The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump Promises "Golden Age," Moves To Enact Sweeping Executive Actions

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

"I return to the presidency, confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success," Trump said after being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. In an inaugural address where he outlined a number of policy proposals, Trump called for sending the U.S. military to the border with Mexico to curb illegal immigration, said the government would only recognize two genders, male and female, and reiterated a desire to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.Before Trump took office, the outgoing president, Joe Biden, issued a number of preemptive pardons, including for members of his own family, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and members & staff of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection.This episode: political correspondent Sarah McCammon, senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political correspondent Susan Davis, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson.The podcast is produced by Bria Suggs & Kelli Wessinger, and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, I'm Becky and I'm Dan and we coach the Ford Atkinson debate team We are just loading up the vans to head out to the Wisconsin State debate tournament this weekend This show was recorded at 2 16 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, January 20th 2025 things may have changed by the time you hear it, but we're hoping to be on our way home with lots of hardware for now home with lots of hardware. For now, here's the show! We hope you dominated a lively time in America to be on a debate team. Learning some skills there. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon, I cover politics. I'm Tamara Keith, I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I also cover politics. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national

political correspondent. Shortly afternoon Eastern time, Donald Trump was sworn in for a second term as president of the United States. Protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the United States. So help me God. So help me God. Congratulations Mr. President. In his inaugural address, Trump proclaimed the start of a new chapter in American history. I return to the presidency confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success. A tide of change is sweeping the country, sunlight is pouring over the entire world, and America has the chance to seize this opportunity like never before.

But first, we must be honest about the challenges we face. While they are plentiful, they will be annihilated by this great momentum that the world is now witnessing in the United States of America. Trump also signaled, as he had on the campaign trail, that his election to the presidency a second time was a sign that Americans want him to make sweeping changes to government and to policy. My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse

a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and indeed their freedom. From this moment on, America's decline is over. I just want to go around the room now and ask each of you what stood out? Tam? It was his focus on success, on prosperity, on wealth. Repeatedly he came back to this theme, you know, the golden age of America. In essence saying that he is going to make America wealthy again. Also talking about manifest

destiny, expanding America, expanding our reach. And while at times it was grandiose, it was also not sort of the sweeping inaugural address that you imagine where a president is reaching across the aisle or reaching out to all Americans. It was sort of a combo campaign speech, maybe state of the union, lots of policy, not like a sweeping speech in exactly the way that other presidents have done it. Sue, what about you? To me, it was an interesting speech. And I think that Trump positions himself as someone who sees and he uses the word mandate and having a tremendous power. And I think that

we need to level set that a little bit because the Republican Party broadly is in a very good position right now. They control all of Washington. There's a 6-3 conservative court. You are seeing corporate America sort of nodding towards the White House in a way they did not four years ago. So I do think that the president is entering office with a tremendous amount of power. They also have very narrow majorities in the House and Senate. And the idea that this country decisively voted to embrace all of Trump's policies, I think we have to give a little bit of pause for, especially as I think the president outlined an incredibly ambitious, both legislative and executive agenda that they expect to execute a lot in his first year in office. And we're

going to find out, I think pretty soon, exactly how much the country does actually support some pretty profound policy changes that Trump is gonna advocate today, starting day one. And we're gonna talk more about those in a second. But Mara, what jumped out at you? Well, what jumped out at me was the contrast between the grandiosity of the speech, our power will stop all wars.

We're going to expand our territory. You know, the golden age of America starts right now. And as Sue mentioned, the contrast between that and the external constraints he's going to face, not internal constraints, he's going to have none in terms of his cabinet or his staff, they have all been chosen to be loyal, but constraints because of markets, public opinion, not just whether the public is gonna like all these big sweeping radical transforming things he wants to do, but whether they hold him to all the promises that he made. He said prices are gonna come down. He said the border is gonna be secure. I mean, are they going to hold him to that

or not? You know, all of us were involved in various ways in covering Trump's first term. And I don't know about you, but something that stuck out to me about this speech was just how different it felt in tone. I wonder what each of you heard that might have stood out as different from Trump's inaugural

address eight years ago. I thought it was a sequel. I thought this was American Carnage 2.0. American Carnage, of course, that's a reference to his first inaugural address where he painted this very kind of dark doom and gloom picture of the status of the country. First, he said how horrible things are. As we gather today, our government confronts a crisis of trust.

