Donald Trump was determined to make the point that he would not abuse his power to seek revenge or behave like a dictator on his return to the White House.
“Except on Day 1.”
Trump wants to close the southern border and to “drill, drill, drill” on his first day. But he also has some scores to settle.
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He’s made little secret of his agenda of retribution, and one of his first actions may be to pardon himself for the plethora of crimes he’s been accused of since his first term and settle grudges against those who sought to take him down.
Fire Jack Smith
First in the firing line is likely to be special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two federal cases against him and whom Trump said he’d fire “within two seconds.”
“We got immunity at the Supreme Court. It’s so easy. I would fire him within two seconds. He’ll be one of the first things addressed,” Trump told listeners on The Hugh Hewitt Show.
Trump has also said he’ll make prosecutors and judges pay for bringing multiple criminal cases against him.
Free Jan. 6 rioters
Another of his avowed first-day moves could be to try and “free” MAGA supporters he claimed were “wrongly convicted” of being involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
To date, 1,530 people have been arrested and charged in connection with the attack, with more than half pleading guilty. “I am inclined to pardon many of them. I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control,” said Trump on his Truth Social platform.
Once his personal grudges are settled, or at least initiated, using his presidential pardon powers, he has said he will set his sights on keeping some of his other pledges.
Drill, drill, drill
When asked by Fox News host Sean Hannity what he meant by being a “dictator” on his first day, Trump replied: “I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill. We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.”
Launch mass deportations
Speaking at his controversial Madison Square Garden rally in New York, he said: “On Day 1, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out. I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered, and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail, then kick them the hell out of our country as fast as possible.”
Quite how Trump will do that, he didn’t say, but presumably he would use local law enforcement and even the National Guard to track down undocumented immigrants.
End the Green New Deal
Climate change advocates will likely be in for a tough day. He has promised to quash Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey’s Green New Deal and put the kibosh on offshore wind energy projects.
“To further defeat inflation, my plan will terminate the Green New Deal, which I call the Green New Scam. Greatest scam in history, probably,” he told supporters at the Economic Club of New York in September.
“I’m going to write it out in an executive order. It’s going to end on Day 1,” Trump said of wind turbines that he claimed—wrongly, as it turned out—“kill” whales.
End federal funding for certain schools
Among other first-day measures Trump has vowed on the 2024 presidential election campaign trail are cutting federal funding for schools allowing discussions about race, gender or sexual orientation, and schools with vaccine mandates, although he would need congressional approval for any education cuts.
Ban trans women from women’s sports
He’s also pledged to prevent transgender women from taking part in women’s sports and proposed bans on gender-affirming operations for minors. Experts say he could use executive orders to follow through, but they would probably be challenged in court.
The president-elect littered the campaign trail with myriad promises of what he is going to do when he gets back to the Oval Office. There was nothing unusual about that, even though many of them were either illegal or way outside his remit, even as the most powerful man on the planet.
“A lot but not all of what Trump says he wants to do on day one is going to be illegal or impractical,” Steve Vladeck, a constitutional law expert at Georgetown University Law Center, told The Washington Post. “But even the illegal stuff might go into effect for some time, and he might actually succeed in pushing the law in his direction.”
In his podcast interview with Joe Rogan, Trump sneered at Kamala Harris for deflecting a question about what she was planning to do on Day 1 as president.
“There’s a hundred things you can say,” he told Rogan. “Just say anything!”
So Americans should be ready for anything when Trump walks back into the West Wing. Just know he doesn’t intend to take his time settling in.
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