Photo Illustration: Mark Murrmann; Richard Drew/AP; Tj Kirkpatrick/CNP/ZUMA
The first day in office is a hectic one for new presidents. It doesn’t start until the late morning, and they spend hours at a formal ceremony, with hours of obligations to follow on the party circuit that night. None of their appointees have been confirmed; few of them have even been nominated. They’ll probably get lost once or twice. It’s a lot like any first day at a new job, in other words.
But that doesn’t stop presidential candidates from making bold promises about how much they’ll accomplish that day. Here’s everything Donald Trump has promised to do on his first day in office (or, in a few cases, things his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, has promised Trump will do):
- “Repeal every single Obama executive order.” (He has also pledged more specifically to “eliminate every unconstitutional executive order.”)
- “Repeal Obamacare.” (On Trump’s campaign website, he’s less bullish, promising only to “ask Congress” on day one to repeal Obamacare immediately.)
- “End the war on coal.“
- “Begin swiftly removing criminal illegal immigrants from this country.” (More specifically, Trump has promised to do this in his “first hour” in office, “day one, before the wall, before anything.”)
- “Begin working on an impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful, southern border wall.”
- Meet with Homeland Security officials and generals to begin securing the southern border.
- “Notify all countries that refuse to take back dangerous illegal immigrants who have committed crimes in this country that they will lose access to our visa programs if they continue to do so.”
- Convene his top generals and inform them they have 30 days to come up with a plan to stop ISIS.
- Fix the Department of Veterans Affairs.
- Call the heads of major companies who are moving operations oversea to inform them that they’ll face 35 percent tariffs.
- “Contact countries and say…’Folks, we love protecting you, we want to continue to protect you but you’re not living up to the bargain’…They’re not paying what they’re supposed to be paying—which is very little, by the way.”
- “Defend the unborn.”
- “Withdraw from TPP.“
- “Start taking care of our…military.”
- Suspend Syrian refugee resettlement.
- “Notify our NAFTA partners of my intention to renegotiate the deal.”
- “Designate China as a currency manipulator.”
- “Direct every agency in government to begin identifying all wasteful job-killing regulations, and they are going to be removed.“
- “Get rid of gun-free zones [in] schools” and “military bases”—which would require repealing a 25-year-old federal law. (“My first day, it gets signed, okay? My first day. There’s no more gun-free zones.”)
- “Ask Congress to pass ‘Kate’s Law’—named for Kate Steinle—to ensure that criminal aliens convicted of illegal reentry receive strong mandatory minimum sentences.“
- Learn the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas.
It’s shaping up to be a busy day! Hillary Clinton, by contrast, has made only a few day-one promises, none of which is as concrete as shaking down European heads of state:
- “Tackle the gun lobby to try to reduce the outrageous number of people who are dying from gun violence in our country.“
- “Reach out to Republicans and say, ‘This is your chance to help millions of families and show that your party, the party of Lincoln, is better than Donald Trump.’“
- “Work with both parties to pass the biggest investment in new, good-paying jobs since World War II.“
