Donald Trump, emboldened by his unprecedented political comeback, set to work unraveling Joe Biden ’s legacy Monday as soon as he was sworn in as the 47th president, claiming a mandate to reshape American institutions.
He began signing executive orders onstage at a downtown arena as thousands of supporters cheered, melding the theatrics of his campaign rallies with the formal powers of the presidency. He froze the issuing of new regulations, asserted his control over the federal workforce and withdrew from the Paris climate agreement.
Trump also rescinded dozens of directives issued by Biden, including those relating to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, global warming and sanctioning Israeli settlers involved in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. When finished, he tossed the pens into the crowd.
“We won, we won, but now the work begins,” Trump said before a crowd of people in “Make America Great Again” hats.
The Republican president abandoned the more solemn tone of his inaugural address from earlier in the day and taunted his Democratic predecessor while scrawling his name in thick black ink on his executive orders.
“Could you imagine Biden doing this?” he said. “I don’t think so!”
Trump declared in his inaugural address that the government faces a “crisis of trust.” Under his administration, he said, “our sovereignty will be reclaimed. Our safety will be restored. The scales of justice will be rebalanced.”
Trump claimed “a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal,” promising to “give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and indeed their freedom.”
“From this moment on,” he added as Biden watched from the front row, “America’s decline is over.”
Trump calls birthright citizenship ‘ridiculous’ as he tries to end it
Trump says he favors legal immigration as he signed orders declaring a national emergency on the U.S. border with Mexico, suspending refugee resettlement and ending automatic citizenship for anyone born in the United States.
Trump acknowledged an imminent legal challenge to overturning birthright citizenship, which has been enshrined in the U.S. Constitution since 1868. He said automatic citizenship was “just ridiculous” and that he believes he was on “good (legal) ground” to change it.
“That’s a big one,” he bantered with reporters while signing an order declaring the border emergency.
Trump said immigrant labor was needed for investment that he anticipates will accompany higher tariffs.
“I’m fine with legal immigration. I like it, we need people,” he said.
Trump executive order keeps TikTok online for now
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday to keep TikTok operating for 90 days, a relief to the social media platform’s users even as national security questions persist.
TikTok’s China-based parent was supposed to find a U.S. buyer or be banned on the previous Sunday. Trump’s order would give them more time to find a buyer.
“I guess I have a warm spot for TikTok,” Trump says.
Trump says the United States as a country should own half of TikTok, which he estimated could be worth $1 trillion.
“I think the US should be entitled to get half of TikTok and, congratulations, TikTok has a good partner and that would be worth, you know, could be $500 billion,” Trump says.
Former President Joe Biden declined to enforce the bipartisan measure that he signed into law, while Trump has pledged to keep TikTok open after crediting it for helping his 2024 election victory. Trump’s legal authority to preserve TikTok is unclear under the terms of the law recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
No West Wing office for Musk
Trump says Elon Musk won’t get a desk in the West Wing.
The president made the comment while signing executive orders in the Oval Office.
Trump has named Musk, the Tesla and X CEO, as head of the Department of Government Efficiency.
A new round of executive actions
Trump is using the first appearance of his second term in the Oval Office to sign another series of executive actions. Here are some of the key things he’s signed:
— pardons and commutations that Trump said would cover about 1,500 people criminally charged in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021
— overhauling the refugee admission program to better align with American principles and interests
— declaring a “national emergency” at the U.S.-Mexico border
— designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations
Trump rescinds 2021 Title IX order
Trump rescinded a 2021 order signaling the Education Department would use Title IX to protect against discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
The Biden administration later went further to cement that interpretation into federal regulation, but it was overturned after Republican-led states challenged the rule in federal court.
Rescinding the 2021 order won’t have much effect on schools and colleges, but it clears the slate for other action by the Trump administration.
Trump also rescinded a COVID-19-era executive order directing federal officials to give schools guidance on reopening during the pandemic. That order, issued on Biden’s second day in office, also required the Education Department to explore the pandemic’s “disparate impacts” on students of color and students with disabilities.
Trump’s executive action freezing Biden’s action on Cuba
Trump has reversed an executive order issued by Biden that moved to lift the U.S. designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Biden formally notified Congress just last week of his decision to lift the designation as part of a deal facilitated by the Catholic Church to free political prisoners on the island.
The day after the announcement, Cuba began releasing people who were convicted of various crimes, including some who were arrested after taking part in the historic 2021 protests, according to Cuban civil groups following the cases of detainees on the island.
Trump’s executive action freezing many new orders by Biden
Trump has issued an order freezing many new or pending federal regulations, effectively blocking last-minute protections issued by the Biden administration.
Such an order is fairly common when a new administration takes over, but it could be the first in a series of moves designed to tamp down what the new president and other top Republicans have consistently decried as “federal overreach.”
The move recalled the first day of Trump’s first administration in 2017. Then, he froze all pending federal regulations, effectively suspending Obama-era actions that were new or closer to implementation.
That “immediate regulatory freeze” did not apply to some regulations being implemented for emergency situations relating to health, safety, financial or national security. Implementation of the new administration’s order is likely to include similar language allowing for key exceptions.
Trump’s executive action ordering federal employees back to work 5 days a week
Among the executive orders Trump signed with a flourish in front of a cheering crowd was one mandating that federal workers return to their offices five days a week.
The move followed the new president’s pledge to end the work-from-home culture that became common during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last month, at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Trump said he planned to dismiss federal employees who don’t return to the office to comply with the order.
Trump’s executive order on the federal hiring freeze
Trump has ordered a federal hiring freeze on his first day back in office, mirroring an action he took at the start of his first term to try to reduce the size of government.
The order suspends hiring for new positions and many open ones. It includes exceptions for posts related to national security and public safety, as well as the military.
During his campaign, Trump pledged to dismantle a federal bureaucracy that he derided as the “deep state.”
The order eight years ago was intended as a temporary, 90-day measure until federal budget officials, as well as those in charge of the government’s personnel office, could devise a longer-term strategy for reducing the size of the federal government — and it was effectively lifted that April.
How long the latest freeze may last is less clear. It is a drastic step away from the Biden administration, which took steps to increase the federal workforce and give pay raises to many in its ranks.
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