The Week: Welcome to the Second Trump Era

• “Pardon me” has a whole different meaning in the Biden household.

• So relentless has been the release of Donald Trump’s first-week executive orders that it has been tough to keep pace. Once, presidencies were judged after a year. Later, this became “One Hundred Days.” Now, our newly inaugurated executives operate in hours. All told, Trump’s edicts fall into three categories: clearly legal, probably legal but deserving scrutiny, and presumptively illegal. Among the clearly legal changes that Trump has made are the declaration of an emergency at the southern border; the return of the “Remain in Mexico” policy; a freeze on the acquisition of new bureaucrats; the destruction of federal DEI programs; the ending of government efforts to censor or shape social media; the reversal of the electric vehicle mandate; the restoration of military personnel whom Joe Biden fired for refusing the Covid-19 vaccine; the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris climate agreement; and the establishment of a policy “to recognize two sexes, male and female.” Excellent all. Among the decisions that are probably legal are the invocation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act and the designation of Mexican drug cartels as “terrorists,” as well as the declaration that the energy sector is in “emergency.” Among the bad are the announcement of a 75-day pause on the enforcement of Congress’s ban on TikTok—which, by the plain terms of the law, grants Trump no such authority—and a directive to reinterpret the Constitution so that the 14th Amendment does not confer automatic citizenship on the children born on U.S. soil to illegal immigrants or holders of temporary visas. As with Joe Biden and Barack Obama before him, Trump’s flurry of orders is ultimately the product of a legislative branch that has been content to leave the spadework to the president, and to a presidency that has begun to take cynical advantage of that trend.

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• “Pardon me” has a whole different meaning in the Biden household.

• So relentless has been the release of Donald Trump’s first-week executive orders that it has been tough to keep pace. Once, presidencies were judged after a year. Later, this became “One Hundred Days.” Now, our newly inaugurated executives operate in hours. All told, Trump’s edicts fall into three categories: clearly legal, probably legal but deserving scrutiny, and presumptively illegal. Among the clearly legal changes that Trump has made are the declaration of an emergency at the southern border; the return of the “Remain in Mexico” policy; a freeze on the acquisition of new bureaucrats; the destruction of federal DEI programs; the ending of government efforts to censor or shape social media; the reversal of the electric vehicle mandate; the restoration of military personnel whom Joe Biden fired for refusing the Covid-19 vaccine; the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris climate agreement; and the establishment of a policy “to recognize two sexes, male and female.” Excellent all. Among the decisions that are probably legal are the invocation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act and the designation of Mexican drug cartels as “terrorists,” as well as the declaration that the energy sector is in “emergency.” Among the bad are the announcement of a 75-day pause on the enforcement of Congress’s ban on TikTok—which, by the plain terms of the law, grants Trump no such authority—and a directive to reinterpret the Constitution so that the 14th Amendment does not confer automatic citizenship on the children born on U.S. soil to illegal immigrants or holders of temporary visas. As with Joe Biden and Barack Obama before him, Trump’s flurry of orders is ultimately the product of a legislative branch that has been content to leave the spadework to the president, and to a presidency that has begun to take cynical advantage of that trend.