CNN
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Donald Trump on Monday restored the warp speed presidency.
Proclaiming a new American “Golden Age,” Trump consolidated power hours into his new term, wielding massive executive authority in seeking to obliterate large chunks of Joe Biden’s legacy and showing he plans to learn from his first-term failures to pull off a transformational presidency.
Trump pardoned hundreds of rioters from the January 6, 2021, attack with a single signature in his black Sharpie. He initiated his promised immigration purge and border security plan and ushered billionaire tech oligarchs into his inner political circle.
The new president set off simultaneous political alarms in multiple foreign capitals with off-the-cuff foreign policy making, instantly turning the US away from the internationalism embraced by every president apart from him since World War II.
In a freewheeling news conference back in the Oval Office, Trump demonstrated a capacity to drive his own message and move geopolitical chess pieces in public in a way that Biden lost when age caught up with him. The imagery was of a well-briefed new president eyeing big goals, confident that his first term gives him a heads-up on how to wield the levers of power and determined to make the most of a second chance.
But Trump also laced the pageantry of Inauguration Day with rally-style grievance politics and vast doses of untruths, twisted facts and an increasingly messianic sense of his own power, which was a foreboding omen for the rule of law. Several rambling and vindictive speeches in addition to his inaugural address suggested that, as in his first term, his biggest challenge in forging a meaningful legacy will lie in choosing presidential focus over stunt politics.
And despite the theatrics of signing scores of executive actions, the arrival of the first legal challenges heralded new political battles. A substantive second presidency will need to match executive power with new laws threaded through a tiny GOP majority in the House of Representatives. After all, much of Monday’s action could be wiped out by a new Democratic president in four years just as Trump expunged Biden’s.
There was something almost surreal in seeing Trump back behind the Resolute Desk in the hastily redecorated Oval Office — as if he’d never been away.
On a day of soaring rhetoric, an executive power earthquake and euphoric receptions for the 47th president at MAGA inauguration balls that ran late into a frigid cold night, these were the most important developments.
In a gesture that was shocking in its magnitude and that instantly raised questions about the equal application of the law, Trump offered blanket pardons to approximately 1,500 January 6 rioters. Hours after swearing to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, he showed no distinction between those guilty of beating up police officers and others who entered the US Capitol but were not convicted of violent offenses. His commutations extended to some of the country’s most high-profile extremists including Proud Boys and Oath Keepers hardliners.
Trump’s stunning move showed that presidents who win office after assaults on democracy can defy justice themselves and then absolve their supporters. It legitimized the use of violence as a tool of political expression, weakening American democracy and suggesting that those who use commit violent crimes in the 47th president’s name might get away with it.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Trump’s “actions an outrageous insult to our justice system and the heroes who suffered physical scars and emotional trauma as they protected the Capitol, the Congress and the Constitution.”
But Trump was not the only president accused of abusing the pardon power.
Before he left office, Biden granted preemptive blanket pardons to public servants, including former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, former top government infectious diseases official Dr. Anthony Fauci and lawmakers and staff who served on the House select committee that investigated the Capitol riot. Biden argued that his hand was forced by Trump’s vows of retribution against innocents. But the pardons further tarnished the reputation of a president who took office vowing to restore the integrity of the Justice Department but then pardoned his son Hunter after saying he wouldn’t.
Biden also handed Trump an opening just 20 minutes before the end of his term by preemptively pardoning more family members, including his brothers James and Francis Biden and his sister Valerie. Biden said his kin had done nothing wrong but warned that “the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage their reputations and finances.”
Presidents have almost unlimited pardon power for federal matters. But by approving countless preemptive pardons in recent weeks, Biden has given Trump or any future president incentives to theoretically push staffers or relatives to break the law in the knowledge that they can get a pardon at the end of a term. This represents a huge potential expansion of presidential power, which the Founders never intended and which threatens to foster White House corruption.
Trump picked up on the implications immediately. “Now every president, when they leave office, they are going to pardon everyone they met,” he told reporters.
No issue has powered Trump’s political career more than his demagogic and exaggerated claims that America is being swamped by undocumented migrants. In the 2024 campaign, he seized on Biden’s failure to temper a border crisis earlier in his presidency.
-On Monday, Trump used executive actions to unlock new power by declaring an emergency at the southern border, ending the use of an app that allowed legal migrants to enter the US and starting the process of ending birthright citizenship, setting off a legal and constitutional showdown. The new president also suspended refugee resettlement for four months.
Trump fired senior Justice Department leadership responsible for overseeing immigration courts and promised in his inaugural address to send troops to the border. He declined to tell reporters when enforcement raids, expected to set up showdowns with Democratic cities, would start. But uncertainty that breeds fear is a goal in itself.
Still, Trump can’t fulfill his goals for mass deportations with his pen alone. He must thread the needle in Congress to fund his big plans.
Trump also acted fast on a batch of campaign promises that will delight his MAGA base but could leave some Americans feeling stigmatized. He, for instance, reversed Biden’s orders against discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation and stripped diversity programs from the federal government. In one example of the change, the State Department will now require passport and visa applicants to reflect “accurately” their sex on their official documents.
Elon Musk made it to the White House before the new president. The X and SpaceX owner, who has massive federal contracts, showed up while Trump was watching his indoor inaugural parade at Washington’s Capital One Arena. Musk is ready to get to work at the new Department of Government Efficiency set up by another executive action.
And earlier on Monday, Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg appeared alongside Trump at a pre-inauguration service and took up prominent positions at the inauguration.
It was a stunning manifestation of the shift by Silicon Valley kingpins away from Democrats and toward Trump. The president argued later that it made sense to put such pioneers to work for American interests in a hyper-competitive world. That’s true. But their presence in his court brings enormous potential conflicts of interest. And the executives effectively control information sources for millions of Americans and now have incentives to shape it to please Trump.
Trump is back disturbing the sleep of global leaders.
During his Oval Office news conference, he threw out foreign policy on the fly. He confirmed the widely rumored demand for NATO members to more than double their pledged defense spending to 5% of GDP. That’s impossible for allies mired in economic troubles and trying to finance vast welfare states. This is probably a bargaining tactic — and the US does not spend that much. But Europe is back in Trump’s sights.
Trump escalated his war of words over the Panama Canal, saying the US had made a “foolish gift” when it ceded sovereignty of the vital waterway. He falsely claimed “China is operating the Panama Canal and we didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama and we’re taking it back.”
He also designated Mexican drugs cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Speaking to reporters, he refused to rule out a hugely risky raid into Mexico to go after the cartels with special forces.
Trump also tried to start a bidding war for his first foreign visit, saying if Saudi Arabia or any nation spent $500 million on US goods, they could be top of the list.
And in a fascinating move, he cranked up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal in Ukraine, saying the war “does not make him look very good.”
One thing Trump didn’t do immediately was impose massive new foreign duties on trading partners — perhaps to avoid spooking markets — despite saying earlier that tariff was the most “beautiful word.” But he later said he’d slap 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada on February 1, raising the prospect of a continental trade war.
He didn’t give a date for his promised tariffs on China, while confirming he had been invited to visit Beijing. This suggested that Trump seeks the potential stick of new tariffs as a negotiating tool ahead of any trip.
Trump also repeatedly falsely claimed that tariffs would reap massive financial gain for the US, when their cost would largely be borne by American consumers. The possibility they could lead to inflationary pressures and increase the cost of basic foods, lodging and gasoline might also be giving Trump pause.
Because if he can’t fix these issues, which powered his 2024 election triumph, all of the aggressive presidential power he flexed on Monday might be for nothing.
