By Gram Slattery
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump has been in office for five days, and yet he has already imposed his will on Washington with ruthless speed and efficiency, showing that even his most radical campaign promises were far from mere storming.
The Republican president has taken the first steps toward fulfilling his vow to overhaul a federal bureaucracy that he believes was hostile to him during his 2017-2021 presidency, sacking hundreds of officials in simultaneous moves against a swath of agencies reassign or fire.
He has brought the military to the southern border, fired the head of the U.S. Coast Guard and challenged decades of constitutional law with a series of sweeping executive orders – 26 of them issued within hours of taking office – covering everything from environmental regulations to America’s citizenship rules .
In perhaps the boldest move of all, he galvanized approximately 1,500 supporters who took part in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, the global symbol of American democracy.
Trump’s allies have likened his shock-and-awk opening operation to a special forces operation that caught federal workers, unions, advocacy groups and even the media guard within its scope.
They owe the meticulous, years-long work of conservative allies who spent much of Trump’s time out of office to craft detailed policy plans that would allow him to reach the ground.
“This is the beadyhead team taking over the federal government,” Steve Bannon, who served as chief White House strategist during Trump’s first term and is close to many of Trump’s core policy advisers, told Reuters.
Trump’s opponents say he is distorting the US Constitution and expanding the limits of executive power beyond their intended limit. They also say Trump’s opening moves show he is less interested in unifying the country than radically changing it – and in many cases, inspiring revenge.
In one of his opening moves, Trump removed the security clearances of dozens of former intelligence officials who attributed unflattering media reports about former President Joe Biden’s son Hunter to a Russian influence operation.
Trump also stripped three former national security officials of their security details, even in the face of credible threats from Iran. His aides found time to remove the portrait of one of his harsh critics, Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from a Pentagon hallway.
He filled the White House National Security Council with career officials who were viewed by Trump’s team as insufficiently loyal to the president. The move allows him to import loyalists into over 100 national security roles.
“He’s clearly not a man who throws away his grudges easily,” said William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has worked in government for more than 40 years.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
years in the making
Even Trump’s enemies say the last five days represent a stunning contrast to his first term, when infighting and poor preparation sank many of his most ambitious policy initiatives.
“In terms of the scope of all of this and the speed, his team showed the results of extraordinary preparation,” said Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian and former director of the Nixon Presidential Library.
Many of Trump’s policies earned credit from those advocated by “Project 2025,” a consortium of conservative organizations that spent more than two years drafting guidelines for Trump’s eventual return.
Trump distanced himself from the project last year, saying he knew nothing about it, even though many former aides were deeply involved. But his influence on his new White House operation is all too clear.
Project 2025 advocated for the purge of career officials on the National Security Council.
Another policy put forward by the project, which Trump has already adopted, is to make it easier to fire potentially hundreds of thousands of officers through a new category of federal employees known as “Schedule F.”
Trump has also undertaken an overhaul of the Federal Emergency Management Agency that would transfer many of FEMA’s functions to the states, another 2025 project.
“There were hardcore political and political people who believed in Trump … and immediately began calling for Trump’s return to the White House in 2021,” Bannon said. “And that’s what you see coming to fruition.”
Height of power?
Trump’s agenda faces roadblocks in the future. The opening weeks of his administration may represent the height of Trump’s power, some supporters acknowledge.
Many of Trump’s executive orders test the limits of constitutional law. An order to terminate citizenship – a constitutional doctrine that automatically makes one a citizen in the United States – has already been mandated by a federal court.
Several other promises and orders were immediately subjected to lawsuits from states and advocacy groups, and the shock and awe of his first week could be scattered into legal battles that will last much of his term.
Trump may face a challenge maintaining Republicans’ narrow congressional majority in the House of Representatives in two years. The incumbent president’s party often loses seats in the meantime. In this case, this would result in the already narrow legislative path being closed for Trump altogether.
“Trump has a critical mandate from American voters to bring dramatic reforms to Washington,” said Mike Davis, a close adviser to Trump on judicial matters.
“This political mandate will fade if he doesn’t deliver – and deliver quickly.”