Former administration officials say Trump’s spate of orders and actions in the first week suggest his team has returned far more prepared than when they first arrived in January 2017.
“It was much more disciplined, timely and focused on the problem,” said Lawrence Muir, a former White House official with the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Mr Muir, who was tasked with hiring administration staff as part of Trump’s transition team in 2016, told the BBC that at the time he was “essentially rejected” by the new White House.
“They didn’t have a great idea of what they were supposed to produce and how to produce it,” he said. “(Trump) is doing much better this time around in terms of what he’s issuing, effectively issuing it and knowing how to enforce it through the agencies.”
Trump’s first day in office in 2017 was marred by a briefing in which then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer lectured reporters about the president’s inauguration attendance.
A week later, Trump ordered a 90-day travel ban on citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries — Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Libya — causing chaos at airports. The order was blocked by a federal court and went through two more revisions before being upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.
Trump associates say they believe the new administration appears to have learned lessons from that early public defeat in 2017, as well as other legal battles the administration has faced.
“They’ve had four years in exile to prepare for a potential return,” said Eric Ruark, director of research at NumbersUSA, a group that advocates for stronger immigration enforcement. “And now they have a plan they can implement.”
