CNN
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It already feels like he’s been back for months.
Donald Trump is setting a frenetic pace in his second term, fulfilling campaign promises, imposing undiluted power and settling scores.
After the sedate Joe Biden years, the return of a presidency that is an incessant assault on the senses is a reminder of why so many millions of Americans see Trump as a compelling, historic figure – and why millions more deeply fear him.
Trump has cracked down hard on immigration, held a splashy $500 billion tech investment announcement, renamed the Gulf of Mexico, outlawed much of the diversity policy in the federal government, shopped around TikTok, fired people by social media post, mooted territorial expansion, threatened a trade war, talked to reporters more than Biden did in months and danced with a sword.
He’s also mocked the rule of law by freeing January 6, 2021, rioters; lied about the 2020 election; exacted revenge against critics, including by pulling security from an ex-aide threatened by Iran; criticized a bishop; threatened ethics in government; stigmatized trans Americans and cleared the way for ICE arrests in schools and churches.
And it’s only been two days.
See Trump react to reverend’s plea to have mercy on immigrants, LGBTQ community
Trump’s velocity is deliberate. So much happens, there’s rarely time to reflect on the gravity of one event. Trivia and world-changing new policies get caught in the whirl. Trump is in the middle of it all, conducting the cacophony and turning up the noise whenever he wants more attention.
For Trump’s fans, all the activity creates an impression of an endless succession of wins and honored promises. Most people don’t follow politics 24/7, but the stories and imagery that Trump creates filter down through social media, talk radio and local news and refills his political capital. Even when Trump is only trolling the media or Democrats, that’s fine: his base voters who distrust the establishment sent him back to Washington to infuriate and obfuscate.
For Trump’s foes, it’s hard to know what to get most outraged about. Opposition becomes scattershot, and he skips free of accountability. Nightly compilations of liberals becoming discombobulated over his latest outbursts, meanwhile, fill fawning conservative news shows.
Most new presidencies begin in a flurry of activity, though most emphasize the first 100 days rather than the first 100 hours.
But Trump has only done the easy part, successfully orchestrating an early rollout. Domestic and international crises lie in wait for a president who has been found wanting in such situations in the past. It’s one thing to sign hundreds of executive orders – some of which are already facing court challenges – but real change can only be cemented by passing laws.
The treacherous task that Trump faces in passing real, lasting change came into focus on Tuesday at his meeting with top Republican congressional leaders. There still does not seem to be a consensus on whether to proceed with one massive bill to push through his agenda or two, smaller vehicles. Either way, nothing is guaranteed given the minuscule GOP majority in the House of Representatives.
The first two days have, however, revealed some important trends in the new Trump presidency.
The shock and awe of countless executive actions hints at a far more professional White House operation than his chaotic first term. New White House chief of staff Susie Wiles was credited with adding structure to the Trump campaign while not being able to temper his wild, sometimes self-destructive improvisational instincts. Perhaps she can do the same in the West Wing.
And unlike during his first few days in office the last time around, Trump knows what he wants to do and how to do it. His good humor after the adulation of his second inauguration – so-far undimmed by inevitable political setbacks – has probably helped too.
Trump said something very revealing Monday in a speech to supporters about last year’s election.
“They all said inflation was the number one issue. I said I disagree. I think people coming into our country from prisons and from mental institutions (is the issue) for the people that I know. And I made it my number one,” Trump said. (There’s no evidence to support his claims about prisons and institutions, but his political point still stands). Trump went on: “I talked about inflation too. But you know, how many times can you say an apple has doubled in cost? I’d say it, and I’d hit it hard, but then I go back to the fact that we don’t want criminals coming into our country.”
Trump is acting on that belief again with an aggressive set of executive actions laying the foundation for his mass deportation program. He’s declared a national emergency that could result in the military going to the border. In a stunning move on Tuesday, he stripped churches and schools of protection from possible ICE arrests. He’s also made it harder for migrants to legally enter the United States by closing down a border app.
If one goal of Trump’s policy is to create a climate of fear, it may be working. “ICE officers are back to doing their job,” the president’s border czar Tom Homan told CNN’s Dana Bash on Tuesday, revealing how the deportation operation could quickly expand if cities don’t help track fugitive criminals. “We will find him, but when we find him, he may be with others. Others that don’t have a criminal conviction are in the country illegally. They will be arrested too because we’re not going to strike.”
Dana Bash asks Trump’s border czar if mass deportations have started
Immigration is a crowd-pleasing issue for his base, but Trump is taking a risk by prioritizing it since the cost of groceries and housing was one he vowed to fix during the campaign and was especially resonant among swing voters. Trump doesn’t have to run again, but he needs to maintain his coalition to avoid big losses for the GOP in next year’s midterm elections.
One of the great fears among Trump’s opponents was that if he won back power, especially after claiming to have been the victim of persecution, he’d take the law into his own hands.
That is already happening as Trump makes lavish use of his pardon power.
The president fiercely justified giving clemency to more than 1,000 January 6 rioters and was utterly unrepentant about pardoning or commuting the sentences even of those found guilty of assaulting police officers.
“Murderers today are not even charged. You have murderers that aren’t charged all over,” he said Tuesday, as a way of deflecting from questions about the pardons.
Trump also slammed Biden for offering preemptive pardons to family members amid fears they’d be targeted by the new Justice Department. This validated fears among many Democrats that Trump will use Biden’s precedent-shattering move as an excuse to vastly expand his own power. Unlike Biden, however, Trump did at least face the press to explain his position.
Later Tuesday, Trump announced he’d granted yet another pardon – to Ross William Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road dark web e-commerce site that the Department of Justice had described as “the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet today.” Pardoning Ulbricht, who had been serving a life sentence, was a favor to the Libertarian movement that supported Trump in the election, the president suggested on Truth Social.
Trump’s use of the pardon power in only two days in office will fuel concerns that he’s now effectively acting above the law and that anyone who helps him politically might expect legal advantages.
One of the most notable developments since Trump’s return has been the repeated public messages he’s sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin to convince him to make a deal to end the war in Ukraine. After noting Monday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was ready to talk, Trump was asked Tuesday if he’d put new sanctions on the Russian leader if he didn’t play ball. “Sounds likely,” he said. There’s no guarantee that Putin is ready to end the conflict, but Trump’s attempts to create leverage come ahead of a likely call between the leaders soon.
Trump has also held off so far on promised tariffs against China, and suggested Monday he was using the threat as leverage before a possible trip to Beijing. And he issued a new threat to the European Union on Tuesday, raising the prospect of yet another trade war, which could be for real or a negotiating tactic. “They treat us very, very badly. So they’re going to be in for tariffs,” said.
And at the end of another exhausting day in the new Trump White House, the president – who’s seeking to persuade China to sell TikTok – was asked if he’d like to see tech billionaire Elon Musk, who already has massive conflicts of interest with the government, buy the app.
“I would be if he wanted to buy it,” Trump said.