Trump’s Day 1 promises are ambitious – and controversial

Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign promises were sweeping, delivered with bravado.

On Day 1 alone, then-candidate Trump pledged to begin mass deportations, pardon Jan. 6 rioters, start dismantling the “deep state,” end the Green New Deal, cut federal funding for schools pushing “radical gender ideology,” and “drill, baby, drill” – shorthand for increasing production of fossil fuels.

President-elect Trump won’t be a dictator – “except on Day 1,” he famously said last year.

Over the decades, American presidents have wielded expanding power up front by signing stacks of executive orders. President Joe Biden signed a record 42 such actions in his first 100 days, many of them undoing the policies of Mr. Trump, his predecessor. Now, with the former president returning to office in January after a sweeping election victory, his pen is ready.

Executive power has its limits, and civil liberties groups will be watching Mr. Trump’s actions closely. There will be lawsuits, which could tie up some orders in court. Some orders, too, are likely to require congressional action.

Still, expect Day 1 – and the 99 days that follow – to be bracing. During the campaign, Mr. Trump spoke of going after political opponents, be it unnamed “radical leftists” or named Democratic leaders whom he has called “the enemy from within.”

Last week, informal Trump adviser and richest-man-in-the-world Elon Musk said on the social platform X that special counsel Jack Smith’s “abuse of the justice system cannot go unpunished.” He was referring to the two federal cases brought against the former president, one for alleged mishandling of classified documents and the other for allegedly plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Mr. Smith is already putting the two federal cases against Mr. Trump on hold. On Sunday, Trump surrogates sought to cool the temperature around fears of retribution.

“There’s no enemies list,” Florida GOP Rep. Byron Donalds said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“We’re the party who’s against going after your opponents using lawfare,” House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan added on CNN, referring to the federal and state prosecutions of Mr. Trump that are now expected to disappear.

An immediate focus on the border

Mr. Trump is likely to focus initially on his domestic policy agenda. Exit polls showed the economy and immigration topping voter concerns, and those are policy areas where Mr. Trump appears eager to show quick results.

On Sunday night, the president-elect announced that Tom Homan, former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, will serve as “border czar,” in charge of the boundaries with Mexico and Canada as well as U.S. airspace and coastline. Mr. Homan’s position does not require Senate confirmation; he stepped down from the first Trump administration after his brash style hindered his confirmation.

Also on tap to fill a senior White House role is longtime Trump aide Stephen Miller, a well-known hard-liner on immigration. Multiple outlets have reported that Mr. Miller will be deputy chief of staff for policy, a title that is likely to understate his influence. Vice President-elect JD Vance posted his congratulations on X.

Earlier, Mr. Trump named his campaign manager, Susie Wiles, as White House chief of staff. Ms. Wiles will be the first woman to hold that position, and is a highly regarded political strategist – but has never worked in government.

Mr. Trump is said to respect Ms. Wiles in a way that he didn’t respect the four people who cycled through that post his first term. Part of her job will be to instill order in the Oval Office, preventing people from coming and going at will, something that didn’t happen in the first Trump term. But it’s unclear if she’ll be able to steer Mr. Trump away from doing things that may be ill-advised or unconstitutional.

“Has he found somebody who can rattle the cage and say, ‘Look, you can’t do this – it will hurt the country; it’s wasteful’?” says Paul Light, an expert on governance at New York University. He has his doubts.

The most disruptive initiative in Trump 2.0 might be his plan to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border on Day 1 and launch the biggest deportation of unauthorized migrants in U.S. history. Initial plans reportedly include a declaration of national emergency that would allow use of Pentagon funds to pay for the effort, including detention on military bases and deportation costs.

The operation could target up to 20 million people, according to the Trump team, with a goal of deporting a million people a year. The plan is to focus first on migrants who have committed crimes beyond entering the United States illegally, or who pose a national security threat. But in an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” last month, Mr. Homan made clear that the deportation initiative wouldn’t end there.

“It will be targeted arrests,” Mr. Homan said, not mass sweeps of neighborhoods. But when asked about a return of the family separations of the first Trump term, he didn’t rule it out. An unauthorized migrant who has a child in the U.S. “has created that crisis.”

The initiative would require a significant increase in trained personnel and, according to the liberal American Immigration Council, could cost tens of billions of dollars a year. It could also have a significant impact on the economy, as workers in service industries and agriculture are detained and expelled. But the Trump transition team says the election gives him a mandate to act.

Easing regulations and cleaning house

On the energy front, Mr. Trump’s plan to “drill, baby, drill” aims to cut consumer costs. He’s expected to pull out (again) from the Paris Agreement on climate change, ease regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, and end a pause on permits for liquefied natural gas export projects.

What the Trump team doesn’t point out is that Mr. Biden presided over record levels of U.S. oil production as his administration approved new drilling permits. But Mr. Biden restricted drilling on public lands, a policy Mr. Trump is expected to reverse.

“I will terminate the ‘green new scam’ and will cut your energy prices in half, 50%, within one year from Jan. 20,” Mr. Trump said at his Oct. 27 rally in Madison Square Garden.

Another Day 1 priority is likely to be a revival of his Schedule F initiative. The measure, launched late in his first term and rescinded immediately by President Biden, would remove the job security of some 50,000 civil servants, allowing for them to be fired at will. Mr. Trump has long claimed the “deep state” undermined his agenda during his first term.

The conservative Heritage Foundation has made revival of Schedule F part of its Project 2025 initiative to help the incoming Trump administration, including a list of vetted replacements for fired civil servants. Mr. Trump has distanced himself from the controversial program, but observers still expect some aspects – including Schedule F – to be implemented.