Donald Trump’s Consequential First Day
Love him, hate him, hug him, escape him, however you feel about President Donald Trump, a genuine observer can only admit that Trump’s return to office began with a bang. The newly minted second term chief executive held court for 12 hours on his first day in office, spending more time with the public and the media than we have seen Joe Biden over the past 18 months, or so it felt anyway. Trump also answered more questions in a single day than folks can recall Biden doing over the course of his four years in office.
Trump issued a veritable avalanche of Executive Orders, proclamations, pardons and commutations at the Capital One Center sports arena not long after giving his ambitious inaugural address and continued signing more in the Oval Office a couple hours later, taking questions from reporters while he signed them.
Tacking into the Winds of Change
With a thick black marker Trump erased much of what Biden sought to accomplish in his term, rolling back a passel of Biden actions to rousing applause from the partisan Trump audience at the Capital One Center. Between there and the Oval Office, the new president ended DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) in government, defined only two genders, declared national emergencies at the southern border and in energy, ordered the military to protect the border, directed investigations into government bureaucrats’ undermining elections, gave tik tok a 75 day window to work out a divestment deal, restored the death penalty, declared drug cartels as terrorist organizations, suspended asylum abuses, ordered federal workers back to their offices, ended the CBP One app that facilitated immigration abuse, and so much more.
While the changes mentioned above will send a shock to the system, as it were, three other Trump actions are what will draw the most attention and action from the “resistance.” The so-called resistance is a loose grouping of leftist organizations and politicians who openly state their intention to legally and illegally undermine the Trump Administration.
President Trump reversed 78 Biden-era executive actions. While that will annoy the political left, three Trump actions have become the focus of the resistance’s ire and consternation. This includes pardons or commutations for over 1,500 January 6th accused, ending “birthright citizenship,” and creation of the presidential advisory commission Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
January 6th Pardons and Commutations
U.S. and foreign media have obsessed about the pardons, offering false impressions that the 1,500 committed violent crimes when the vast majority were guilty of minor misdemeanors, at most. The Department of Justice abused its authority to intimidate most of the accused in kangaroo court proceedings after threatening outrageous jail terms for minor misdemeanor allegations. Hundreds of defendants who could not afford attorneys for their defense took plea bargains, many of whom never even entered the Capitol Building, rather than face years in prison. The faux anger over Trump’s “Jan 6” pardons is in stark contrast to the free pass or, at best, mild criticism for Biden pardoning his family and issuing nonsensical and unprecedented pardons for crimes not charged to protect the left’s false Jan 6 narrative. If only the media were balanced and objective, reasonable observers would perhaps be more concerned about the Jan 6 pardons. By displaying a lack of objectivity, the media have lost all credibility.
Ending “Birthright Citizenship”
President Trump’s Executive Order rescinding “birthright citizenship” drew not only the ire of the political left but also raised eyebrows among many Trump supporters who likely embrace the idea but realize the order is unlikely to survive legal challenges. Only a day after Trump signed the order, 22 states’ attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration over the issue.
The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (ratified in 1868) grants full citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." Illegal aliens are neither citizens nor legal residents subject to U.S. jurisdiction. The 14th Amendment was intended to reverse the constitutionally legal but repugnant Dred Scott decision of 1857, which determined that slaves were not citizens. In effect, the 14th Amendment reversed the Scott case, extending citizenship to former slaves. However, since the 1980s this concept has been widely abused, leading to the concept of “birth tourism” and so called “anchor babies.” Millions of children have been born to criminal aliens who have no legal basis to enter the United States, as well as Chinese nationals (and others) who visit the United States solely to give birth and secure unearned citizenship for their offspring.
Trump’s Executive Order rescinding birthright citizenship rests on shaky legal grounds. On January 23rd, 2025, US District Judge John Coughenour temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's executive order, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.” While the judge’s view has long been a widely accepted interpretation of the 14th Amendment, Trump may be counting on legal challenges to get this issue before the Supreme Court for a final verdict. If so, the president may have opened a window of scrutiny into the issue. The courts will decide the issue or Congress could begin an amendment process. Meanwhile, Coughenour's order blocks federal agencies from implementing the executive order, while the case is under review.
Legal Challenges only Minutes after Trump Sworn In
The president’s new presidential advisory commission, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was the first executive action to face a challenge from the political left. Only minutes after Trump was sworn into office, DOGE faced three lawsuits over allegations that it violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 (FACA), which among other requirements, states that all meetings are public record and that its membership be “fairly balanced” in its points of view.
Public Citizen’s co-president Lisa Gilbert, which filed two of the lawsuits, claimed that “as constructed, DOGE’s mission to advise OMB and the White House on how to slash regulations and cut expenditures puts at risk important consumer safeguards and public protections.” Adding, that DOGE “fails to consider how to more efficiently regulate companies to better protect consumers, how to eliminate wasteful and inefficient corporate subsidies and efficient public investments to make America stronger.” Public Citizen, founded in 1971 by consumer advocate and three-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader, claims to be a nonpartisan, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization. The timing of the lawsuits prior to the establishment of DOGE undermines the credibility of the suits, giving the impression they are intended more as political obstruction than genuine concerns over a 1972 law.
The Road Ahead
Whatever the eventual outcome of these executive decisions, Donald Trump is clearly far better prepared to govern this time than when he first entered office eight years ago. Contemporary Trump is more seasoned, battle tested, well acquainted with Washington D.C., prepared to take on his opponents and full of ambition for himself and the country. As only the second president with non-consecutive terms in office and the only one of those two with term limits preventing him from running yet again, he has only four years to leave a legacy. With the clock running, President Trump has begun his term with alacrity.
Chris Wyatt