For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair. Danielle Pletka And then he went on to say how he was going to fix everything, but he definitely, this was American Carnage 2.0. Emma Cieslik There was to me though, a much more optimistic and hopeful tone in a lot of portions of the speech than Trump has said in the past, talking about ambition being the lifeblood of a great nation, the golden age of America, talking about a prosperity for all. All this prosperity stuff.

There's so much. The future just is very bright, is what he is saying about America. He literally said sunlight spreading across the world. Yes. Isn't that like I alone can fix it? I mean, he talked about that on the campaign trail. And what it is, is he says, from this day on, we will be this, we will be that. History starts with the day Trump is inaugurated. That was very much the vibe of his 2017 inaugural.

And I think it's very similar with this inaugural. It's like, okay, all that other stuff is all that other stuff. Now it is Trump time. He clearly doesn't subscribe to the adage that you should overpromise or under promise and over deliver. I know Trump just makes the most grand promises as president. And I think it's I mean, humility is not what he's known for. But there really was this sense of like he talked about American greatness being back. And I just think he has set himself up for a very high standard to be held to. Although, as we all very well know with Trump, he really only holds himself to his own standard and will say everything is

great regardless of what the outcomes may be. Yes, he has a way of saying that anything that isn't him is terrible and anything that he does is great. Just the mere act of him becoming president has created greatness. That is his way. And we know from polls that as soon as he won, Republicans thought the economy was really good and they thought a lot of problems had kind of magically disappeared. So there's definitely a partisan aspect to this. Danielle Pletka Which is why it will be fascinating to track

not only what happens with the objective measures of the economy, but then how do people and especially his supporters respond to whatever's happening. Danielle Pletka And one thing that was important about today's inauguration is who was up there with him. Now, conservatives control the court, the House, the Senate, the White House, and the media. You've got Elon Musk with X, and who knows who's going to buy TikTok? It could be Elon Musk himself. So I think that Donald Trump has a lot of ways to convince people that, in fact, we are in a golden age. Danielle Pletka I want to get to some of the policy proposals Trump outlined, you know, he promised what he called a revolution of common sense

Today I will sign a series of historic executive orders with these actions we will begin the complete restoration of America and the Revolution of common sense. It's all about common sense. Tam, what's he saying he's going to do? Well, in terms of the common sense that he's talking about, he is going to take numerous executive actions today to get rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies

and deem that there are only two genders, male and female, that the federal government should not allow people to choose the gender that they put on government identification for instance. And then he also has a huge raft of executive actions planned related to immigration and securing the border. He would suspend refugee resettlement, according to a U.S. official, that would be suspended for at least four months. He would end asylum and close the border to those without legal status via proclamation. And a big one, he would end birthright citizenship for children born to parents without legal status, which there's a 14th Amendment to the Constitution

that enshrines birthright citizenship. So that would be a big legal issue. There are legal questions about a lot of these things, right Sue? I think the legal questions are the point. I think part of the executive actions that Donald Trump is taking is also part, I think, of a broader conservative legal theory that they want to test the bounds of executive power. And yes, of course, some of these executive actions like single-handedly ending birthright citizenship through an executive action, is going to be subject to a legal

challenge. But I think that they're also making a bet that if you push on all of these different issues, look, you might not win in the courts, but you might win in some. And so I think that there is an expectation already we saw today that there is a federal lawsuit already been filed questioning the legality of the Department of Government Efficiency that he's created that's being run by SpaceX founder Elon Musk. I think there's going to be a tremendous amount of legal and lawsuit activity towards what the Donald Trump administration is going to do. But I think people should keep in mind that they are prepared for that and it's part of the strategy. Yes. You know, Sue, the people in charge of implementing a lot of these policies are going to be Trump's

cabinet members. Congress has been moving quickly trying to confirm Trump's cabinet nominees. We've covered many of these hearings already on the podcast, but what's the latest there? I mean, I think the bottom line is I think as we sit here today, nearly all of Trump's nominees look like they have the vote to be confirmed. It's really a matter of when and not if. The quickest that we expect is Marco Rubio to be confirmed by Secretary of State. That could happen as soon as today, but if not in days, not weeks. And then it's going to be maybe a little bit more tedious.

