WHITE HOUSE
How many of Trump’s executive actions will stand?
A hasty process may undermine the new President’s agenda
This afternoon of Inauguration Day, all attention will shift to the actions of Donald J. Trump, not just his words. With news of nearly 100 executive orders ready to be signed this week, its worth exploring a bit about how this all works.
Four years ago, newly-sworn-in-President Joe Biden signed his name 17 times on a variety of Day 1 actions. Some were executive orders, but others were memoranda, directives, proclamations, and letters, covering everything from immigration to the environment to COVID-19.
Each one of these actions took incredible amount of work during the transition period to write, yet the process remains a mystery. Just as has been the case this fall, few know how even a single executive order comes to be, let alone the nearly 100 that are expected today.
One person I interviewed for my book Roadblocked who was involved in this for the Biden-Harris transition team explained the time-consuming process this way: “it went anywhere from conceptual to pen-to-paper to refinement.”
In some cases, the, like COVID-19, they were starting from scratch, in other cases, like on immigration, many of those involved had written extensively on the issue. Interest groups have plenty of ideas of what should happen too and are all too willing to send in the exact words that should be used. In all cases, the possibility that any action would be reversed by the courts, wore on everyone involved in the transition.
That’s exactly what happened eight years ago, when some Trump executive orders didn’t stand. Within a few months, a federal court blocked Trump’s Executive Order 13768 to restrict federal funding to cities that didn’t comply with immigration enforcement. A federal judge later declared that order unconstitutional in November of that year.
Knowing this had happened, the Biden-Harris transition team was especially vigilant. Once they started writing, the reviews began: “You come back with a memo and [the leaders of the transition team] think it through again, and then you go up a level and then it would come back.” All with the loud ticking of the clock of Inauguration Day.
The extensive drafting, meeting, and revising, resulted in what another transition team member concluded: “on Day 1, everything is written already, all the executive orders are written, they just have to be signed.”
That’s where we are right now, waiting for the second Trump inaugural. News has already started to leak out about what will be in the executive actions Trump will sign today. Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan report for the New York Times that Trump’s actions today will target federal diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, federal bureaucrats, and the Border. None of these are surprising, but all will have massive ramifications for the country.
There’s a telling detail at the end of this reporting worth considering.
Swan and Haberman write that at a Sunday event Trump “said he had beaten back efforts by some advisers to delay his Day 1 executive orders, saying he wants to give the country a massive first day and first week in office filled with activity.”
In his eagerness to act quickly, Trump may be walking into the same problem he faced eight years ago. Rather than waiting for his team to completed a thorough review of each action, his haste may cost him parts of his agenda.
We don’t know which orders Trump has pushed through against the advice of his advisers, but all attention should be on those words attached to his signature. Trump’s team knows what happened in 2017 and has been prepared for court challenges, likely better than than were the last time around. Nevertheless, executive action ultimately takes an executive with the patience to follow advice, something the incoming President has the weakest of records on.
