President Donald Trump’s official Presidential portrait in 2017.
Library of Congress
Donald Trump plans to sign more than 50 executive orders Monday — and possibly more than 100 — on the first day of his second presidency, according to a person in his transition operation.
Trump, who is scheduled to take the oath of office inside the Capitol at noon, intends to sign several of the orders in front of a crowd at an event in Capital One Arena in Washington later in the afternoon. The inauguration-related events were moved to indoor locales because of inclement weather in the nation’s capital.
The first wave of Trump’s executive orders, some of which may be rolled out later in the week, are expected to include a mix of campaign trail promises, reversals of outgoing President Joe Biden’s policies and a restructuring of the federal workforce.
The most highly anticipated action for many in Trump’s MAGA political base is an order declaring a national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border as part of a broader effort to crack down on illegal immigration and other cross-border crimes.
“You’re going to see executive orders that are going to make [you] extremely happy, lots of them. … We have to set our country on the proper course,” Trump said Sunday at a rally at Capital One Arena. “By the time the sun sets tomorrow evening, the invasion of our borders will have come to a halt, and all the illegal border trespassers will in some form or another, be on their way back home.”
During his first term, Trump declared a national emergency to try to redirect Defense Department funding to building a border wall after Congress refused to give him the money he sought for the project. A federal court blocked his plan, which Biden rescinded before the Supreme Court ruled on it.
Trump, who laid out the broad strokes of his plans Sunday at a breakfast with several Republican senators, is also expected to cut off funding for climate-related provisions of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act — a move that could test the power of a president to unilaterally withhold congressionally approved funding.
The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 requires the executive branch to spend appropriated funds, but Trump’s nominee to run the White House Office of Management and Budget said at a confirmation hearing last week that he does not believe the law is constitutional.
Trump has long promised to reinstate the “Schedule F” policy he announced toward the end of his first term in 2020. He would reclassify thousands of federal civil service jobs so it would be easier to fill them with appointees committed to implementing his agenda.
Stephen Miller, the incoming White House deputy chief of staff for policy, held a phone briefing with GOP lawmakers about the forthcoming orders Sunday.
In a phone interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker on Saturday, Trump said he would be signing “a record-setting number of documents” after his inauguration speech.