Armed with an abundance of black Sharpies, President Donald Trump broke the record for most executive orders he signed on his first day in office and became the only commander-in-chief to do so in part in a hall packed with thousands of people.
But the nation’s 47th president already faces legal challenges to some of his most controversial executive actions and has sparked outrage from others.
“With these actions, we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense,” Trump said in his inauguration speech on Monday. “It’s all about common sense.”
With these words, Trump immediately began canceling a number of executive actions taken by former President Joe Biden, and in a written preface published with his presidential actions, accusing “the previous administration of introducing unpopular, inflationary, illegal and radical practices into every agency and office of the Federal Government.”
President Donald Trump holds the executive order he just signed during the inaugural parade, in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025.
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
In another unprecedented move, Trump signed his first eight executive acts in front of an enthusiastic crowd at Washington DC’s 20,000-seat Capital One Arena, ending his inaugural parade.
“President Trump has really made political theater a key part of the way he exercises unilateral power,” Jon Rogowski, a professor of American politics at the University of Chicago, told ABC News. “He wants to make sure people know he’s taken action that is consistent with the campaign promises he made when he ran for office.”
What is an executive order?
Executive orders are signed, official documents through which the president manages the operations of the federal government and gives the executive branch instructions on how to interpret the law, Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University in Washington, DC, told ABC News.
“An executive order is a directive issued by the president that is entered in the Federal Register. It has the force of law, but does not require an act of Congress,” Lichtman said. “Although it has the force of law, it can be revoked by a subsequent president by issuing his executive orders.”
Lichtman said that unlike laws passed by Congress, executive orders are weaker in court, whether substantive or procedural.
“The reason we’re seeing the government by executive order is twofold: Donald Trump was ineffective in getting his agenda through Congress in his first term, even with Republican majorities in the House and Senate in his first two years. The second reason is that they have such a small majority in the House,” Lichtman said. .
In the past, executive orders were typically challenged after the federal government took action to implement them and someone said they were harmed by that executive action, Rogowski told ABC News.
“Now, that has changed. Presidents are being sued after the executive order is signed by organizations that represent individuals’ collections or by state attorneys general,” Rogowski said.
Rogowski said that during Trump’s first term “it became more common for groups and states to directly challenge the president when he issued a directive they didn’t immediately agree with.”
“In the last decade, there has been more organizing on the ground and among legal groups and states to pressure the presidential administration on the use of executive action,” Rogowski said.
Trump’s action prompts legal challenges
Trump on Monday granted a “full, complete and unconditional pardon” to 1,500 people convicted of crimes stemming from the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol building and commuted the sentences of 14 others involved in the riot. Trump called them “hostages.”
A man holds a sign outside a prison on Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, 2025.
Will Oliver/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
The constitution gives the office of the president the power to pardon almost anyone and such actions cannot be reversed. Before leaving office on Monday, Biden granted a number of pardons to potential targets of the Trump administration, including several close relatives, Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired General Mark Milley and lawmakers who served on the January 6 House Committee. Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney.
“What they’ve done to these people is terrible,” Trump said as he signed pardons and commutations in the Oval Office.
The pardon and commutation immediately sparked a backlash from both Democrats and Republicans.
“The president’s actions are a terrible affront to our justice system and to the heroes who suffered physical scars and emotional trauma while protecting the Capitol, Congress and the Constitution,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said in a statement. .
Former Rep. John Katko, RN.Y., an ABC News contributor, called the pardons for the Jan. 6 riots “disgusting” for members of Congress on both sides of the aisle.
“They weren’t ‘hostages,’ they were accused. I was there,” Katko told ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis on Monday night. “A lot of people were beaten in the Capitol. I saw a lot of officers badly beaten and injured that night. It was a bad scene.”
It was another controversial executive order signed by Trump aimed at cutting off birthright citizenship. Critics immediately attacked Trump, arguing that people born in the US are granted citizenship under the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, even if their birth parents immigrated here illegally.
Asked by reporters if he expected the order to lead to legal challenges, Trump replied: “We’ll see. We have very good reasons. People have wanted to do this for decades.”
