Day One Overhaul
Keeping track of the promises Trump has made on the day he is inaugurated
Right after Trump was first inaugurated back on January 20, 2017, one of his first fights with the media was about crowd size. Specifically, Trump falsely claimed his inauguration crowd size was larger than his predecessor Barack Obama, and insisted there wasn’t rain during his speech even though photos have shown his wife Melania using an umbrella.
Many Republican operatives and insiders were caught off-guard by Trump’s victory, and the ensuing months of his first term were marred by chaos and legislative gridlock. This time, they are prepared.
No, we are not re-litigating Project 2025, though if you forgot what it is all about, this piece from November 2023 sharing the key details of Project 2025 should be of good reference.
Don't Look Away
This time, we are keeping track of what Donald Trump has said he would do on the first day of his second term. If he fulfills most, if not all, of his promises, it would be one of the most prominent use (or abuse) of executive power in recent political memory. However, we do know Donald Trump is a habitual liar, and there is a likely chance such promises could not be enacted on day one, if not for the remainder of his presidency.
Regardless, it is helpful to have a sense of the sheer scale of what the man has promised to do. Because it is a doozy. Based on 122 speeches, press conferences, and interviews with the president-elect from the beginning of 2023 to December 2024, Axios journalists have compiled a long list of Trump promises on his first day in office.
Starting with the most prominent policies, Trump has repeatedly promised to act tough on immigration, He has promised to start the mass deportation of migrants, telling the crowd during a Madison Square Garden rally back in October: “On Day 1, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out. I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered, and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail, then kick them the hell out of our country as fast as possible.” However, as discussed before, there are serious questions into the feasibility and resources needed to carry it out.
The president-elect also wants to close down the borders, a repeated ambition that he has provided little to no detail on executing. Trump has also promised to sign an executive order ending birthright citizenship, which could set a constitutional showdown against the 14th Amendment when sent to the Supreme Court.
Experts have suggested Trump might bring back the infamous “Remain in Mexico” policy, which requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while claims are processed and was criticized by Joe Biden when it was implemented. On the subject of Joe Biden, Trump has promised to terminate "open border policies” implemented during the Biden administration and revoke the current president’s executive orders on immigration. The president-elect has also promised to stop flights bringing migrants into the country, restoring Trump’s “famous” travel ban and expanding it to prevent refugees from war-torn Gaza, suspend refugee admissions into the US, and close the “Biden migration app.”
Another key aspect of Trump’s first-day promises is trying to clear himself and his supporters of crimes. The president-elect has promised to fire Jack Smith “within two seconds” of taking office, and news reports have later indicated the special counsel would step down before Trump takes office. Trump could set himself free of federal crimes investigated by Smith, but it is much harder getting rid of the Georgia election interference case or pardoning himself over convictions in his New York hush-money case.
One of Smith’s cases looks at Trump’s culpability in plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, leading up to the January 6 insurrection. The president-elect openly suggested that he would pardon the supporters who attacked the Capitol that day, as reported by the AP.
Trump launched his general election campaign in March by not merely trying to rewrite the history of that riot, but positioning the violent siege and failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election as a cornerstone of his bid to return to the White House. As part of that, he called the rioters “unbelievable patriots” and promised to help them “the first day we get into office.”
As president, Trump can pardon anyone convicted in federal court, District of Columbia Superior Court or in a military court-martial. He can stop the continued prosecution of rioters by telling his attorney general to stand down.
“I am inclined to pardon many of them,” Trump said on his social media platform in March when announcing the promise. “I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control.”
In domestic policy, Trump has promised to dismantle the “deep state” of government workers, which could strip tens of thousands of career employees of their civil service protections and make it easier to get fired. There are two reasons Trump wants to do this. Firstly, the president-elect has long wanted to drastically reduce the federal workforce which he sees as an unnecessary drain. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) could help Trump during his second term in rooting out what they see as unnecessary government personnel and spending, though it is still a big question whether their advice will be heeded. Secondly, the president-elect wants to “totally obliterate the deep state,” which Trump sees are perceived enemies who are hiding in government jobs. Re-quoting the AP piece, this is how Trump wants to cut government jobs.
Within the government, there are hundreds of politically appointed professionals who come and go with administrations. There also are tens of thousands of “career” officials, who work under Democratic and Republican presidents. They are considered apolitical workers whose expertise and experience help keep the government functioning, particularly through transitions.
Trump wants the ability to convert some of those career people into political jobs, making them easier to dismiss and replace with loyalists. He would try to accomplish that by reviving a 2020 executive order known as “Schedule F.” The idea behind the order was to strip job protections from federal workers and create a new class of political employees. It could affect roughly 50,000 of 2.2 million civilian federal employees.
This is not to mention Trump’s particular focus on “corrupt bureaucrats who have weaponized our justice system” and “corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus.” That leads to talk of cracking down on government officials who leak to reporters, and requiring that federal employees pass a new civil service test.
