Newly inaugurated President Donald Trump hit the ground running on the first day of his second term with a flurry of executive actions, delivering on promises made in his inaugural address just hours earlier. By sundown on Monday, Trump had put pen to paper on dozens of executive orders, rescinding 78 orders from the Biden administration, changing the names of major landmarks, and deploying government resources to address immigration, inflation, and energy—and with even more orders in the works, the president is clearly just getting started.
Here’s a rundown of actions President Trump took upon his return to the White House:
Mass Pardon for January 6 “Hostages”
In one of his most notable day-one acts, Trump issued a widespread pardon for approximately 1,500 individuals charged or convicted in connection with the January 6 Capitol riot. The beneficiaries of the pardon included Enrique Tarrio, former leader of the Proud Boys, who was serving a 22-year sentence on charges of seditious conspiracy, as well as individuals convicted of assaulting police officers during the riot.
Trump had long pledged to secure the release of those arrested in connection to the riot, often referring to them as “hostages” or political prisoners.
“You’re gonna see a lot of action on the J6 hostages,” Trump promised on inauguration day.
This mass clemency came hot on the heels of similar pardons from outgoing President Joe Biden, who spent his final day in office signing preemptive pardons for his siblings and their spouses, as well as for Dr. Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley, and the members of the House January 6 committee.
What Is A Woman? Now We Know…
In another order announced during his inaugural address, Trump issued a formal declaration that the US government recognizes male and female as the only real genders.
“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 in his inauguration speech.
The order defines a female as “a person belonging at conception to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell,” but does not address chromosomes, thereby avoiding making a determination about people born with chromosomal abnormalities. It also provides protections for women’s bathrooms and locker rooms and prohibits forced use of preferred gender pronouns.
Stopping the Border Invasion
As promised in his inauguration speech, Trump immediately declared a state of emergency at the southern border, paving the way for military deployment and additional border wall construction.
Across 10 separate executive orders, Trump reinstated the Remain in Mexico policy that formed the backbone of his first administration’s immigration system, designated cartels as terrorist organizations, shut down refugee resettlement applications via the CBP One app, and reinstated the death penalty for illegal immigrants who murder law enforcement officers.
Most controversially, Trump also ordered an end to birthright citizenship for children born to illegal immigrants. The order invokes the language of the 14th Amendment, which states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
The Trump administration contends that illegal immigrants are not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” and therefore their children cannot be immediately considered citizens. This order will likely face legal challenges, as the Supreme Court ruled in 1898 that birthright citizenship should be extended to all those born on US soil, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
Energy Emergency
Trump also declared a separate emergency for the energy sector, making good on his promise to “drill, baby, drill” by opening up millions of acres of Alaskan wilderness for fossil fuel harvesting. Under that state of emergency, the president can more easily approve new pipelines and expansions to national power grids by loosening regulations.
“We are going to export energy all over the world. We will be a rich nation again and it will be that liquid gold below our feet” that makes it happen,” he said during his inauguration.
Other orders overturned Biden’s own order restricting offshore drilling, put in place only weeks ago in what was intended to be a permanent act.
Back-to-Back Withdrawals
In a pair of orders hearkening back to his first term, Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 Paris Climate Accords and the UN’s World Health Organization, ending international influence on American climate and health policies.
Trump previously pulled the US out of the Paris Accords in 2017 citing its massive financial burden on taxpayers and its failure to enforce climate standards on developing countries like China. Upon taking office, Biden recommitted to the Accords’ carbon emission goals, using those standards to dictate American energy policy.
“The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity,” Trump said at the Capital One Arena on Monday night. “You know, China, they use a lot of ‘dirty’ energy, but they produce a lot of energy and when that stuff goes up in the air, you know, [it] doesn’t stay there … it floats into the United States of America.”
The Trump White House estimates that exiting the pact will save taxpayers $1 trillion.
Likewise, Trump withdrew from the WHO during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, only for Biden to rejoin it the following year. Trump’s new order ends American participation in negotiations over the WHO’s “global pandemic treaty,” which would increase international collaboration during disease outbreaks.
DEI is DEAD
“This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private light,” Trump said in his inauguration speech. “We will forge a society that is color-blind and merit-based.”
True to his word, Trump signed an order ending all federal programs that prioritize immutable characteristics like race and gender, further instructing the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and the attorney general to terminate all “discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear.”
Inflation Reduction…But For Real This Time
In a memorandum entitled “Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost-of-Living Crisis,” Trump authorized a whole-of-government response to runaway inflation and ordered all executive department heads to provide “emergency price relief.”
The order also seeks to address “harmful, coercive ‘climate’ policies” that increase food and gas prices.
Tariffs, Tariffs, Tariffs
“I will immediately begin the overhaul of our trade system to protect American workers and families,” Trump said during his speech. “Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.”
In a sweeping declaration, the president ordered federal agencies to begin reviewing “unfair” trade relationships with Canada, Mexico, and China. Trump is still contemplating a 25% tariff on America’s neighbors if they fail to address illegal immigration and fentanyl trafficking, and additional levies may be placed on China if they stand in the way of a new deal with TikTok.
TikTok’s Back!
Via executive order, Trump granted social media giant TikTok an extra 75 days to secure a US buyer before the ban on the app resumes.
This marks a major reversal for Trump, who issued an order banning the platform in August 2020 over national security concerns. Since then, Trump has had a change of heart about TikTok and now supports keeping it functioning in the US.
DOGE vs the Bureaucracy
Trump also announced a series of changes and reforms targeting federal employees, including an executive order requiring them to return to full-time in-person work. He noted that “only 6 percent of employees currently work in person.”
Another order officially establishes the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which will be headed by Elon Musk and tasked with eliminating waste within the administration.
Other Agenda Items
Trump announced an additional order revoking the Biden administration’s “electric vehicle mandate,” which had previously set a goal of making 50% of new vehicle sales be emission-free by the end of the decade.
“You’ll be able to buy the car of your choice,” Trump said. “We will build automobiles in America again at a rate that nobody could have dreamt possible just a few years ago.”
He also passed a series of orders cracking down on government censorship and directing the attorney general to investigate the weaponization of federal law enforcement against political opponents. The latter order instructs every federal agency to “preserve all records pertaining to political persecutions under the last administration, of which there were many, and beginning the process of exposing any and all abuses of power, even though he’s pardoned many of these people.”
Redrawing the Map
Lastly, Trump issued an executive order instructing the Department of the Interior to formally change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to “the Gulf of America,” reflecting greater US involvement in the region.
He also ordered that Alaska’s Mt. Denali revert back to its original name, Mt. McKinley, in honor of President William McKinley. The mountain, which is the tallest in US territory, bore that name from 1986 until 2015 when President Barack Obama renamed it at the behest of the state’s Native American tribes.
Connor Walcott is the lead writer for Valuetainment.com. Follow Connor on X and look for him on VT’s “The Unusual Suspects.”
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