Inaugurated back into office on Jan. 20, 2025, President Donald Trump’s return to Washington, D.C. was marked by a number of unique factors. First, his inauguration ceremony was the first since 1985 to be held indoors due to unprecedented frigid temperatures. His presidency also marked the second time in history for a president to be sworn in for two non-consecutive terms. Lastly, and perhaps most notably, President Donald Trump broke the record for most executive orders issued by a president in their first day in office with a total of 26.
An executive order is a document issued by the United States President that calls on the government to make specific changes and doesn’t require congressional approval. It makes their decision law and can only be overruled by extensive congressional legislation that indirectly blocks such a law, or by the following president reversing it during their term.
“What we’re seeing now is a strategy to come in and use the idea of, if you do things really fast, all at once, you’re more likely to kind of let some of these things stick right,” Political Science teacher Joseph Juliano said. “So, I think one of the strategies is to almost flood the zone with a lot of things at once because then it becomes a lot harder for people to keep up with what is actually happening and some of the effects of these things and whether or not they’re constitutional… You can’t really override Congress, and this order does that. I think that’s the strategy, to get as much transformational change as fast as possible with as little resistance to it as possible.”
Others prioritize the global influence of such hefty national solutions.
“I think it makes America and Donald Trump look a lot more powerful,” junior Daniel Carvan said. “I think the way that he is handling the beginning of his presidency is powerful, and it shows other countries that as a nation, we are united, we are trying to solve these issues, and we will fix these issues. We’re going to come back stronger and we’re going to be, in terms of warfare, a threat.”
Many individuals have questioned the validity of such orders, citing everything from legislative gridlock to long-term political stagnation.
“I think you see that with every administration where the new president comes in, and unfortunately, the way our government is now designed is that Congress becomes deadlocked and can’t make decisions anymore,” Social Studies teacher Ben Lacombe said. “So the President has to come up with all these executive actions.”
Many, however, grow concerned that executive orders used to reverse orders from previous presidents will cause governmental instability. In fact, this is largely what the majority of President Trump’s executive orders did – reverse former President Joe Biden’s executive decisions. Primarily focusing his orders on minimizing federal power and narrowing in on immigration laws, President Trump also repealed many of Biden’s climate change and DEI initiatives.
“So, it’s been really unique the last decade or so, right?” Lacombe said. “Because we’ve only had one-term presidents, which is abnormal. We had Trump for a term, then we had Biden for a term. Now we’re gonna have Trump for a term, and then we are going to have another president for maybe one or two terms, right? That could potentially be 16 years of back and forth. In a short period of time I think it just gets Americans angry. Like, why do I vote for people? What’s the purpose of my vote, voting for a congressman or a senator when they’re not making laws?”
As of March 11, President Trump has signed more than 70 executive orders, nearing the record for most orders signed within a President’s first 100 days in office – currently held by Theodore Roosevelt. President Trump has already surpassed Harry S. Truman, who passed 57 executive orders within his first 100 days (and he inherited WWII). Currently, President Trump still has 69 days until reaching 100, and is expected to break Truman’s record.
“Theodore Roosevelt came in within the Progressive Era,” Juliano said. “So, a lot of his orders had to do with reforms where he was actually doing things like reserving national forests and wildlife refuges and protecting against things like unfettered industrialization… It’s always good to look at the situational context of a presidency because it helps explain what they’re doing… And then we look at what we’re seeing now, and they pretty much have campaigned on this idea of Project 2025, which is basically this agenda to fundamentally reshape the size and scope of the federal government.”
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Issues being addressed with these executive orders vary from immigration to tariffs.
“I do think that some of the immigration policies being refined are important,” Carvan said. “I think that the way we’re doing it is a little bit too quick, too speedy, but I do think that in the end it will work out. I think some of the tariffs are extremely important.”
Still, concerns about power as opposed to content have left people of varying generations and knowledge levels carefully considering each and every order.
“For the conversation to be, ‘Oh, why so many executive orders’ still and instead of the focus being on what the executive orders are, I think that it shows that it’s about the control of the power,” senior Daniela Gonzalez said. “Think about the balance of power. We have three different branches of government for a reason.”
