It’s easy to sympathize with those who’ve struggled to keep up with Donald Trump’s flood-the-zone approach to executive orders. Indeed, as of last week, the president surpassed 100 executive orders before his second term even reached the 70-day mark. The Republican signed more EOs in the first two months of his second term than in the first two years of his first term.
The New York Times’ Carlos Lozada, who took on the unenviable task of reading each of the president’s directives, explained in his latest column:
The executive order is Trump’s preferred governing tool. Even with Republican congressional majorities, he favors the flourish of the order over the hassle of lawmaking. Why bother assembling legislative coalitions when you can just write, “By the authority vested in me as president by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered” and then tack on whatever you like?
To be sure, each of the orders deserves to be considered on the individual merits, but stepping back, it’s also worth appreciating the degree to which Trump promised Americans a very different approach to exercising presidential power.
In November 2015, in reference to Barack Obama, Trump said, “He doesn’t work the system. That is why he signs executive orders all the time.” A month earlier, the future president said, “Look at Obama. He doesn’t get anything done. … You’ve got to close the door and get things done without signing your executive orders all the time. That’s the easy way out.”
This quickly became a staple of his campaign rhetoric. As regular readers may recall, in January 2016, then-candidate Trump told Fox News, “[T]he problem with Washington, they don’t make deals. It’s all gridlock. And then you have a president that signs executive orders because he can’t get anything done. I’ll get everybody together.”
In March 2016, with his hold on the GOP nomination nearly complete, Trump went so far as to declare, “I want to not use too many executive orders, folks. Executive orders sort of came about more recently. Nobody ever heard of an executive order. Then all of a sudden Obama, because he couldn’t get anybody to agree with him, he starts signing them like they’re butter. So I want to do away with executive orders for the most part.”
The same month, at a primary debate, Trump vowed, “I would build consensus with Congress, and Congress would agree with me. … I don’t like the idea of using executive orders like our president. It is a disaster what [Obama’s] doing. I would build consensus, but consensus means you have to work hard. You have to cajole. You have to get them into the Oval Office and get them all together, and you have to make deals.” Perhaps the best line of them all was delivered in January 2016, when Trump told CNN his thoughts on the “executive-order concept.” The future president explained, “You know, it’s supposed to be negotiated. You’re supposed to cajole, get people in a room, you have Republicans, Democrats, you’re supposed to get together and pass a law. [Obama] doesn’t want to do that because it’s too much work. So he doesn’t want to work too hard. He wants to go back and play golf.” Eight years later, Trump isn’t just signing executive orders on a nearly daily basis, he’s publicly bragging about the fact that he’s signing more orders than any of his presidential predecessors. The Republican has not yet explained when or why he changed his mind about the “executive-order concept,” but I’m eager to hear him elaborate on the subject.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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