President Donald Trump is back in the White House and moving at warp speed to push through his agenda with dozens of executive orders, surveying damaged areas in North Carolina and California, and rallying behind his Cabinet nominees amid Senate confirmation showdowns.
In his inauguration address on Monday, the new president vowed that things across the country would “change starting today, and it will change very quickly.”
And moments later, White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich took to social media to tease, “Now, comes SHOCK AND AWE.”
They weren’t kidding. Trump signed an avalanche of executive orders and actions in his first eight hours in office, which not only fulfilled some of his major campaign trail promises, but also allowed the returning president to flex his executive muscles as well as settle some longstanding grievances.
The president immediately cracked down on immigration; moved towards a trade war with top allies and adversaries; and reversed many policies implemented by former President Joe Biden, including scrapping much of the previous administration’s federal diversity actions and energy and climate provisions.
He also sparked a major controversy by pardoning or commuting the sentences of roughly 1,500 supporters who took part in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol in an unsuccessful attempt to upend congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory. Among those whose sentences were commuted included some who violently assaulted police officers on one of America’s darkest days.
Trump also fired some top government officials; made a high-profile, half-trillion dollar tech investment announcement; held unscripted and wide-ranging, informal and impromptu news conferences during his first two days back at the White House; and even renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”
Amid the fast-paced environment of the first week of the Trump White House, Senate Republicans and the president’s allies rallied behind his Cabinet nominees and pushed them towards confirmation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe were easily confirmed by the Senate earlier this week, and several other nominees are expected to be confirmed between the weekend and next week.
On Friday, the president took to the skies, flying to hurricane-ravaged western North Carolina and then on to Los Angeles, where horrific wildfires this month have left a wide path of destruction.
Trump floated an overhaul, or the outright elimination, of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is better known by its acronym FEMA.
“I’ll also be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of FEMA. I think, frankly, FEMA is not good,” the president said on Friday.
Later that night, the Senate confirmed Trump’s defense secretary nominee and former Fox News host, Pete Hegseth. All 100 senators voted, which ended in a 50-50 tie with Vice President J.D. Vance serving as the tie-breaking vote. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security nominee Kristi Noem was confirmed early Saturday afternoon by the Senate with a 59-34 vote.
“I think it’s brilliant how they’ve been handling it, to immediately meet the moment with action. It’s exactly what he needs to do and it’s exactly what the people voted for,” veteran Republican strategist Kristin Davison told Fox News.
“Americans vote for decisive, fast action, and true leadership. And Trump understands that more than anyone. I think he and his team knew how important it was out of the gate to show that they heard what the people wanted and are answering with leadership,” she argued.
There’s another reason for Trump’s fast pace — even though he’s the new president, he’s also a term-limited and lame-duck president.
“This is his second term. He’s got to move quickly,” Davison emphasized.
Trump’s show of force in the opening days of his second administration is also in contrast to eight years ago, when he first entered the White House.
The president and his team are much more seasoned the second time around, and the supporting cast is intensely loyal to Trump.
“In the past administration, there would be logjams and bottlenecks because there were people who didn’t agree with him,” a senior White House source told Fox News. “Now we have a whole infrastructure and staff that’s built around him, in support of him. When he says something, it’s getting done. It’s testament to him and the team that he built.”
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