Trump’s blizzard of first-day actions leaves opponents scrambling to respond
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Official Washington appeared shellshocked after president vowed ‘nothing will stand in our way’ at inauguration. The US awoke to a transformed political and cultural landscape on Tuesday after Donald Trump punctuated his political comeback with a blizzard of first-day executive orders making good on his central campaign promises while promising that there was more to come.
![[The space where a portrait of retired Gen Mark Milley once hung is empty at the Pentagon on Monday.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/fa1d85709aedbced9cdd64e0500fe26036f707fb/0_83_2500_1500/master/2500.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Official Washington appeared shellshocked after the returning president vowed that “nothing will stand in our way” in his self-proclaimed crusade to end American “decline”. The declaration – in an inaugural address whose combative tone seemed to bear out his previous pledge to be a “dictator on day one” – was followed up by the sweeping scale of his executive orders that left opponents scrambling to respond.
Most shocking of all – if not unexpected – was the issuing of 1,600 pardons for rioters involved in the violent 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol by supporters intent on overturning the 2020 presidential result and keeping him in power. They covered leading members of two far-right militias, the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, who had been jailed for sedition.
Coming hours after the billionaire entrepreneur, Elon Musk, Trump’s wealthiest supporter and patron, made a gesture strongly resembling a fascist salute, it seemed ominously symbolic of a new national mood. Equally significant were a barrage of new policies, including executive orders withdrawing from the World Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement, and orders declaring a national emergency to enable the deployment of troops to the southern border and cutting off America’s constitutional birthright citizenship right to the children of non-citizens.
