Inauguration Day is nearly here. These are the promises Trump made for ‘Day One’ in office
President-elect Donald Trump has a very long to-do list when he steps into the Oval Office later this month.
So far, he’s already promised to take action on 59 different issues “on Day One,” according to an Axios analysis of pledges made on the campaign trail.
The key MAGA issues he promised to address are closing the border, pardoning the January 6 Capitol riot prisoners, and rolling back protections for transgender students.
“President Trump is committed to securing the nation and delivering on the promises he made to the American people on day one,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s incoming White House press secretary said in a statement to The Independent.
“He will take decisive action on border security, curbing illegal immigration, restoring law and order, and strengthening our national security in light of recent terrorist attacks.”
“Additionally, President Trump will lay the groundwork for swift economic relief, addressing the financial concerns of hardworking Americans across the country,” Leavitt added.
Here are some of the promises the president-elect made.
‘Largest deportation program in the history of America’
Trump’s immigration plans were the centerpiece of his presidential campaign.
Speaking at his Madison Square Garden rally in New York at the end of October, Trump vowed: “On Day One, I will launch the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America.”
“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,” he said.
It’s likely that Trump will instruct his team to begin the process as soon as he takes office, but to deport the nearly 11 million people believed to be in the country illegally would require a much bigger effort that will not happen overnight.
Trump has also said he would invoke a rarely used 1798 law — the Alien Enemies Act — that would allow him as president to deport anyone who is not an American citizen and who comes from a country where there is a “declared war” or a threatened or attempted “invasion or predatory incursion.”
Trump and his “border czar” Tom Homan are likely to face a volley of lawsuits and legal obstacles from city and state officials as they carry out their plans.
Pardon the January 6 Capitol riot prisoners
Trump told a rally crowd in September that he would “rapidly review” the cases of those who have been imprisoned for storming the Capitol on January 6, vowing to sign their pardons “on Day One.”
He reiterated that promise in December, when he told Time his administration would look “at each individual case,” starting “in the first hour that I get into office.”
The president-elect is unlikely to face any obstacles when it comes to pardoning the January 6 rioters.
“There is no law that would limit Donald Trump’s ability to pardon the people who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection and ended up embroiled in the criminal justice system,” Kim Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore Law School and author of Pardon Power: How The Pardon System Works—And Why, told NPR.
Terminate electric vehicle mandate and increase fracking
As part of a push to roll back the Biden-Harris administration’s climate change policies, Trump vowed on the campaign trail that his administration would relax regulations on fossil-fuel cars.
“On Day One of the Trump administration, I will terminate Kamala’s insane electric vehicle mandate, and we will end the green new scam once and for all. The green new scam will end,” Trump said at a rally in October.
But it won’t happen without a fight. “Everybody’s gearing up for a showdown on zero-emission vehicles,” Bill Magavern, policy director at environmental group Coalition for Clean Air, told Politico.
The Biden administration last month gave California and 11 other states a layer of protection against Trump’s plans by allowing them to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035.
The move will make it harder for Trump to push through his anti-electric agenda.
Trump also promised he would “drill, drill drill,” on the first day in office.
“President Trump is going to get to work on day one, within seconds of his arrival at the Oval Office,” Leavitt told Fox News last month.
To do this, the administration will “expedite permits for drilling and for fracking all over this country so we can immediately bring down the cost of living,” Leavitt said.
However, experts say that increasing oil production at the moment could harm companies’ net profits.
Trump frequently mentioned his plans to lower gas prices to $1.87 a gallon, which he claimed he’d achieve with the slogan “drill, baby, drill.” But experts in the industry said it’s not in the interests of the oil companies right now.
The average gas price in the U.S. has fallen to $2.98 per gallon, according to GasBuddy. For prices to hit Trump’s target of $1.87, the benchmark price would have to fall by more than two-thirds. For context, the current price of oil per barrell is approximately $70.55.
If the price of a barrel drops below $45, companies generally can’t break even on oil production, Ed Hirs, an energy economist at the University of Houston, told the Washington Post.
“It’s not going to happen,” Hirs said.
“They’re not going to produce just so we can have $2 gas,” Frank Maisano, a senior principal at energy law firm Bracewell, added to Politico.
The federal government also cannot force companies to increase drilling outside of a national emergency, the outlet noted.
End the war in Ukraine
Before he was elected, Trump repeatedly claimed he could end the war in Ukraine “in one day.”
“They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done — I’ll have that done in 24 hours,” Trump said at town hall in May 2023.
After Trump won the election, his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told Fox News that Trump’s plan included “on Day One, bringing Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table to end this war.”
While critics scorned the president-elect at the time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky now claims he is optimistic that Trump can, indeed, help bring the war to a close.
“He’s very strong and unpredictable, and I would really like to see President Trump’s unpredictability apply to Russia. I believe he really wants to end the war,” Zelensky said this week.
“He is capable of stopping Putin or, to put it more fairly, help us stop Putin. He is able to do this.”
Roll back protections for transgender students
In April, the Biden administration announced new Title IX protections that classified treating transgender students differently from their classmates as discrimination.
Trump isn’t having any of it. Transgender issues were a focal point of his campaign, which released attack ads on Kamala Harris insisting the vice-president “is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”
“We’re going to end it on Day One,” Trump said of the protections in May. “Don’t forget, that was done as an order from the president. That came down as an executive order. And we’re going to change it — on Day One, it’s going to be changed.”
Experts say Trump cannot reverse Title IX simply by executive order.
“Trump can’t just come in and get rid of the Title IX regulation,” Shiwali Patel, the director of safe and inclusive schools for the National Women’s Law Center, told Ed Week.
“This is a rule that has been issued and formalized by the Department of Education, so it cannot be dismissed by an executive order,” Kim Herman, the executive director of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, added.