After a blizzard of executive actions on his first day back in office, Day Two of President Donald Trump’s second term saw more moves meant to transform the country — and fresh signs of pushback to his agenda. Trump attended a national prayer service Tuesday morning, where Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde directly implored him to “have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” including LGBTQ people and immigrants. And legalchallenges were filed to some of Trump’s new executive orders.
The president also met with Republican leaders to discuss his legislative agenda, with questions needing to be resolved about their plans to fund the government and avoid a government shutdown in March and to pass one or two broad, partisan budget reconciliation bills. And he announced a joint venture between OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle to create a new company called Stargate to build artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States. The companies plan to invest $100 billion in the project and could commit as much as $500 billion over four years. Trump claimed that the project will create “over 100,000 American jobs almost immediately.”
A Look at What Trump Did on Day One
Trump launched into his second term as president, fulfilling a host of campaign promises on Monday through a sweeping series of executive actions — more than 200 in all, according to the White House, including 42 executive orders, memoranda or proclamations as well as 115 personnel actions.
After taking the oath of office in the Capitol rotunda — where four of the five richest men in the world had prime seats, and leaders from Argentina, China and Italy were also in attendance — Trump’s moves focused largely on immigration, energy, diversity and bending the federal government to his will.
Trump quickly reversed 78 Biden administration policies, including one meant to lower prescription drug costs and another requiring executive branch employees to sign an ethics pledge. And in an unprecedented test of presidential power that sets the stage for the next four years and a slew of court fights, he also:
- declared a national emergency at the southern border;
- halted federal hiring and regulations;
- ended most remote work for federal employees;
- established the Department of Government Efficiency;
- withdrew from the Paris climate treaty and the World Health Organization;
- pulled the United States out of a global corporate minimum tax deal negotiated by the Biden administration and nearly 140 countries;
- froze the disbursement of foreign aid money;
- ordered an end to birthright citizenship;
- declared that the government would only recognize male and female sexes;
- renamed the Gulf of Mexico and Mount Denali (henceforth to be known as the Gulf of America and Mount McKinley, respectively).
On top of all that, Trump granted clemency to all rioters charged in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including hundreds convicted of violent felonies.
Among the things Trump didn’t do was introduce new tariffs on foreign goods, but he did promise that he’d impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico on February 1. Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he is considering 10% tariffs on China that could also be imposed on February 1.
That's just two days. Buckle up.