On abortion rights, Trump has vowed to reverse course on Title X, the country’s only national, federally-funded family planning program. Despite Biden reversing Trump’s damages during his first term, the president-elect is likely to change it back.
In 2019, during his first term, Trump’s administration implemented a new rule that prohibited any health provider in the Title X network from mentioning abortion to patients, even if a patient raised questions about it themselves.
The change effectively stripped tens of millions of dollars from organisations such as Planned Parenthood that offer or refer patients for abortions.
Then there are the foreign policy moves. Trump has repeatedly vowed to settle the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours of taking office, brought to you by the man who claimed he could end the Ukraine war within 24 hours of getting elected. However, the president-elect admitted his words could be more hyperbole than actual policy, telling reporters that peace may even be "more difficult" than ending the Israel-Hamas war, another conflict Trump has promised to end during his campaign. In more concrete policies, news have emerged that Trump wants to pull out from the Paris Agreement again, as well as leaving the WHO.
On trade, Trump’s keynote policy is tariffs, or as he put it, “the greatest thing ever invented.” As the BBC noted, Trump has a lot of problems and proposed solutions regarding this economic policy.
Trump’s plan includes imposing tariffs on imported goods, especially those coming in from China, arguing that these taxes would keep manufacturing jobs in the US.
"I'm a big believer in tariffs. I think tariffs are the most beautiful word. I think they're beautiful. It's going to make us rich," the Republican said on Meet the Press.
It’s still unclear how widespread these tariffs will be, but Trump has raised the prospect of at least a 10% across-the-board tariff on imported goods, as well as a 60% import tax on goods from China.
He also vowed to target Canada and Mexico with his tariffs.
“I’m going to inform (the Mexican president) on Day 1 or sooner that if they don’t stop this onslaught of criminals and drugs coming into our country, I’m going to immediately impose a 25% tariff on everything they send into the US,” he has said.
In December, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a last-minute trip to visit Trump at Mar-a-Lago, reportedly seeking to head-off what would be a punishing tax on Canadian goods.
On the domestic economy, Trump said he would sign an executive order that directs every cabinet secretary and agency head to “use every tool and authority at their disposal” to defeat inflation and to bring consumer prices down. To combat what he saw as “the Biden-Harris war on American energy,” Trump vowed to “drill, baby, drill” ramping up oil drilling and fracking while abolishing environmental protections that set guardrails against reckless action. (Fun fact, the US has increased oil production during the Biden administration, so it is also likely Trump would just claim a win while doing nothing new). The new president is also a champion of cryptocurrency, vowing to fire Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Gary Gensler, a man hated by advocates for his strong enforcement of the cryptocurrency market. Yet again, Trump had toned down his rhetoric on curbing inflation, a key talking point during his rallies. In an interview with NBC News, the president-elect said: “It's hard to bring [prices] down once they're up. You know, it's very hard.”
However, one of the biggest accomplishments Trump can and will achieve is throwing red meat at his MAGA base. The key culture war issue that Trump has vowed to tackle is trans rights, which he has happily used as a wedge issue during the campaign. As the AP put it, his first day will see significant advances in LGBT rights backsliding.
The Biden administration announced new Title IX protections in April that made clear treating transgender students differently from their classmates is discrimination. Trump responded by saying he would roll back those changes, pledging to do some on the first day of his new administration and specifically noting he has the power to act without Congress.
“We’re going to end it on Day 1,” Trump said in May. “Don’t forget, that was done as an order from the president. That came down as an executive order. And we’re going to change it — on Day 1 it’s going to be changed.”
It is unlikely Trump will stop there.
Speaking at a Wisconsin rally in June, Trump said “on Day 1" he would “sign a new executive order” that would cut federal money for any school “pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content onto the lives of our children.”
Trump hasn’t said how he would try to cut schools’ federal money, and any widespread rollback would require action from Congress.
If you have noticed much of Trump’s promises are just trying to please his base, but with no actual plan of implementation, you’re not wrong. Back to the Axios chart, the president-elect has promised, among other things: Cutting federal funding for schools that have a vaccine mandate, banning trans women from competing in women's sports, asking for resignations of those involved in withdrawal from Afghanistan, revoking federal DEI requirements, and revoking Biden's executive order combating firearms.
Then there are the extremely vague “pledges” Trump has made: Ending "Bidenomics" and starting "MAGAnomics," ending "Green New Deal" policies, bringing "competence and common sense" back to the Oval Office, terminating all Biden policies harmful to workers, restore "constitutional government," end troubles for Hispanic Americans, and reverse every Biden-Harris "disaster," whatever the hell that means.
In summary, Trump has made a lot of vague promises on top of concrete policies that could damage America’s standing in the world, if not creating genuine pain for Americans and his voters. But hey, they elected the man democratically, the only question now is how much damage can he actually wreck.