The 47th president is poised to issue many more executive orders than his recent predecessors.
President-elect Donald Trump is poised to issue a record-breaking number of actions immediately after his inauguration on Jan. 20.
Stephen Miller, Trump’s incoming deputy chief of staff, has said that Trump would make more than 100 executive actions within the first 48 hours of his second presidential term. Such actions include executive orders, proclamations, and memoranda—“commands to the bureaucracy to change their ways,” Miller told Fox News.
If Trump issues even two dozen executive orders on his first day in office, that far outpaces all of his recent predecessors, including the incumbent, President Joe Biden. He issued nine such orders on his first day in office as the 46th president in 2021, according to data from the Federal Register.
Executive orders (EOs) are among the most important documents a new president can sign because they have the force of law. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) has pointed out that many presidents favor EOs because they believe that they are effective policymaking tools.
Traditionally, past presidents have issued only a handful of Inauguration Day EOs. In fact, when Trump was first sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017, he issued only one executive order. That EO aimed to reduce the financial burdens of the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.
This time around, with a stack of hot-off-the-presses documents aimed at fulfilling campaign promises, Trump will be taking certain actions on “day one,” a term that is sometimes used figuratively.
Trump has indicated that he meant it literally in some instances, particularly regarding illegal immigration and border security. That issue was a cornerstone of his first presidential run in 2015. It remained paramount for him during his tenure as America’s 45th president and during his 2024 successful campaign for reelection as the 47th president.
An order closing the border would be “done in the first hour of the first day” under his new administration, Trump said at a Pittsburgh campaign stop. He made that remark just before the Nov. 5, 2024, election, in which the Republican defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat.
Trump had made dozens of similar close-the-border proposals during his 2024 run for the presidency and has renewed pledges to resume construction of the U.S.–Mexico border wall. He has also vowed to launch the nation’s largest-ever “mass deportation operation” to expel illegal immigrants.
He also has mentioned several immigration-related measures that might appear in his first-day executive orders. Those include reinstating the “remain-in-Mexico” policy for asylum-seekers and a ban on foreign travelers entering the United States if they hail from nations deemed a threat to national security.
In conjunction with those policy positions, Trump has stated his intention to end automatic citizenship for children born to illegal immigrants on U.S. soil, but that proposal could hit legal hurdles. Courts have held that citizenship is a birthright under the 14th Amendment, regardless of the immigration status of the child’s parents.
The incoming president’s other oft-mentioned pledges call for terminating Biden’s energy policies, such as an electric vehicle mandate, environmental regulations that businesses find onerous, and a new permanent ban on offshore drilling along the Pacific Coast.
Trump has instead promised to “drill, baby, drill” for oil, which he says is essential to lowering prices for businesses and consumers while improving the overall U.S. economy. He has set a goal to reduce energy costs by 50 percent within the first year of his second term. He also intends to enact tax relief for citizens and corporations alike.
It’s unclear whether he would need or want to enact any order relating to the Department of Government Efficiency since it is an unofficial entity outside of government. Trump has tasked entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy with making recommendations for cutting government waste and reducing bureaucratic red tape.
Regarding social and education policies, Trump has said that he would end federal funding for schools pushing transgender ideology, critical race theory, or vaccine or mask-wearing mandates.
Some Trump EOs could take aim at foreign policy. He has repeatedly said that he has the desire—and the diplomatic ability—to end the raging Russia–Ukraine war. Days before his inauguration, an Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage-release deal was reached. This follows Trump’s recent vow that “all [expletive] will break out” if hostages remain captive after he resumes the commander-in-chief role.
With dozens of possible EOs or other executive actions in the works, Trump may have lined up some surprises, too.
EOs can take effect immediately. They remain in force unless repealed by Congress, overturned by a court, or reversed by a future president.
Neither laws nor the Constitution explicitly grant EO power to presidents, but the practice dates to the nation’s first president, George Washington, and is widely accepted, according to the CRS.
“To have legal effect, an executive order must have as its source of authority either the President’s powers in Article II of the Constitution or an express or implied delegation of power from Congress to the President,” the CRS pointed out.
In a court case known as San Francisco v. Trump, a federal court found that Trump had “exceeded his authority” with a 2017 EO rendering cities ineligible for federal grants if their leaders promised “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants. The court ruled that the Constitution confers no spending powers upon the president. Therefore, for funding-related matters, Trump may need to rely upon Congress, which possesses “the power of the purse.”
Regardless of what EOs Trump signs, he has cemented several entries in history books, including becoming the second U.S. president to return to office for a non-consecutive term.
In the late 1800s, President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, served as the 22nd and 24th president. Cleveland issued 113 EOs during his entire first term in office and 140 such orders during his second term, according to the American Presidency Project’s report on EOs.
As of Jan. 12, Biden had issued 155 EOs during his four-year term; Trump outdistanced that number with 220 EOs during his first term in office. The all-time record belongs to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He issued 3,721 such orders, but he was elected to the presidency four times and held office for more than 12 years, the project reported.