Four federal lawsuits have already been filed this week challenging Trump’s birthright citizenship order. One was filed in federal court in Massachusetts by the attorneys general of 18 Democratic states, the city of San Francisco and the District of Columbia, arguing that the order is an “unlawful” attempt to redefine “a right embedded in the fabric of our country.”
Another federal lawsuit was filed by an undocumented mother and two nonprofit groups, arguing that the executive order is an attempt to reinterpret the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship to nearly all people born in the United States.
“This unprecedented attempt to strip millions of Americans of their citizenship with the stroke of a pen is completely illegal. The president has no power to decide who becomes a citizen at birth,” the lawsuit says.
The suit asks the District Court of Massachusetts to declare the executive order unconstitutional and issue an injunction preventing its enforcement.
A similar federal lawsuit was filed by the states of Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Illinois. The American Civil Liberties Union also sponsored another lawsuit in New Hampshire to block Trump’s order.
“We will not let this attack on unborn and future generations of Americans go unchallenged. The Trump administration’s overreach is so egregious that we are confident we will ultimately prevail,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero.
Mexico opposes Trump’s actions
In other executive actions, Trump the proclamation that declared a national emergency At the US southern border, saying: “American sovereignty is under attack.”
“Our southern border is overrun by cartels, criminal gangs, known terrorists, human traffickers, smugglers, foreign adversaries of military age, and illegal narcotics that harm Americans,” the proclamation reads. “This invasion has caused widespread chaos and suffering in our country for the past 4 years.”
Trump also issued an executive order designating certain foreign terrorist cartels. He signed another executive order, changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Many of the proposed executive orders require the support of international partners like Mexico and would almost certainly spark legal battles.
President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025.
Jim Watson/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
“We must relate as equals, not subordinates,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Tuesday in response to Trump’s executive orders on the southern border.
Sheinbaum said his focus is on defending Mexicans and his country’s Constitution.
“You have to keep a cool head with what he signed,” Sheinbaum said. “You have to read the decrees. In fact, we are still looking into it because some of them were out very late at night and we have a team working on it.”
Sheinbaum said some of Trump’s executive actions are similar to those he signed in his first term, including declaring a national emergency on the southern border.
“There was cooperation between the two governments at the time,” Sheinbaum said. “When President Biden comes in, he takes it down and now President Trump reinstates it.”
Sheinbaum said Trump’s executive action to prevent asylum seekers from entering the U.S. from Mexico is almost identical to his executive order in 2018.
As for the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, Sheinbaum said, “To us and to the world, it’s still the Gulf of Mexico.”
“We will always act in defense of our independence, in defense of our fellow citizens living in the United States,” said Sheinbaum. “We act within the framework of our constitution and laws. We always act with a cool head.”
Legal action may delay implementation of orders
Rogowski said legal challenges could delay implementation of the executive orders.
“I don’t want to undermine the chances that any of this could have real, tangible effects on people, but I suspect that Trump will be disappointed that many of the actions he wants to take immediately will hold up in court for weeks, months or even years in some cases,” Rogowski said.
President Donald Trump signs executive orders for the Jan. 6 defendants in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025.
Carlos Barria/Reuters
During his first term, Trump signed an executive order barring foreigners from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days, indefinitely suspending the entry of all Syrian refugees into the country, and barring any other refugees from entering the country. 120 days Rogowski noted that legal disputes had hampered the Muslim ban for 10 months and forced Trump to review two versions of the ban before the US Supreme Court upheld it in a 5-3 ruling in June 2018.
“A lot of it is symbolic.”
Trump also issued an executive order Withdrawal of the United States By the World Health Organization, alleging that the organization mismanaged the COVID-19 pandemic.
As he did in his first term, Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, an international treaty to mitigate climate change that was established in 2016. dollars, to countries that do not need or deserve subsidies in the interests of the American people.”
Rogowski said some of Trump’s executive actions, including the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico and the naming of America’s 25th president, William McKinley, on North America’s highest peak are mostly “symbolic.”
According to Rogowski, naming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America “will not advance any of Trump’s economic goals or priorities, other than making a symbolic change.”
Lichtman agreed, saying, “They are symbolic because they resonate with the issues that Trump has been championing since he came to presidential politics a decade ago.”
But Lichtman added that many of Trump’s executive orders “are real and have a real impact on the American people.”
