WASHINGTON – Donald Trump plans to sign more than 50 executive orders, and possibly more than 100, on Monday, his first day in office as president, according to transition officials.
President Trump, who is scheduled to take the oath of office at noon inside the Capitol, is expected to sign several orders in front of a crowd at an event at Washington’s Capital One Arena later in the afternoon. Inauguration-related events were moved to indoor venues due to inclement weather in the nation’s capital.
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President Trump’s first wave of executive orders is expected to include campaign promises, reversals of outgoing President Joe Biden’s policies and restructuring of the federal workforce.
The most anticipated action by many in President Trump’s MAGA political base is to declare a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border as part of a broader effort to crack down on illegal immigration and other cross-border crimes. It’s a command.
“There’s going to be a lot of executive orders that will make (you) very happy. … We have to get our country in the right direction,” Trump said Sunday at a rally at Capital One Arena. he said. “By the time the sun goes down tomorrow evening, the border incursions will have stopped and all illegal border intruders will have returned home in some way.”
During his first term, President Trump declared a national emergency in an attempt to divert Pentagon funds to build a border wall after Congress refused to provide funding for the project. A federal court blocked his plan, but Biden withdrew it before the Supreme Court ruled.
President Trump, who laid out the broad outlines of his plan at a breakfast with several Republican senators on Sunday, is also expected to cut funding for climate-related provisions of President Biden’s Inflation Control Act. This is a measure that could test the president’s unilateral authority. Withhold funding approved by Congress.
The 1974 Seizure Control Act requires the executive branch to spend appropriated funds, but President Trump’s nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget said at his confirmation hearing last week that the law is constitutional. He said he did not think so.
President Trump has long promised to reinstate the Schedule F policy he announced toward the end of his first term in 2020. It would reclassify thousands of federal civil service jobs to make it easier to fill them with appointees who are committed to implementing their policies.
Incoming White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller held a conference call with Republican lawmakers on Sunday about future orders.
In a phone interview Saturday with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker, President Trump said he intended to sign “a record number of documents” after his inaugural address.
Matt Dixon, Olympia Sonnier, Jake Traylor and Abigail Brooks contributed.
