Gop Leaders Briefed On Trump's Blizzard Of Executive Orders

Aides to President-elect Donald Trump briefed Republican leaders Sunday on a slew of executive orders Trump plans to unleash Monday— including a 35-page energy omnibus geared toward unlocking energy pipelines and opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, according to two people familiar with the discussion.

In addition to summarizing immigration, energy, and government reform executive orders, the officials also discussed the process for removing “insubordinate employees” and the legal and constitutional guardrails that may prevent Trump from firing employees who don’t follow orders. They also spoke about Trump planning actions to reverse President Joe Biden’s diversity, equity and inclusion orders across the federal government.

An executive order on unleashing American energy will be particularly detailed. It will include permitting, coal, and natural gas policies, and put a stop to Green New Deal and climate spending initiated by Democrats.

Trump’s staff had already begun circulating copies of early executive orders with agency chiefs, according to sources familiar with the discussions, granted anonymity to share the information. In addition to a flurry of immigration actions, the Trump team has focused on several moves to reverse Biden’s rules allowing remote work among the federal workforce following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Lawmakers are also anticipating the details of Trump’s plans to save TikTok from a federal ban set to take effect at midnight on Sunday. Tiktok had voluntarily shut down its services in anticipation of the deadline but then brought them back online following a Sunday TruthSocial post where Trump vowed to “save TikTok.”

Trump’s transition team has been contemplating a wide swath of Day One executive orders, ranging from actions relating to immigration and border security to foreign policy and trade — though senior aides continued to debate the language and several key aspects of the policies in the days leading up to the inauguration.

Trump’s first actions potentially include slapping 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico and declaring the U.S. trade deficit “a national emergency.” Trump is also expected to expand the “expedited removal” of undocumented immigrants under a fast-tracked deportation authority.

Trump has also pledged to pardon a still-unknown number of the 1,600 people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, possibly “within the first nine minutes” of his administration. Aides have vacillated between raising expectations for blanket pardons or more limited pardons that would cover only nonviolent offenders.