleashed a broad slide in the U.S. dollar and a rally in global stock markets on a day when U.S. financial markets were closed.
Trump, who surpassed Biden, now 82, as the oldest president ever to be sworn in, is backed by Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress.
His transition team asked more than a dozen nonpartisan senior diplomats to resign as part of a broader plan to replace nonpartisan civil servants with loyalists.
Unlike in 2017, when he filled many top jobs with institutionalists, Trump has prioritized fealty over experience in nominating a bevy of controversial cabinet picks, some of whom are outspoken critics of the agencies they have been tapped to lead.
Even as he prepared to retake office, Trump continued to expand his business ventures, raising billions in market value by launching a cryptocurrency token that prompted ethical and regulatory questions.
The inauguration took place amid heavy security after a campaign marked by political violence.
The traditional parade down Pennsylvania Avenue past the White House was moved indoors to the Capital One Arena, where Trump also held a victory rally on Sunday.
Police separated a group of 40 Proud Boys, a militant far-right group that backs Trump, from a dozen counter-protesters in downtown Washington, D.C.
“Whose streets? Our streets,” the Proud Boys chanted. Each side shouted expletives at the other.
(Reuters)
