Thoughts Turn to Trump’s Inauguration

At 14:30 GMT today (09:30 EST), Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States. As he swears his oath of allegiance to the United States and promises to preserve, protect and defend its Constitution, he will become only the second person to be sworn in as President for a non-consecutive second term (the first being Grover Cleveland in 1892).

Ahead of today’s inauguration, yesterday Trump said that “Starting tomorrow, I will act with historic speed of strength and fix every single crisis facing our country”.

Its understood that Trump will begin the day at St John’s Church in Lafayette Square, Washington DC, ahead of moving up to Capitol Hill for the ceremony.

Trump is expected to use the speech to lay out his presidential agenda, something which will likely focus on subjects including taxation and the economy, healthcare, international trade and tariffs, immigration and foreign policy aims.

Trump will then likely use the first day of his presidency to sign executive orders. According to a report by Fox News Digital – subsequently supported by ABC News – Trump will sign as many as 200 executive orders today, something which would mark a new record. According to Fox News these will focus on “border security, energy, reducing the cost of living for American families, ending DEI programs across the federal government, and more”.

Yesterday, Tump indicated that “Every radical, foolish executive order of the Biden administration will be repealed within hours of when I take the oath of office. You’re gonna have a lot of fun watching television. Somebody said yesterday, don’t sign so many in one day, let’s do it over a period of weeks. I said, like hell … no, we’re doing them tomorrow.”

In the interim period between the election and the today’s initiation Trump has provided some rhetoric on what day one could involve vis-à-vis tariffs. Writing on Truth Social for example, Donald Trump said that “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, and its ridiculous Open Borders”.

After the inauguration, which is set to be one of the coldest in US history (and has prompted the swearing in ceremony to be moved inside), Trump will then attend the Commander-in-Chief Ball, the Liberty Inaugural Ball and the Starlight Ball.

Attention then turns to the first full day of the Trump Administration tomorrow.

In the US, an executive order is a directive signed by the President which has the same effect as federal law (being entered into the Federal Register) and bypasses the standard legislative process. While Congress can pass a law to override an executive order, the President can veto it. It’s important to consider however that EOs can be judged unlawful.

A newly sworn in President will review existing EOs and only they can overturn them by issuing a new one. FDR, signed 3,721 executive orders during his 12 years in office. Some examples across history include:

Proclamation 95: Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation which altered the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in Confederate states from enslaved to free.

Executive Order 13769: Trump temporarily banning citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, from entering the US including permanent residents.

Executive Order 8807: FDR funding the Manhattan Project Executive Order 13228: Bush’s Creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks.