It has been nearly two months since Donald Trump was elected as president.  Here are some key developments from the first thirty days of Trump’s second term. On day one Trump signed 26 executive orders, 12 memorandums, and four proclamations. These included:

• An order revoking 78 executive orders and memorandum issued by President Biden, many having to do with the climate crisis and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives
• Pardoning anyone involved in the January 6th  insurrection.
• Passing to limit first amendment rights and getting rid of initiatives that pressured social media companies into taking misinformation, disinformation, and mal-information, off of their sites.
• Declaring that all government agencies must make their employees return to in-person work as soon as possible.
• Require government agencies to submit a plan to downsize and become “more efficient” and put a hiring freeze in place, with an exemption on the military.
• Withdrawing from the World Health Organization.
• Declaring a national state of emergency at the southern border while enacting new policies regarding immigration including “Detaining, to the maximum extent authorized by law, aliens apprehended on suspicion of violating Federal or State law, until such time as they are removed from the United States” and persecuting them in court.
• Challenging birthright citizenship- at least one parent must be a US citizen; however, this only applies to children born after February 20th, and everyone born before is grandfathered in.
• No longer allowing refugees due to a state of emergency over the border crisis. 
• Eliminating green initiatives put in place by the Biden administration meant to help slow climate change. 
• Trump is implementing a 25% additional tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico and a 10% additional tariff on imports from China.  Energy resources from Canada will have a lower 10% tariff. This will increase the cost of all products from these places, so say goodbye to cheap fruit, energy, eggs, etc. This energy tariff is also making Canada threaten to end energy trade with us, which will cause thousands to freeze to death. 
• Designating cartels as terrorist organizations. 
• Restoring the death penalty and capital punishment and saying that the attorney general will quote “seek the death penalty regardless of other factors for every federal capital crime involving: (i)   The murder of a law-enforcement officer; or (ii)  A capital crime committed by an alien illegally present in this country.”
• Mt. Denali and the Gulf of mexico have been renamed Mt. McKinley (it’s original name) and The Gulf of America respectively.
• Declaring that there are two genders/sexes and that all people are the gender they are at conception.

Rest of week one:

• Transgender people are no longer allowed to serve in the military because they “are not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member”. However, soldiers who refused vaccines during the mandate have been allowed back into the military.
• Decided to enforce the Hyde amendment, an amendment that provided federal funding to help provide access to safe abortions. Before his election, Trump claimed he would not interfere with abortion on a federal level and would leave it up to the states.
• Officially ending federal DEI policies in aviation in order to “keep Americans safer”.  So far in 2025 there have been 14 commercial plane crashes resulting in casualties.

Week 2:

• Trump signed the Laken Riley act. This law mandates the federal detention of illegal immigrants who are accused of theft, burglary, assaulting a law enforcement officer, and any crime that causes death or serious bodily injury. This applies regardless of immigration status, including if you have a visa or green card. 
• A 25% tariff was put on China and Mexico. This will increase prices of anything from these places, everything from technology to fresh fruit and vegetables. The tariffs have been delayed until April 12th, however the president maintains these tariffs are in order to stop the flow of fentanyl into the US.
• Canada was also threatened with a 25% tariff, this is idiotic because we get a lot of our power from Canada. If the trade war continues to escalate, Canada is threatening to shut off our power. 
• Federally funded schools are no longer allowed to teach children about gender, race, or discrimination on the basis of either.

Week 3:

• Potential withdraw us from the following UN groups: The UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). And is withdrawing us from the UN Human Rights Council
• Establishment of a “White House Faith office.
• A potential order to ban gun control, safety, or protection laws that were put in place by the Biden administration. 

Week 4:

• Elon Musk was appointed head of DOGE (department of government efficiency). He has implemented a policy requiring government workers to send a weekly email about their tasks in order to analyze efficiency.
• Policy to try an lower costs for IVF (in-vitro fertilization). However in states with abortion bans this will not work as abortions in the case of removing a fetus that is not viable is often necessary. 
• Getting rid of any remaining covid-19 vaccine mandates in schools.
• An order to “make America healthy again”.

Additional points:

• The press pool was an a-political group of reporters that were allowed to follow the president in order to gather news. This organization had no affiliation to the president or any political party so reporters from left and right news sources were allowed to get the inside scoop. However recently Trump decided that the white house will get to decide who is allowed in. These changes mean the White House will determine which outlets participate in the “pool” that covers presidential events and shares material with other media outlets. This will cause huge amounts of media bias and let Trump control what information is shared to the public.

• Many trans people are unable to leave the country because they cannot get their passports. All passports where the requested gender was different then the person’s sex assigned at birth have been put on pause with no timeline as to when or if they will be completed.

• Trump has held his ground on the threat of tariffs despite economists all telling him that this is an awful idea that will severely hurt the economy and the average american. He plans to increase aluminum and steel tariffs on Canada from 25% to 50% in response to their threats about raising the price of electricity. He has also threatened a 200% tariff on all European alcohol. If these changes are implemented, the current planned date is April third which trump has dubbed “liberation day”

Stay tuned for more updates as the climate in DC heats up.