While everyone was busy talking about inauguration crowd sizes and bogus voter fraud claims, Donald Trump’s administration has been busy bypassing Congress and signing a boatload of executive orders.
In order to help cut through all the distractions, TheWrap has complied a list of the things Trump has put in motion in his first week in office.
- Signed an executive order paving the way for a “prompt” roll back of Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act.
- Signed waiver bill, clearing the way for Gen. James Mattis, who retired in 2013, to be appointed as secretary of defense. (Former service members are barred from holding the top Pentagon job for seven years.)
- Reiterated his intent to cut back 75 percent of regulations on small businesses and manufacturing.
- Ordered the acting National Park Service to produce evidence that backed his false claims about inaugural attendance.
- Instituted a gag order on government departments and agencies after the agency tweeted a side by side photo of the crowds in 2009 and 2017 inaugurations.
- Ordered EPA to remove its climate change web page.
- Announced plans to withdraw from Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.
- Threatened to “send in the feds” over Chicago’s violent crime.
- Called for a “major investigation” of voter fraud.
- Floated a sweeping executive order aimed at bringing back the so-called “CIA black sites” prisons around the world to facilitate interrogation and torture of terrorism suspects.
- Suggests he might revive torture tactics such as waterboarding, telling ABC’s David Muir, “Absolutely I feel it works.”
- Signed an executive order to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
- Provided additional resources to DHS, aimed at tripling the number of ICE officers.
- Signed executive order to withhold grants from sanctuary cities.
- Planned to cut back on legal immigration, which includes barring Syrian refugees from entering the country.
- Said that the U.S. should have taken Iraq’s oil.
- Backed a 20 percent tax on imports from Mexico to pay for a southern border wall.
- Spoke with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on the phone after Mexico reiterated it would not pay for the border wall.
- Promised to restore the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.
- Promised to push massive cut taxes for the middle class. Critics argued that the proposal will balloon the national debt by trillions.
- Backed the so-called “nuclear option” to stop Democrats from blocking SCOTUS nominees.
- Signed executive order he calls a “great rebuilding of the Armed Forces” by, what could include, new ships and planes, additional Special Op forces and the modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
- Signed executive order aimed at keeping out potential terrorists through stricter immigration vetting measures