Day One
We’ve all been reading about what Trump plans to do on ‘Day One’ of his second term in office.
Just as a reminder – ‘Day 1’ will be Monday, January 20, 2025. In an odd twist of the calendar, this is also Martin Luther King Day – the federal holiday set to honor a man Fred Trump would not have allowed to live in one of his apartment complexes.
What happens on Inauguration Day?
The outgoing president and first lady will welcome the president-elect and his family to the White House. This usually happens mid-morning.
Both the incoming and outgoing Presidents, along with their families, will travel to the U.S. Capitol for the inaugural ceremony. This joint motorcade is to symbol unity.
We should note that Trump did not afford President Biden this courtesy in 2020. Because Biden is a grown-up, he will do this the right way in 2025.
The incoming President will be welcomed at the Capitol while the outgoing President and other attendees will take their seats on the West Front of the Capitol Building (the part facing the National Mall).
After a series of speeches and musical performances, the vice president and then the president will take their oaths of office around noon.
The newly inaugurated president will give his inaugural address.
Immediately after the inaugural ceremony, the president and vice president and their families will attend a Congressional Luncheon hosted by the leadership of both houses of Congress. The outgoing President will not attend.
A parade will follow the luncheon. The newly sworn-in officials will be at the front of the parade and will review the parade from an enclosed stand on the edge of the North Lawn on the White House campus. The parade will end at about 5:00 pm.
While the White House is unoccupied during the day, the permanent White House staff and the staffs of the incoming and outgoing presidents will move the prior president out and the incoming president in. This is a meticulously timed process that is usually accomplished in a matter of hours.
After the ceremony and parade, the new president may sign executive orders.
In the evening the President and First Lady traditionally a series of inaugural balls, although I have not been able to pin down exactly how many of these events Trump will attend.
I’ve bold-faced one of the items above because the newly elected president has been saying for a year that he will sign a slew of executive orders on ‘Day One.’
First, let’s define an Executive Order. An executive order is a directive issued by the President of the United States that has the force of law. It is used to manage operations within the federal government and implement laws enacted by Congress. Executive orders are a way for the President to exercise their authority, particularly in areas where they have constitutional or statutory powers. Executive orders do not create new laws or allocate funds that Congress had not appropriated. Modern presidents have relied on executive orders not only to respond to urgent issues but also to overcome legislative gridlock.
Executive orders have sometimes had serious consequences. The 1863 Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order, as were Truman’s order to desegregate the Armed Services in 1948 and Obama’s 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) order.
Here are some of the ‘Day One’ Executive Orders Trump has promised.
Immigration
End automatic citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants born in the U.S.
End “birth tourism”
Restore the Muslim travel ban
Deny entry to all “foreign Christian-hating communists, Marxists, and socialists.
Order some as-yet-unidentified mass deportations by declaring a national emergency and using the military to carry out the deportations.
Education
Cut federal funding to any school “pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content onto our children” (that’s a direct quote because I’m not sure what this means)
End Title IX discrimination protections for transgender students
Energy
End offshore wind projects
Kill the Biden administration’s “electric vehicle mandate”
Terminate the Green New Deal initiatives contained in the Inflation Reduction Act
Approve a list of new drilling and pipeline projects
Health Care
Revoke the Biden administration’s “cruel” gender-affirming care policies
Instruct every federal agenda to cease the promotion of sex or gender transition at any age
Trade
Implement steep tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico, and China
The numbers are a little squishy. He has said he will impose between a 10-20% blanket tariff on all imports, at least a 60% tariff on all imports from China, and 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico unless they clamp down on drugs and migrants crossing the border. He also has promised an additional 10% tariff on all Chinese goods unless China implements the death penalty for all drug dealers linked to Fentanyl.
Foreign Policy
End the war between Russia and Ukraine (he gave himself 24 hours to get this done).
Labor
Remove job protections for thousands of federal workers by redesignating their roles to a “Schedule F” category, making them political appointees who could be fired by the president.
Department of Justice
Pardon some January 6 rioters “if they’re innocent.”
Fire Jack Smith
Technology
Repeal President Biden’s artificial intelligence order (this order calls for new checks and risk analysis on the technology while investigating its usefulness for the government.
Ban federal departments from working with any group limiting speech
Ban federal money being used for labeling any speech as misinformation or disinformation
Fire any federal employees “engaged in domestic censorship.”
Literally no one – including Trump – thinks he can do all of this on January 20 in the time between meet-and-greets, ceremonies, speeches, lunches, parades, dinners, and parties. But we need to keep two things in mind.
Trump will not write these executive orders himself. He won’t read them. He will sign the EOs that his staff (the gang of convicted felons, pardonees, toadies, and various hangers-on) put in front of him during the brief time he will be in the Oval Office. They are writing these EOs right now. When the blowback happens, he will fling ketchup at the walls and fire people. We’ve seen this movie before.
Trump has a somewhat generous definition of what counts as Day One. In 2017, when Inauguration Day was on a Friday, Trump said the following in an interview with The Times of London:
“Day 1 – which I will consider to be Monday as opposed to Friday or Saturday. Right? I mean my day one is gonna be Monday because I don’t want to be signing and get it mixed up with lots of celebrations.”
So Day One could be, oh, I don’t know, maybe Week One or Month One or Year One because facts don’t really matter.
We need to pay attention.
Goodgod.
God help us.