Democrats certainly have powers to slow some of these nominations down. They kind of want to make it as painful as possible. But for even some of the controversial nominees like Pete Hegseth, who's the nominee to run the Defense Department, it seems pretty clear He has the votes I think the two Outstanding ones that people are gonna watch closely to see if they might not is Robert F. Kennedy jr. to run the Health and Human Services Department and former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of National Intelligence But I will tell you based off of my conversations with people on Capitol Hill

There's still a sense that also those two might be likely on a path to confirmation. Okay. Today, also during the inaugural address, Trump talked about foreign policy. He said he wants to be, quote, a peacemaker and a unifier. My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That's what I want to be, a peacemaker and a unifier. I'm pleased to say that as of yesterday, one day before I assumed office, the hostages in the Middle East are coming back home to their families. There are a lot of tough conflicts in the world right now.

How likely will that be? Well, he would point to, as he did, that some of the hostages that were being held in Gaza were returned yesterday to Israel. And he argues that that happened. He wasn't even president yet, but it happened because he was elected. Historians will settle this. However, certainly having Trump and Biden working together, singing from the same hymnal on that particular issue did sort of cause a ceasefire to come into being. But the idea that President Trump is going to, through American strength, end all wars is a bit of a stretch. One big question he had said that the war in Ukraine would end within 24 hours. That is clearly not happening. But the question remains how

he will approach that conflict, a conflict where President Biden and his administration work to rally the world around Ukraine and have been shoving money out the door as fast as they can possibly get it out the door to Ukraine before Trump took office. I think that Trump being elected and not being as favorable toward Ukraine probably does change that dynamic of a war that's been dragging on for some time. Danielle Pletka Well, making peace, you can make peace under many, many different terms. And if he wants to hand Ukraine to Putin on a silver platter,

he can certainly end the war there. So that is, I think, within his power. He can just cut off any kind of military assistance to Ukraine. The other thing he talked about, which doesn't really go with being a peacemaker, is the fact that he said, we're going to expand our territory. And when he talked about the Panama Canal, he said, we're taking it back. So I'm not exactly sure how he plans to do that. But certainly, big, powerful superpower. If they wanted to grab back the Panama Canal from a little country like Panama, they could. Danielle Pletka There's probably a way. I do also think it's worth noting that Trump is also forming different kinds of alliances. And as Mara and I have reported in the past, if you think

about the powers that the president has, foreign policy is the arena where there's ultimately really no check on the president. The constitution gives him tremendous power to set the foreign policy agenda. And to that end, I think it's also worth noting who was president at the inauguration today. The leaders of Argentina and Italy were there, also world leaders that align more with the mega worldview, a more right-wing isolationist populist worldview of how the world should be run. It's time to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about President Biden's last moments in office. Welcome back. I want to go back now to the beginning of the day when outgoing President Joe Biden issued a flurry of pardons and commutations on his way out the door, notably for Dr. Anthony

Fauci, for members and staff of the House committee that investigated January 6th and police officers who testified before that committee, and the former chair of the Joint Chiefs, Mark Milley. Tam, why did Biden issue these pardons, first of all? What he said is that these people have been subjected to attacks and threats and that they face politically motivated investigations. Like, this is not coming out of nowhere. Kash Patel, who is President Trump's pick to be FBI director, has an enemies list with essentially all of these people on it saying they should be investigated and prosecuted. That was before Trump became president and he hasn't been confirmed yet. But this is out there in the public record.

He's talked about jailing Liz Cheney. I mean, yes. And so President Biden said, and I'll just read from his statement, I believe in the rule of law and I'm optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics, but baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety and financial security of targeted individuals and their families. You know, typically a pardon comes with an admission of guilt. That's like part of the deal. But what Biden is saying here is that these pardons should not be mistaken for an acknowledgement of any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance of the pardons be misconstrued as an admission of guilt. So these are what you'd call preemptive

pardons. But let's not forget that Joe Biden at one point in time also condemned the idea and concept of preemptive pardons saying they unto themselves undermine the rule of law. And I do think that there is a bit of hypocrisy, especially in his final weeks of office, coming from Joe Biden, who ran as the paragon of democratic norms and virtue in America and used his post-election time to do things that he said he would never do and that he thought were exactly breaking those ideals that he claimed to uphold so dearly. And also today, like, pardoning his siblings and their spouses.

