President Donald Trump is back in the White House and moving at warp speed to push through his long-awaited agenda with dozens of executive orders, surveying damaged areas in North Carolina and California, and rallying behind his Cabinet nominees to get confirmed.
In his inauguration address on Monday, the new president vowed that things across the country would ‘change starting today, and it will change very quickly.’ And moments later, White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich took to social media to tease, ‘Now, comes SHOCK AND AWE.’
Trump signed an avalanche of executive orders and actions in his first eight hours in office, which not only fulfilled major campaign trail promises, but also allowed the returning president to flex his executive muscles as well as settle some longstanding grievances.
The president immediately cracked down on immigration; moved towards a trade war with top allies and adversaries; and reversed many policies implemented by former President Joe Biden, including scrapping much of the previous administration’s federal diversity actions and energy and climate provisions.
He also sparked a major controversy by pardoning or commuting the sentences of roughly 1,500 supporters who took part in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol in an unsuccessful attempt to upend congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory. Among those whose sentences were commuted included some who violently assaulted police officers on one of America’s darkest days.
Trump also fired some top government officials; made a high-profile, half-trillion dollar tech investment announcement; held unscripted and wide-ranging, informal and impromptu news conferences during his first two days back at the White House; and even renamed the Gulf of Mexico the ‘Gulf of America.’
The frenetic pace kept up throughout the week, with more executive orders signed and actions taken by Trump and his new administration during the first 100 hours in office.
Amid the fast-paced environment of the first week of the Trump White House, Senate Republicans and the president’s allies are rallying behind his Cabinet nominees and pushing them to get confirmed. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Radcliffe were confirmed by the Senate earlier this week, and several other nominees are expected to be confirmed between the weekend and next week.
On Friday, the president took to the skies, flying to hurricane-ravaged western North Carolina and then on to Los Angeles, where horrific wildfires this month have left a wide path of destruction.
‘I think it’s brilliant how they’ve been handling it, to immediately meet the moment with action. It’s exactly what he needs to do and it’s exactly what the people voted for,’ veteran Republican strategist Kristin Davison told Fox News.
‘Americans vote for decisive, fast action, and true leadership. And Trump understands that more than anyone. I think he and his team knew how important it was out of the gate to show that they heard what the people wanted and are answering with leadership,’ she argued.
Longtime Republican consultant Alex Castellanos agreed.
‘He’s flooding the zone. He’s making a case for action. He’s demonstrating action. He is rallying a wave of American support for a massive transformation of government,’ Castellanos, a veteran of numerous GOP presidential campaigns, told Fox News.
