Trump gets a jump on his presidency — with Biden's help
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Photo illustration: Maura Losch/Axios. Photos: Al Drago/Getty Images and Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images.
Donald Trump's second presidency is already off to a blazing start — partly from how aggressively he's seized power, but also because his rival, President Biden, has given Trump a head start on realizing some of his big campaign promises.
Why it matters: The most consequential pre-presidency in recent U.S. history has left Trump uniquely positioned to quickly impose his plans to boost executive power, reshape foreign policy, deport millions of undocumented immigrants and juice the economy.
- Trump's also ignited a rightward tilt of corporate America, the removal of social media speech guardrails and significant geopolitical shifts.
Zoom in: This week, Biden's White House hailed a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal — one that was made possible partly by Trump's imminent arrival.
- Biden's team worked for months to secure peace, but Israel was willing to close the deal only with Trump's backing, Axios' Barak Ravid reported.
Trump has sent ripples through several countries with his -pre-inauguration musings on foreign policy.
- Justin Trudeau's resignation was triggered in part by divisions within Canada's government over how to respond to Trump's 25% tariff threat.
- The Overton window on U.S. expansionism quickly shifted as Trump mused about taking back the Panama Canal, claiming Greenland and invading Mexico, prompting frazzled responses from foreign leaders.
- Iran put a retaliation plan against Israel on the back burner, signaling it wants to negotiate a new nuclear deal with Trump.
The Trump effect has hit tech at a head-spinning pace.
- The incoming president is trying to resuscitate TikTok, signaling that he'll sign an executive order Monday to keep the social media app alive — at least temporarily.
- In a matter of weeks, Meta morphed into a Trump-hugging, MAGA-aligned fount of "masculine energy."
- The company's blitz of moves included loosening speech restrictions, dropping DEI efforts, appointing the UFC's Dana White to its board and putting Republican Joel Kaplan in its chief public affairs role. CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be at Trump's inauguration today.
These effects are cascading through Corporate America.
- Several of the country's biggest companies have unwound their DEI efforts, with many others talking about the topic less.
- Top executives, including Zuckerberg, sense a new permission structure to speak their minds, unshackled.
Zoom out: Trump has cast Biden as weak, but on some policy fronts — namely immigration and the economy — Biden is leaving Trump a stronger hand than the Republican admits.
- As Biden departs, border crossings are down, deportations are up and the economy is humming along, with inflation trending down.
State of play: Trump enters office with plans to deport millions of immigrants at a time when U.S. immigration courts already are on pace to decide record numbers of deportation cases — and order the most removals in five years — under Biden's push to fast-track asylum decisions.
- Immigration courts are predicted to rule on 852,000 deportation cases from Oct. 1, 2024, to Sept. 30, 2025, according to an analysis of data by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.
- If that pace continues, immigration judges will rule on more deportation cases in 2025 than in any previous year on record.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported more than 271,000 people last fiscal year — a 90% increase from 2023, the most in nearly a decade and more than Trump did in any year of his first term.
Illegal border crossings also have declined steadily in 2024 after a sharp drop early in the year, according to Department of Homeland Security data obtained by USA Today and CBS News.
- Documents obtained by the ACLU show that ICE under Biden has considered proposals to expand its immigration detention capacity in at least eight states.
- Those proposals could give Trump a running start for a key part of his mass-deportation plan.
On the economy, encouraging consumer price index reports indicate inflation is relenting, a dramatic improvement from 2022 — although food and energy costs remain relatively high.
- Jobs reports also have been strong under Biden, whose post-pandemic recovery added more jobs in a single four-year term than Presidents Bush and Obama (two terms each) and Trump's first term.
- A majority of Americans are already giving Trump credit for these economic improvements, according to an Axios/Harris poll. A similar number of respondents, roughly 55%, said they were optimistic about the government's ability to manage the economy and lower prices.
Trump's challenge in the Middle East will be to help maintain the fragile peace established in Biden's hostage and ceasefire deal, which paused 15 months of war in Gaza.
- Biden's team dismisses the notion that Trump's impending return helped clinch the deal. Asked by reporters whether Trump should get credit, Biden said: "Is that a joke?"
