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Washington, DC – United States President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to be a dictator – but only on “day one” of his upcoming term.
That was the statement Trump made to Fox News in December 2023, in the midst of his last re-election campaign.
Sitting in a town hall with host Sean Hannity, Trump used a question about whether he would abuse presidential power to address his long list of priorities from day one.
“I love this guy,” Trump told the crowd, waving at Hannity. “He says, 'You're not going to be a dictator, are you?' I said, 'No, no, no, except for the first day. We're closing the border and probing, probing, probing.”
Since then, Trump's promises on his first day in office have only grown, covering immigration issues to reshaping the federal government.
On Monday, Trump takes the oath of office after a stunning political comeback in the November elections.
The swearing-in ceremony will officially kick off his second term as president. And all eyes are on how he will use his power once he returns to the White House.
Trump is expected to sign a mountain of executive orders in the opening hours of his presidency.
Such moves are common practice for future administrations looking to make their mark, even if those orders are silenced by Congress or legal challenges.
But with nearly 60 first-day promises and up to 100 executive orders expected, Trump's workload when he re-enters the White House is expected to be especially heavy.
One Republican senator, John Barrasso, has already predicted a “blizzard” of executive orders designed to “shock and awe.”
Here are some of the most significant promises Trump has made since day one.
Mass deportations
Immigration — and reducing illegal crossings at the southern border — has emerged as one of the top issues in Trump's re-election campaign.
On Nov. 4, just days before winning the presidency, Trump repeated a promise he made repeatedly during his campaign: “On day one, I will launch the largest criminal deportation program in American history. We'll get them out. We must.”
Details on how Trump would undertake – and finance – one massive operation remain elusive.
The US government estimates that nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants live in the country, although Trump said he would “declare a national emergency and use military means.”
Who Trump might be targeting is also unclear. Some proponents argue that all persons in the country without legal documents are “criminals.” Others hope Trump will limit “mass deportation” efforts to those convicted of crimes such as theft or assault.
“muslim ban”
Another of his Day 1 promises is a throwback to his first term in office, when he signed a 2017 executive order that became known as the “Ban Muslims“.
It restricted entry for travelers seeking to come to the U.S. from several Muslim-majority countries, including Syria, Libya, Yemen and Sudan. The ban faced an avalanche of legal challenges and was eventually overturned under President Joe Biden.
But during his new term, Trump promised to restore the ban, as well as to “end refugee admissions, stop resettlement and keep terrorists out of our country.”
“We will ban the resettlement of refugees from terror-ridden areas like the Gaza Strip and we will seal our border and bring back the travel ban,” he told Republican donors in Washington in September.
“Remember the famous travel ban? We didn't take people from certain parts of the world because I didn't want people tearing down and burning down our malls and killing people.
Restriction on citizenship
An executive order Trump is considering for his first day back in the White House would seek to limit who is eligible for American citizenship.
The plan has been in development for a long time. Already in May 2023. Trump posted a video on his campaign website outlining his intentions.
“On the first day of my new term, I will sign an executive order making it clear to federal agencies that, under the correct interpretation of the law, the future children of illegal aliens will not be automatically granted US citizenship going forward,” Trump said.
According to the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, anyone born in the country becomes a citizen, regardless of the status of their parents.
To end the Russian-Ukrainian war
Trump has repeatedly claimed that the wars in Ukraine and Gaza would never have broken out under his watch.
While a cease-fire agreement to halt Israel's devastating campaign in Gaza was reached just days before Trump's inauguration, fighting continues in Ukraine, where Russia has launched a full-scale invasion in 2022.
Trump has promised to quickly end this conflict during his second term. During CNN's May 2023 town hall. Trump said the war would end “absolutely” within “24 hours” of his inauguration.
Trump was more careful lately as his second term approaches. However, on January 13, he announced that he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin “very soon” after taking office.
Trump's team has made it clear that he will press Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a deal, raising concerns that it could lead to concessions to Moscow.
