President Donald Trump continued to look for new ways to consolidate power in the White House in his fifth week in office.
Whether through executive orders, social media posts or plans floated in the media, the second Trump administration is attempting to reorient the federal government around the executive branch.
Here’s a thorough look at what the Trump administration has done over the last seven days:
• Signed a sweeping executive order to bring independent agencies under White House control, based on a fringe legal theory.
• Claimed, through a White House aide, that “only the president or the attorney general” can interpret laws.
• Declared that temporary protected status will end in August for 500,000 Haitians living in the U.S.
• Fired the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and two other top military officials late on a Friday in an unusual move.
• Said, in an interview with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, that top military lawyers would be let go to ensure they aren’t “roadblocks to anything that happens.”
• Planned to lay off more than 6,000 employees at the IRS in the middle of tax season.
• Tried to quickly rehire U.S. Department of Agriculture staffers who were experts on bird flu after firing them.
• Backtracked on a plan to eliminate thousands of seasonal workers at national parks.
• Broadened Jan. 6 pardons to include some charges that stemmed from police searches while investigating those cases.
• Signed an executive order on in vitro fertilization that doesn’t do much and falls far short of a campaign promise.
• Claimed, incorrectly, that Ukraine was to blame for the Russian invasion of its territory.
• Falsely attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “a Dictator without Elections” in a social media post.
• Sent federal workers an email demanding they reply with a bullet point list of what they did last week.
• Threatened to withhold all federal funding from Maine if it doesn’t comply with an executive order on women’s sports. • Sued, through Trump Media, a Brazilian Supreme Court justice weighing the arrest of Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro. • Named conservative podcaster Dan Bongino as deputy director of the FBI, a post typically held by a career agent. • Sat down for a joint interview with Musk on Fox News that featured only softball questions. • Posted an illustration of Trump wearing a crown on a social media post with the words “LONG LIVE THE KING!” • Claimed, falsely, to have an approval rating of 71%, even as several recent major polls show him below 50%. • Floated a plan to have the Commerce Department take over the U.S. Postal Service, which has been independent since 1970. • Floated a plan to levy tariffs on cars, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals starting in April. • Floated a plan to send taxpayers a check for the federal spending allegedly cut by Musk’s cost-cutting measures. • Floated, once again, a plan to run for an unconstitutional third presidential term in 2028. Subscribe to Trump’s First 100 Days newsletter for weekly updates on and expert insight into the key issues and figures defining his second term.
Ryan Teague Beckwith is a newsletter editor for MS NOW.
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