WASHINGTON (AP) — After Donald Trump becomes president again on Monday, he's on the hook for achieving a hefty chunk of his promises even before the day is out. One of those promises is to make you dizzy.
“Your head will spin when you see what’s going to happen.,” he said of Day 1.
Steady yourself. This is some of what he promised voters he would get done on his first day in office:
— Launch the largest deportation in U.S. history to remove all people in the country illegally.
— Close the border.
— End automatic citizenship for everyone born in the U.S., known as birthright citizenship.
— Sign pardons for some or many of those convicted or charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
— Impose a 25% tariff on everything imported from Mexico and Canada and add a 10% tariff to duties already imposed on goods from China.
— Even before Monday, end the Russia-Ukraine war.
All of that — and more — on Monday?
Not likely.
Trump simply can’t accomplish all he said he will do on Day 1 because there are two more branches of government — Congress and the courts. (Moreover, in 2017 he considered Jan. 21 — his first full day on the job after the Jan. 20 inauguration — to be his Day 1.)
But as other presidents have done — and as Trump did aggressively and with decidedly mixed results in his first term — he will quickly test the limits of his executive power. He's told lawmakers to expect more than 100 executive orders out of the gate.
Some will be consequential, others will be cosmetic. Some will be tied up in courts.
All will display the bravado of a president reaching for maximum solo power. Trump, a Republican, won't be alone in this. When Republicans cried foul about President Barack Obama's expansive executive actions in 2014, the Democrat met the uproar with a curt response: “So sue me.”
Here are some things to know about Trump's promises:
Trump can't always act unilaterally
The constitutional right to birthright citizenship, for example, cannot be ended with a stroke of his pen. On many other fronts, Trump's most contentious executive actions are sure to meet a thicket of court challenges.
On some issues he can
The power to pardon is within his grasp, and he can steer border enforcement efforts, tweak tariffs and find ways to spur energy production without Congress necessarily having to pass a law. Yet many of his executive orders will essentially be statements of intent — stage setters for struggles to come.
Trump has walked back some promises since winning election
In the campaign, he vowed repeatedly to “close the border” on Day 1. Post-election, his advisers said he wasn't speaking literally. He intends to take administrative action to tighten enforcement against illegal entry, not shut borders.
Trump also vowed to end the Russia-Ukraine war even before taking office. Now, he's bending to the reality that he couldn't solve the conflict on the timetable he'd promised, telling Time magazine in a post-election interview: “I think that the Middle East is an easier problem to handle than what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine."
On birthright citizenship, he appeared to concede after the election that ending that may not be so easy, either: “We’ll maybe have to go back to the people," Trump said on NBC's “Meet the Press” in December.
Some promises may be posturing or part of negotiations
Trump posted on social media after the election: "On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States." He added that all products from China will be hit with an additional 10% tariff right away.
As definitive as that sounded, Trump later said of the tariffs, "We adjust it somewhat” if they are merely passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, as is usually the case. And he gave the three countries an opening to avoid or minimize the tariffs if they show enough progress in reducing the flow of illegal drugs into the U.S.
Should he go ahead with the tariffs as laid out — and draw trade penalties from the targeted countries in turn — the economy would be subject to a seismic shock, given the decades of U.S. dependence on goods from China and of free trade within the integrated North American market.
But he's serious about wielding the power of the pen
Under his core promise on immigration, Trump would unilaterally declare a national emergency to set the stage for tracking down millions of people in the U.S. illegally and holding them in detention centers until they can be removed from the country.
Domestic police forces and the National Guard in some states could be empowered to help federal agents in an extraordinary effort to track down and deport millions of people. As a disincentive to cross into the U.S. illegally, it's untested. Illegal crossings surged during the Biden administration before dropping recently and hovering near a four-year low.
Trump also vowed to declare a national energy emergency and approve new energy projects “starting on Day 1.”
A national emergency might give him more authority to act unilaterally. It remains questionable how much can be accomplished on this front without action from Congress. But he can reverse President Joe Biden's ambitious executive orders on renewable energy, environmental protections and climate change.
On pardons, presidents have a free hand when it comes to federal crimes, and Trump will be closely watched Monday to see how he uses it. Through the campaign, he held up those imprisoned for attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as patriots and vowed, “I will sign their pardons on Day 1.”
Yet he has vacillated on who and how many in that crowd will be pardoned and on what grounds.
