![]() However, because this is an executive order and not a law (presidents can’t pass laws on their own that’s what Congress is for), the order doesn’t establish any sort of criminal penalties for those who violate the pledge.Īnd there’s another part that makes it potentially even more toothless: The order includes a clause allowing "the president or his designee” to grant waivers to anyone who has signed the pledge, but doesn’t say anything about the circumstances under which a waiver might be granted. The order authorizes the attorney general to investigate anyone believed to have violated the ethics pledge and to initiate civil action against the person if the case warrants. “I will not, at any time after the termination of my employment in the United States Government, engage in any activity on behalf of any foreign government or foreign political party which, were it undertaken on January 20, 2017, would require me to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended.” Just eight days after his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order requiring White House officials to sign an ethics pledge as a condition of employment, in which they agree to oblige by nine different ethical commitments. On paper, the administration has followed through on this one. The Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs, on the other hand, don’t seem to have much to worry about. Two of the federal agencies Trump wants to shrink: the Environmental Protection Agency and the State Department. His administration said they would instead focus on a "smarter plan, a more strategic plan, a more surgical plan,” which would involve hiring more in some departments and less in others. The hiring freeze lasted roughly two months before Trump revoked it altogether on April 12. Later that month, the administration released further details about which jobs were exempt, expanding it to seasonal workers and the entire US Postal Service. The Department of Veterans Affairs was particularly upset about the hiring freeze, and begged Trump in January to exempt their employees, to ensure they could provide critical services to military veterans. But his order excluded federal jobs deemed “necessary to meet national security or public safety responsibilities,” like uniformed military positions, for instance.Ĭonfusion ensued over which jobs could be considered essential to national security and public safety. ![]() One of his first actions, on the Monday after taking office, was to order a federal hiring freeze. Trump can say he kept this promise, at least for a little while. You can read a detailed annotation of Trump’s pledges below. Some, like the Muslim ban and Obamacare repeal, have experienced embarrassing setbacks and unforced errors. Of Trump’s roughly 30 concrete pledges, he has arguably just accomplished three of them, making progress on only a handful more. But with the important exception of immigration, Trump’s first 100 days have been both more conventional and less consequential than he promised or than most Americans would likely have anticipated the morning after the election. The pace of news events has been tremendous, largely because the White House has been so disorganized and frenetic. His ethics pledges have been undercut by loopholes or narrow legalisms, and his promised confrontational attitude toward trade partners and source countries for immigration has largely failed to materialize. But Trump has held off from enacting a broad array of his proposed executive actions as well. That includes a huge quantity of legislation he said he would pass, none of which has become law - and most of which has not even been proposed in anything remotely resembling the form of an actual bill.Īnyone who k nows anything about the legislative process could have predicted most of this, of course, though a Republican Party president being unable to write a real tax bill is odd. But as you can see from our t horough look at his p romises, Trump has left far more unfulfilled than enacted. Trump has certainly fulfilled some of his first 100 days pledges, including the low-hanging fruit of confirming a Supreme Court justice, formally withdrawing from the already-dead Trans - Pacific Partnership, and taking significant steps to make immigration enforcement harsher and more intimidating. And anyone who believed it was all going to happen has met a fate that will be familiar to former students of Trump University or former investors in Trump Casino Hotels and Resorts. Donald Trump is not a man inclined toward modesty, understatement, or dreary literalism, so it’s no surprise that his campaign published a list of 30 actionable items to be undertaken during his first 100 days in office that was breathtaking in scope.
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