Agencies
Washington
At noon Monday, a new Donald Trump era begins.
A stack of actions designed to reshape government policy will be awaiting the new president’s signature as soon as he is sworn in — a dramatic show of force meant to set the tone for the next four years.
Trump is unlikely to wait until he reaches the Oval Office to bring out his Sharpie pen; after musing on the campaign trail of placing a “tiny desk” on the inaugural platform to sign his orders, some will await him at the US Capitol immediately after his swearing-in.
Yet the new era will be felt far beyond the walls of the Capitol — where Trump will be sworn in indoors, due to expected bitter cold — or the executive mansion.
In major metropolitan areas, immigration raids could begin almost immediately as the new president follows through on campaign promises to deport undocumented migrants.
Inside jail cells, January 6, 2021, defendants will await word of pardons, which Trump has promised to sign as soon as he returned to power.
And across the globe, leaders in foreign capitals will watch anxiously to see how the new American leader begins executing his plans for tariffs, land grabs and an end to grinding wars.
“Your head will spin when you see what’s going to happen,” Trump once promised of his Day 1 plans.
For his supporters, the moves will amount to a thrilling fulfilment of the populist, anti-immigrant themes of his campaign. But to those opposed, they will signal a dark new moment — and a call to legal action. Trump is planning to issue dozens of executive actions — more than 100 just on Day 1, at least in his own telling — within his first week in office, sources familiar with his plans told CNN, including those aimed at ramping up US energy production, tightening border security, reeling in regulations and other top policy priorities. He’s also seeking options to keep TikTok available in the United States, a task made urgent by a Sunday deadline to ban the app.
“I’ll be making the decision,” he told CNN’s Pamela Brown by phone on Friday after the Supreme Court upheld the ban.
It’s almost certain some of the items Trump promised on the campaign trail to execute on his first day won’t happen.
But the scale of Trump’s plans — if they materialize — would go well beyond any recent president’s attempts at wielding the power of his office, testing the limits of the presidency.
In the eyes of Trump and his team, the flurry of actions on his first day will herald the arrival of a new regime — a sharp break not only from the last four years but also from the chaos that governed the early days of Trump’s first go-around.
This time, the message is one of swift action, on a greater scale and with better coordination.
“We want to come in and show just how serious we are. Trump is back, it’s go time. Like a shock to the system,” one Trump adviser told CNN.
Preparation for Trump’s first day in office has been in the works since well before he won last year’s election.
Conservative groups have spent the last four years exploring the bounds of executive power and looking for avenues Trump could take on a wide array of policies should he return to the White House.