He'd already pardoned his son, Hunter. You know, what's so interesting to me is that Donald Trump has been such a stress test on democratic institutions that he basically put the rule of law in an impossible position. Either you don't investigate or prosecute a president who it looks like might have broken the law in many, many different ways. If you don't do that, then he's above the law. But if you do do that, then you get people like Trump and his supporters who say, you're a banana republic, Joe Biden's Justice Department is prosecuting the man who's going to run against him as president. And when you look at the

people that Joe Biden has preemptively pardoned, Mark Milley has been accused by Trump of treason. He's threatened Liz Cheney with jail. He's threatened all the January 6 people with jail. So you have to take this seriously. And these are people who are doing their jobs and who are threatened with jail time or worse by Donald Trump. So there's this real cognitive dissonance today for anyone watching President Biden because he did all of the things that norms call for you to do, right? He invites the Trumps over to the White House. He says, welcome home. They have tea. They ride over in the presidential limousine to the Capitol. He does all of the things. You know, President Trump didn't come to President Biden's inauguration, but President Biden clinging to norms. At

the same time, he is saying, but I've got to pardon all these people in my family and the January 6th committee and the police officers who testified because I'm not convinced that democracy is going to hold and that the norms are going to hold. Danielle Pletka Well, let's talk about Biden's legacy. That's exactly the point. He said his sole purpose for running for president was to stop Donald Trump from returning to office because he was a threat to American democracy. He has failed utterly on that, and that's going to be his legacy. I want to go back quickly to the preemptive pardons. A couple of you have mentioned briefly

the fact that Biden pardoned family members. So not just the Hunter Biden pardon, the pardon for his son late last year who was facing tax charges. He's also preemptively pardoned a number of family members who face no such charges. What is the concern here? Same thing. He says that his family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats motivated solely by a desire to hurt me, the worst kind of partisan politics. And he said he has no reason to believe that these attacks will

end. So it's all part of the same thing. Sure. But I don't think the preemptive pardons have ever been issued like this, especially to the president's personal family members. And I just don't think that Joe Biden should get a pass for breaking a norm that has now set a precedent that will let future presidents make similar decisions that will be seen as a degradation of democracy. And Joe Biden started it. That's just a fact. But wait a second. The thing that's so interesting about this is that did he started or Trump, who has threatened to jail all these different people to say he ran on retribution and revenge. He picked

the head of the FBI whose clear, explicit agenda is to go after Trump's political enemies, including the Biden crime family, as they would say. So who started this? Once you start chipping away at norms, it's a vicious cycle. I totally agree with that. But I also think to say that Democrats should be given a pass, you're not saying that. But I'm saying, you're not saying that, but it's saying that some Democrats should think that they should be given a pass because of threats that Donald Trump makes. It's a dangerous move. Danielle Pletka But this is how American democracy devolves.

Somebody starts by breaking law and saying they're above the law and then saying they're going to use all the rule of law institutions to go after their political enemies for retribution and revenge. It's very hard to put that genie back in the bottle. It becomes a vicious cycle. Okay. I want to ask each of you before we go. The Donald Trump who took office in 2017 is in many ways the same Trump as eight years ago, but he's also not the same Trump who took office today in the sense that he now has governed before. He has experience being president. He knows the drill. What might he have learned from

that first term that you think he may apply this time around? The thing I would say, talking especially with Republicans on the Hill, is that I think that they take a longer view of their political reality of the moment. And I am anticipating that 2025 is going to be a rollercoaster of a year, because already you have Republicans very aware of that narrow house majority saying they could lose the house in 2026. So you have to do everything this year or before you get into the thick of midterm politics. So everything from extending his tax cuts to what he wants to do on immigration and energy policy. They really want to try to get done before the fall. And that is going to take a tremendous,

tremendous legislative lift on Capitol Hill. But if they can do it, I think it's going to be an incredibly consequential year. Yeah. And I would say that Trump's team spent the last four years, many of the people who will be working for him and with him, spent the last four years plotting what they would do better this time. Now, will they succeed at being more disciplined, at writing executive orders and other actions that are less likely to be overturned in the courts? Will they have learned the lessons? I don't know. I mean, one thing about discipline is you can have a disciplined staff, but the president is still the president and the president is still Donald Trump. Danielle Pletka But I don't think that in of itself means

that he won't accomplish the things he sets out to accomplish. I agree with Sue. I think that the MAGA movement now, as opposed to in 2017, they've purged all the old line Republicans. There are no people in the cabinet or in the Republican House or Senate that are gonna push back against Donald Trump. So I think he knows how to get things done now. He's gonna have hardly any internal constraints. Everything's gonna be piled onto reconciliation, which is actually something that Democratic presidents do too, because it's the way to kind of shove through your agenda. So I expect him to be able to accomplish what he sets out to do. And we will be watching it all over the next four years and bringing you all the news on

the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I also cover politics. And I'm Mara Eliason, senior national political correspondent. And thank you fora Eliason, Senior National Political Correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.