Trump's executive order avalanche buries his first term
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
President Trump has signed more executive orders in less than a year than he did during his entire first term, according to new data from Pew Research Center.
The big picture: Trump has shattered presidential traditions and seized expansive executive power in his first year back in office with a sprawling list of unilateral actions.
- He set the tone early with an unprecedented blitz of dozens of orders within his first days in office — and since then, his pen hasn't cooled.
Driving the news: The president has now signed 221 orders, surpassing the 220 he inked between 2017 and 2021, as recorded in the Federal Register.
- Both numbers exceed decades of presidents. Former President Biden, for example, signed 162 over four years, per the Register.
The latest: Trump on Monday signed an order designating illicit fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction.
- He's wielded his executive pen to implement his rollercoaster trade agenda, eliminate diversity programs, restrict rights for transgender Americans, weigh in on federal architecture, reshape the civil service, set immigration limits and more.
Friction point: But with the president's early tsunami of orders came an onslaught of lawsuits challenging his far-reaching agenda.
- And just this month, the House of Representatives handed down a rare rebuke of his executive action, voting in favor of a bill that would restore collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of federal workers — and nullify Trump's executive order stripping union protections.
The bottom line: As noted by Pew, if he keeps up his current pace, Trump could leave his predecessors' records in the dust when his four years come to a close.
Go deeper: Trump's boundary-breaking 100 days
