Trump on Day 1: Begin deportation push, pardon Jan. 6 rioters and make his criminal cases vanish

Dismantle the ‘deep state’ of government workers

Trump could begin the process of stripping tens of thousands of career employees of their civil service protections, so they could be more easily fired.

He wants to do two things: drastically reduce the federal workforce, which he has long said is an unnecessary drain, and to “totally obliterate the deep state” — perceived enemies who, he believes, are hiding in 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.

Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden rescinded the order when he took office in January 2021. But Congress failed to pass a bill protecting federal employees. The Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s chief human resources agency, finalized a rule last spring against reclassifying workers, so Trump might have to spend months — or even years — unwinding it.

Trump has said he has a particular focus on “corrupt bureaucrats who have weaponized our justice system” and “corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus.”

Beyond the firings, Trump wants to crack down on government officials who leak to reporters. He also wants to require that federal employees pass a new civil service test.

Impose tariffs on imported goods, especially those from China

Trump promised throughout the campaign to impose tariffs on imported goods, particularly those from China. He argued that such import taxes would keep manufacturing jobs in the United States, shrink the federal deficit and help lower food prices. He also cast them as central to his national security agenda.

“Tariffs are the greatest thing ever invented,” Trump said during a September rally in Flint, Michigan.

The size of his pledged tariffs varied. He proposed at least a 10 per cent across-the-board tariff on imported goods, a 60 per cent import tax on goods from China and a 25 per cent tariff on all goods from Mexico — if not more.

Trump would likely not need Congress to impose these tariffs, as was clear in 2018, when he imposed them on steel and aluminum imports without going through lawmakers by citing Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. That law, according to the Congressional Research Service, gives a president the power to adjust tariffs on imports that could affect U.S. national security, an argument Trump has made.

“We’re being invaded by Mexico,” Trump said at a rally in North Carolina this month. Speaking about the new president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, Trump said: “I’m going to inform her 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 per cent tariff on everything they send into the United States of America.”

Roll back protections for transgender students

Trump said during the campaign that he would roll back Biden administration action seeking to protect transgender students from discrimination in schools on the first day of his new administration.

Opposition to transgender rights was central to the Trump campaign’s closing argument. His campaign ran an ad in the final days of the race against U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in which a narrator said: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

The Biden administration announced new Title XI 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.”

While it is likely that any of these actions would end up in court, as Biden’s change to Title XI has. Trump does have considerable power through executive orders to implement these promises.

Drill, drill, drill

Trump is looking to reverse climate policies aimed at reducing planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

With an executive order on Day 1, he can roll back environmental protections, halt wind projects, scuttle the Biden administration’s targets that encourage the switch to electric cars and abolish standards for companies to become more environmentally friendly.

He has pledged to increase production of U.S. fossil fuels, promising to “drill, drill, drill,” when he gets into office on Day 1 and seeking to open the Arctic wilderness to oil drilling, which he claims would lower energy costs.

Settle the war between Russia and Ukraine

Trump has repeatedly said he could settle the war between Russia and Ukraine in one day.

When asked to respond to the claim, Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said “the Ukrainian crisis cannot be solved in one day.”

Trump’s national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told Fox News after Trump was declared the winner of the election that Trump would now be able to “negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.” She later said, “It includes, on Day 1, bringing Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table to end this war.”

Russia invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago. Trump, who makes no secret of his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, has criticized the Biden administration for giving money to Ukraine to fight the war.

At a CNN town hall in May 2023, Trump said: “They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done — I’ll have that done in 24 hours.” He said that would happen after he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Putin.

Begin mass deportations of migrants in the U.S.

Speaking last month at his Madison Square Garden rally in New York, Trump said: “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.”

Trump can direct his administration to begin the effort the minute he arrives in office, but it’s much more complicated to actually deport the nearly 11 million people who are believed to be in the United States illegally. That would require a huge, trained law enforcement force, massive detention facilities, airplanes to move people and nations willing to accept them.

Trump has said he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act. That rarely used 1798 law allows the president to deport anyone who is not an American citizen and is from a country with which there is a “declared war” or a threatened or attempted “invasion or predatory incursion.”

He has spoken about deploying the National Guard, which can be activated on orders from a governor. Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser, said sympathetic Republican governors could send troops to nearby states that refuse to participate.

Asked about the cost of his plan, he told NBC News: “It’s not a question of a price tag. It’s not — really, we have no choice. When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here. There is no price tag.”

by The Associated Press