Executive Action “Shock And Awe”

At noon ET on Monday, January 20, Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States.

Immediately after the inauguration ceremony, there will be a luncheon with members of Congress and, that evening, President Trump will attend three separate, but official inaugural balls. (No word yet on whether Trump and his Vice President, J.D. Vance, will attend the first-ever Crypto Ball, set for this Friday, January 17. A non-official event held “alongside” official activities, the Crypto Ball will be sponsored by organizations like Coinbase and the Satoshi Action Fund and will “celebrate American Innovation.”)

In between these celebratory activities, the Trump White House is expected to release a host of executive actions that have been in the works since just after Election Day. The flurry of activity is expected to be significant in both volume and reach, and much heavier than we have seen from recent administrations, including President Trump’s own first term. What is on Trump’s agenda for day one of his second term, and how exactly does that list compare not only to what the country saw in the initial hours of the Biden, Obama, and Bush administrations, but to Trump’s own first term in office in 2017?

We’ll take a look this week, but first, let’s define some terms. Specifically, what is the difference between an executive action and an executive order?

Executive Action Vs. Executive Order
As Reuters has explained, an executive order is issued unilaterally by the president and has the force of law. The order can take effect immediately upon signature, or it can state a particular date for when the policy has the force of law.

There are limitations to what a president can use executive orders for, and Reuters explained those constraints. “The president cannot make new law beyond the powers specifically given to him by the Constitution or Congress,” the news wire explained. Additionally, “if an executive order instructs agencies to take action, any resulting agency rulemaking is subject to the federal Administrative Procedure Act, which requires agencies to allow public comment on any rules and forbids rules that are ‘arbitrary and capricious.’”

Back in 2014, National Public Radio (NPR) explained what the term “executive action” means, noting “executive order” and “executive action” are not interchangeable terms. An executive action “is kind of a catch-all term … it just means something the executive branch does.” NPR also quoted political writer Tom Murse, who noted most “executive actions carry no legal weight … [they] do not actually set policy [and] can be invalidated by the courts or undone by legislation passed by Congress.”

Now that we have defined these two important terms, let’s go to the history books.

Inauguration Day Was Fairly Quiet Until Joe Biden
Critics are likely to question the volume, scope, and justifications of Trump’s day-one executive actions, but how is the expected volume expected to compare to the initial executive actions released by Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush?

According to a list compiled by CNN, on his first day in office on January 20, 2021, President Biden issued 17 executive actions, only nine of which were executive orders. While there were three concerning the COVID-19 pandemic and two each regarding equity, the environment, and the economy, the top matter on the Biden administration’s mind at the time was immigration. He issued four executive actions concerning this issue.

Three of the four immigration executive actions unwound policies put in place during the Trump administration. Specifically, they:

• Reversed the Trump administration’s restrictions on U.S. entry for passport holders from seven Muslim-majority countries;
• Unwound President Trump’s expansion of immigration enforcement within the United States; and
• Halted construction of the border wall by terminating the national emergency declaration used to fund it.

On his first day in office in 2017, President Trump issued just one executive order. As NBC News explained, this edict stated the Trump administration’s intent to reverse parts of the Affordable Care Act. Specifically, it said the Trump administration would “seek prompt repeal” and instructed the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and other agency heads to “waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation” of any part of the law that places a fiscal burden on the government, businesses or individuals.

President Trump did not issue any presidential memoranda or other executive actions on January 20, 2017. The ban on travelers from Muslim-majority countries was not announced until a week after Trump’s inauguration.

President Obama issued at least five executive actions on his first day in office, January 21, 2009, two of which were executive orders. One order and two presidential memoranda declared a “new era of openness” and made it easier for citizens to request, and receive, information from the federal government. Another executive order was aimed at improving government ethics. It stated, “Every appointee in every executive agency appointed on or after January 20, 2009, shall sign, and upon signing shall be contractually committed to, the following pledge upon becoming an appointee.”

President George W. Bush did not issue any executive orders or actions on his first day in office. His first order, issued on January 29, 2001, outlined his administration’s faith-based and community initiative plan.

What’s On Trump’s Agenda For January 20, 2025?
Over the last several days, several news outlets have reported that President-elect Trump could issue as many as 100 executive actions in his first days in office. Not every one of those may come on the first day, but the day one volume is expected to exceed his predecessors. (For context, according to The American Presidency Project, President Ulysses S. Grant was the first president to sign more than 100 executive orders in his entire term in office, which was eight years. President George Washington issued just eight executive orders; President John Adams only one.)

According to lawyers at Pillsbury, LLP, the incoming president’s executive actions are generally expected to fall into one of five categories:

• Trade policy. Under this heading, President-elect Trump is expected to impose 10 percent tariffs on all global imports, 25 percent tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico (sold by the Trump transition team as a bid to get both countries to increase border security), and 60 percent tariffs on products from China.
• Immigration and border security. President-elect Trump is expected to sign an executive action directing U.S. Customers and Border Patrol agents to arrest more individuals at the southern border. He also may sign orders to deploy military resources to the border, to direct executive branch agencies to restart construction of the border wall that President Biden halted on his first day in office, and to reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while claims are processed.
• Energy and the environment. While immigration and trade policy have garnered a lot of attention by the press, the president-elect is expected to make serious moves under this heading as well. Specifically, it has been anticipated that he will withdraw the United States from a global climate change agreement, revoke restrictions on oil and gas drilling restrictions, and remove bans on liquefied natural gas exports. While expanding oil and gas exploration, President-elect Trump also is reportedly working on an executive order that would ban the construction of offshore wind turbines.
• Regulatory policy. While Congress will work to undo last-minute Biden-era regulations, including Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rules to cap the overdraft fees banks can charge and another subjecting nonbanks with digital payment platforms to greater scrutiny, through the Congressional Review Act, President-elect Trump is likely to issue a general edict directing federal agencies to work to undo Biden-era regulations that cannot simply be rescinded by Congress.
• Controlling the federal workforce. President-elect Trump is expected to issue executive actions that will limit remote work policies for federal employees and ban diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, programs, and requirements within federal agencies.

While pardons are normally left to the end of a commander-in-chief’s term — since they can be controversial — President-elect Trump seems poised to ignore precedent. Specifically, he confirmed that he intends to pardon hundreds of individuals involved in the January 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol. “Most likely, I’ll do it very quickly,” President-elect Trump said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” recently.

Could all of these promises simply be bluster — campaign promises that really will not come to fruition? Republicans certainly don’t think so. On CBS last weekend, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wy.) promised, “When President Trump takes office next Monday, there is going to be shock and awe with executive orders.”

Hold on tight.