All evening, my X feed updated me on the executive orders and pardons Trump has issued. We know that some will be contested, but on the whole, they’re solid and wonderful. Here’s an overview of just some of what he’s done so far.

Trump began by rescinding dozens of Joe Biden’s executive orders (“EOs”) because what one president can doeth, another president can undoeth. (This leaves me hopeful that Trump will rescind JFK’s execrable EO unionizing the federal workforce.)

Trump ended all DEI programs, blocked “climate change,” initiatives, pulled back COVID overreach, ended protections for “transgender” people (i.e., mentally ill people) serving in the military, erased every one of Biden’s pro-illegal alien EOs, brought offshore drilling back, withdrew sanctions on Israeli settlements, and renamed Cuba as a terrorist sponsor, among other things.

Image: YouTube screen grab.

There was so much more, though.

Trump took myriad steps to block illegal immigration and deport illegal aliens. He began by taking a page out of the Biden playbook and declared a national emergency at the border, unlocking enhanced federal powers. Next, he declared that foreign nationals illegally entering America is an invasion and blocked all illegal alien entry into America (counter to Biden’s policy, which allowed them in, making it easy via an app—an app that Trump immediately shut down). He backed this up with a second executive order to protect the American people from this invasion.

Having established that illegal immigration is a serious problem, Trump reinstated the federal government’s power to fight illegal immigration, listing all sorts of affirmative actions the government can take to block entry (build the wall, detain illegal aliens, start corralling illegal aliens at the border, “adjust” the meaningless parole policies, etc.).

Trump also made good on his promise to use the American military at the border, which makes perfect sense. If this is an invasion (and it is), the military exists to repel invaders. The military will essentially become an ICE adjunct on the border itself.  

Trump also announced that birthright citizenship is over. As S. David Sultzer argued, based upon English common law (which is part of American law to the extent it existed at the time the Constitution was ratified) and America’s own law, Trump is right.

Further steps were updating the “refugee admissions program,” which should limit admission to real refugees not just people escaping their government’s mismanagement, and designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, which gives the government additional power to fight them.

Trump acted to make the government more responsive and less insane. At the more responsive level, he reinstated the Schedule F policy, making it easier to fire people. But he didn’t stop there. Trump also ended DEI in federal hiring, making it a merit-based system once more and, more broadly, ended all DEI programs in the federal government. Trump also officially established DOGE.

Trump also focused on gender madness in the federal government and under federal law. In what I consider an “end gender madness” EO, he’s made it official that there are only “two sexes (male and female)” and that they “are not changeable” but are “grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”

 It would have been shocking to all Americans before 2012 that this needed to be said, but it did. Now, the fed must entirely rid itself of any language that doesn’t comport with reality, including identification documents and any policies that advance false realities.

Thrillingly, Trump says that 2020’s Bostock v. Clayton County—which expanded Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by saying that sex means “gender identity”—is wrong. “This position is legally untenable and has harmed women.” He essentially said that the governments must effectively ignore it. Of course, Trump is setting up a big legal claim. I believe that Bostock will be overturned now that the Supreme Court has seen that Americans oppose transgender madness.

There’s a lot more to the “end transgender madness” EO, so I urge you to check it out.

For our new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, Trump made it plain that the State Department’s first order of business is to put America’s interests first. Trump helped Rubio out by strengthening protections against foreign terrorism.

Part of this “America First” approach is that Trump withdrew from the World Health Organization. COVID revealed that this organization isn’t about health but is about power. Trump also gave himself a bit of time to consider how best to get China out of TikTok. He’d like to make a deal so it’s sold and continues to operate, rather than ended entirely.

Trump ha unlocked America’s energy potential. He declared a national energy emergency, announced that he intends to “unleash[] American energy,” ordered that Alaska be reopened to explore and produce oil and other minerals, paused the madness of offshore wind projects (which produce minimal usable energy and destroy natural marine habitats), opened oil and other minerals exploration in Alaska, and stopped allowing the “world community” to have a say over our environmental concerns, including oil and gas. This shuts up the UN and sees us withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords.

Trump ordered a pause on all foreign aid for review to ensure that aid aligns with America’s national interests. I assume this means aiding our allies and using money, not weapons, to protect against Chinese incursions into sensitive geographic areas. However, it should stop funding LGBTQ+ puppetry in Bhutan or whatever other crazy stuff our government has been doing.

Trump restored the application of the federal death penalty, which Biden paused and then attempted to rewrite via unconstitutional pardons based upon his disliking the applicable death penalty laws.

Trump ended the security clearance for those government officials who claimed that the Hunter laptop was Russian disinformation. This isn’t just symbolic. Those security clearances have a market value in the defense industry, so he made many of these people unemployable.

As part of Making America Great Again, Trump also restored Mt. McKinley’s name and renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Those are just some of the EOs. I haven’t covered all of them, nor have I addressed the memoranda to heads of departments, ordering them to bring back efficiency and sanity. Those were awesome, too

And then there were the pardons. Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of all the January 6 defendants, which was an appropriate use of his constitutional pardon power. This was justice that was long overdue.

Thus, unlike Biden’s pardons for death row inmates and drug criminals, Trump was not saying, “I don’t like the law so I’m writing it out of existence.” Nor was he saying, that the next president might engage in acts Trump didn’t like, so he was preemptively sheltering those closest to him. Instead, Trump rightly declared that the federal government abused and corrupted the laws of the United States and that these wrongful acts needed to be remedied.

I know that Trump has only just begun, but this is a great start.

Oh, one more thing: For those who support Israel, Hillel Fuld has a rundown of what Trump has done to support the tiny Jewish state in its existential battle against radical Islam:

“He’s all talk! He won’t follow through on his promises! You can’t trust him! He’s not a friend to Israel!”

Um, really now. Check this out!

Trump's Day One Executive Orders Relating to Israel, Jews, and Palestinians:

1) President Trump revoked Executive Order 14115, which had sanctioned certain Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

Incredible!

2) Trump restored sanctions on the International Criminal Court, reversing their cancellation under Biden.
BAM!

3) A 90-day pause was placed on all U.S. foreign developmental assistance programs to review their alignment with administration policy (e.g. UNRWA).

About time!!

4) Trump authorized the deportation of visa holders who support hateful ideologies, terrorism, or national security threats, such as individuals involved in pro-Hamas protests, riots, or fundraising efforts.

Thank you!!

5) The administration lifted restrictions on arms sales to Israel, including the supply of 2,000-pound bombs, to reaffirm U.S. support for Israel’s defense.

Unbelievable!

All that, and he hasn’t even been president for 24 hours.

So, to all you people out there with Trump Derangement Syndrome, it might be time to take care of that because it seems you were wrong about him all along!