Increased pressure on tariffs
Part of Trump's vision for his first days in office is reimagining the federal government.
On January 14, Trump announced that on the day of his inauguration he would create a “foreign revenue office” that would “collect our tariffs, duties, and all revenues that come from foreign sources.”
Trump has called for a broad tariff program — including up to 60 percent on Chinese goods — to jump-start domestic manufacturing.
Trump too threatened up to 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada if they don't do more to prevent border crossings and drug smuggling.
But economists have expressed skepticism about that approach, saying such high tariffs could lead to a trade war that would hurt the U.S. economy.
Pardon of the defendants from January 6
Trump has repeatedly referred to them arrested about the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. as “political prisoners” and “hostages”.
He even promised to start issuing pardons within minutes of taking office.
But Trump has since been a bit murkier about timeline – and whether all defendants charged in the rebellion would be eligible for a pardon.
“I'll probably do it very quickly,” Trump said on the “Meet the Press” television show last month, noting that “there may be some exceptions” to his plans to pardon them.
Also on Sunday, Vice President-elect JD Vance angered some supporters by saying that only peaceful protesters should be pardoned. He added that there was “a bit of a gray area” in some cases.
Industry deregulation
Trump has indicated he plans to pursue a sweeping deregulation agenda when he takes office again.
He blames the regulations for stifling business and passing on excess costs to American consumers.
“On day one, I will sign an executive order directing every federal agency to immediately eliminate every single burdensome regulation that raises the cost of goods,” Trump said on the campaign trail in October.
“This will be the largest regulatory reduction in the history of our country, and it will happen very quickly,” he added.
During a press conference in December, Trump went further, promising to cut 10 regulations for every new one added.
A new nongovernmental board he plans to create — called the Department of Government Efficiency — is tasked with identifying regulations that could be overturned.
Some of the provisions in Trump's bill are related to the environment.
That includes a promise from day one to reverse an executive action imposed by President Biden to ban offshore drilling in 625 million acres (253 million hectares) of coastal waters.
Trump also said he would immediately repeal t. called Biden's “electric vehicle mandate,” which imposes higher emissions limits on automakers in an effort to fight climate change.
Actions against the “awakened” ideology
Trump's promises from day one included several “culture war” issues that have long motivated his base.
That includes, as Trump said in December, stopping the “transgender madness.”
The president-elect has promised to ban transgender women from playing women's sports. He also said he would take action to ban gender-affirming care for minors, which he called “child sexual mutilation.”
“On day one, I will roll back Joe Biden's brutal policies on so-called gender-affirming care,” Trump said in February 2023. campaign video.
“I will sign a new executive order instructing every federal agency to end all programs that promote gender identity and gender transition at any age.”
Trump further threatened to cut immediately federal funding from schools and colleges that promote “critical race theory, transgender bigotry, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content.”
Resignations to withdraw from Afghanistan
On the reality TV show The Apprentice, Trump carved out a persona as a tough-talking real estate baron with a ruthless business acumen.
His catchphrase “You're fired” followed him into the political realm.
Even on the campaign trail, Trump entertained audiences with his plans to fire those he deemed incompetent.
And as he envisioned his first day in office, he told the audience that he plans to seek accountability for the haphazard withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in 2021.
Trump made a deal in 2020. with the Taliban to end the US presence in the country. But as US forces retreated, the Taliban launched an offensive that toppled the fragile US-backed government.
A hasty evacuation followed the fall of the capital, Kabul, in which a suicide bomber killed 13 American soldiers and about 170 Afghan civilians.
Trump blamed his successor, Biden, for the death, even though a 2023 Report indicated that both leaders were responsible. But Trump continues to point the finger elsewhere.
“We're going to have the resignations of every single senior official involved in the disaster in Afghanistan on my desk by noon on Inauguration Day,” he said in Michigan in August. “You know, you have to fire people. You have to fire people when they do a bad job.”
