President-elect Donald Trump vowed on his first day in office to sign an executive order to end birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants and kick-start the largest deportation effort in the nation’s history.
Mr. Trump pledged to open up oil and gas production, including liquefied natural gas projects. He also is expected to scrap the “tailpipe” mandate, which incentivizes electric vehicle production, stop federal promotion and funding of sex change treatments, and demand the resignation of any military official involved in planning the 2022 withdrawal from Afghanistan.
On top of that, he promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war before taking office.
Also, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday night that the Trump transition team is considering a draft executive order that establishes a “warrior board” of retired senior military personnel “with the power to review three- and four-star officers and to recommend removals of any deemed unfit for leadership.”
In short, Mr. Trump has various Day One plans that fit into a broader vision. Those near him predict he will challenge conventional norms and rattle the Washington establishment.
“President Trump should clean house on Day One because that’s exactly why the American people delivered him this mandate,” said Mike Davis, a pro-Trump lawyer and founder of The Article III Project, a group that advocates for conservative judicial appointments. “He will cull illegal immigration, remove career bureaucrats who undermine his agenda, de-politicize law enforcement, make Big Tech pay for their censorship of conservatives, and pardon the Jan. 6 defendants unjustly charged by the Biden Justice Department.”
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Mr. Trump will be laser-focused on curbing illegal immigration and laying the groundwork to carry out his campaign promise to deport millions of illegal immigrants, starting with violent criminals.
He is expected to restart construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, end President Biden’s “parole” programs for migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras and Venezuela, and reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” program to keep asylum-seekers in Mexico while their cases are processed.
“I think that thrust of them is going to be rebuilding the lawful immigration system, and a crucial element of rebuilding the lawful immigration system is enforcing laws governing the detention and removal” of migrants admitted unlawfully, said Andrew Arthur of the Center for Immigration Studies.
When he takes the oath of office on Jan. 20, Mr. Trump will be far more prepared to push his agenda on immigration, the economy and foreign policy than during his first term, when he started mainly from scratch.
The well-oiled operation carried Mr. Trump through a hard-fought campaign, which focused on the traditional nuts and bolts of running for president.
Trump 2.0 can also rely on a cottage industry of MAGA-inspired think tanks, including the American First Policy Institute, founded in Washington after he left office.
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They are filled with former Trump Cabinet officials and alumni who have had four years, instead of a few months in 2017, to carve out a list of Day One moves to tackle the administrative state and advance his policy agenda.
Mr. Trump signaled that he is preparing to hit the ground running with the announcements of Susie Wiles, who co-chaired his campaign, as his chief of staff and Stephen Miller, a longtime immigration adviser, as his deputy chief of staff for policy.
Mr. Trump selected Tom Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during his first term, as his “border czar.” He has announced plans to nominate loyalists for several Cabinet positions, including South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as homeland security director and former Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Mr. Homan will be tasked with leading Trump’s deportation effort. Mr. Trump will jump-start his agenda with a batch of executive orders, such as banning children born to illegal immigrants from becoming automatic citizens. This move is expected to revive a legal battle over the 14th Amendment, which holds that all people “born or naturalized” in the U.S. are citizens.
Mr. Trump also is expected to target so-called birth tourism.
After running on a “drill, baby, drill” platform and pledges to slash energy costs, Mr. Trump will lift Mr. Biden’s pause on liquefied natural gas export terminal approvals and roll back regulations on fossil fuel power plants.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who could be in line for a Cabinet slot, has suggested that the American public should buckle up.
“I spent two days with him recently, and he was saying things that were kind of shocking to me,” Mr. Kennedy said in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson. “The level of change he wants to make in our government, I think, is going to be unprecedented.
“He is a guy who does what he wants to do,” he said. “He wants a revolution, and I think he is going to get one.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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