Weekly Roundup
FAFO: "Finding Out" Begins Now
Executive Branch
Aside from the presidential inauguration on Monday, Trump’s executive branch is preparing to spend the first week in fevered action:
Trump is expected to sign 100 executive orders on his first day in office, in what some are characterizing as a ‘shock and awe’ campaign never seen before in presidential history. The administration’s plans are expected to cost $100 Billion to execute. The administration has already started coordination with Congress on a budget to fund Trump’s plans, which are based on the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.
Some of the first orders will address anti-immigrant policy: border security and deportations of immigrants. Border Czar Tom Homan has vowed to begin raids starting on Monday with reports of the initial focus in Chicago. It is still unclear how he will marshal the resources to actually meet the target 1.7 million deportations in practice. Finishing the US-Mexican border wall, and building out the immigration detention centers is all part of that plan.
Other orders are expected to address energy development, changes to schedule F government workers to pack the bureaucracy with Trump loyalists, school gender policies, and removing vaccine mandates, AP reports.
Legislative Branch
The Senate continues confirmation hearings this week, and has already began legislative efforts to support Trump’s initiatives, beginning with the Laken-Riley Act, which lowers the threshold for deportations. If a person is accused of any crime, even if they have not been convicted, they are eligible for deportation. Republicans are touting this as a victory for public safety, but considering the historical rates of violent and non-violent crime by citizens are more than twice the rate at which undocumented people commit crimes, its costs and value are questionable.
Confirmation Hearings Schedule Week of the 20th:
Tuesday, January 21st; 1000; Doug Collins former Georgia congressman and current chaplain in the U.S. Air Force Reserve Command, testifies before the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.
Wednesday, January 22nd; 1000; Russell Vought returns for a second hearing before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
PBS has a ‘how to watch’ article, and recorded hearings from last week here.
Judicial Branch
Last week the Supreme Court upheld the law banning Chinese social media app TicTok from operating within the US, unless they were able to sell the operation to US owners by the 19th of January. The sale did not happen, and last night access to TicTok was shut down. Today they were back online after Trump gave assurances that he would issue an executive order giving them more time to resolve the situation.
After Monday, the Court has two days of oral arguments scheduled on cases involving the Food and Drug Administration, and the Federal Communications Commission.
Challenges
Undoubtedly, we are going to see legal challenges to many of the executive orders and laws and how they are implemented. We’ll keep you informed as they happen.
