In his first term in office, President Trump apparently thought he could operate as if the federal government were a corporation he headed as Chief Executive and Commander in Chief of the armed forces. He assumed those beneath him would give him honest counsel, would perform their assigned duties, and follow his directives. He learned otherwise. All the steps he took the first week after beginning his astonishing second term are those a wise CEO and commander in chief must take to do the job he promised and was elected to do. The scope and speed of his actions are nothing short of breathtaking: Pardoning and commuting over 1000 January 6th prisoners, issuing a slew of executive orders (go to Whitehouse.gov for the current listing), personnel shakeups, and demonstrating real leadership in North Carolina and California to help the victims of flood and fire, ill served by state and federal officials.
The domestic performance is matched by his steps on international matters.
The Fall of Davos? The once-mighty World Economic Forum is crumbling. Reports from #WEF25 in Davos show half-empty halls, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz addressing a sparse audience. Even the so-called “luxury” callgirl business is down 60% compared to last year. One attendee called it: “The last meeting of the Soviets in 1991.” The veneer of power and influence surrounding Klaus Schwab and his globalist cronies is wearing thin. As their lunatic fringe agendas face mounting scrutiny, it seems the world is finally waking up to their destructive plans. People are turning away from the WEF and its sinister grip on global politics. Is this the beginning of the end for Schwab and his dream of a ‘Great Reset’?
Argentina’s Javier Milei accurately describes the new global alliance — and neither France, nor the UK, nor the EU are part of this forward-moving alliance:
Argentina President Javier Milei announced there is a global alliance of anti-woke leaders, including himself and President Donald Trump, Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, Elon Musk, Hungary PM Viktor Orban, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump just told the globalists at the World Economic Forum right to their faces that he froze foreign aid, is ending climate change policies/”Green New Deal,” has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accord, ended the EV mandate, and is rushing to produce more fossil fuels.
He cut funding for the International Criminal Court, which stupidly sought an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu (apparently at the urging of consultant Amal Clooney) under a novel and dishonest definition of genocide. He cut funding of UNRWA, whose sole purpose ever was to abolish Israel and in the process has acted as an arm of Hamas, and has restricted USAID’s channeling of funds to non-governmental agencies not acting in our own best interests. He placed a 90-day freeze on all foreign aid except that going to Israel and Egypt. (Amal and George Clooney seem to have destroyed forever their own reputations on the world stage. He by covering up Biden’s dementia while hitting up his pals for donations and then turning on a dime when the Pelosi coup decided to pull the rug from under Biden.)
There have been so many Trump actions domestically, it is difficult to pick the most significant, and you may have other selections than mine, but these are what strike me as the most meaningful.
Like Steve Hayward, I think the President’s boldest move was revoking President Lyndon Johnson’s Executive Order 11246 “that launched our decades-long imposition of de facto racial quotas under the euphemism ‘affirmative <img alt captext="Clarice F” class=”post-image-right” src=”https://conservativenewsbriefing.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/a-breathtaking-first-week.jpg” width=”350″>action.’” (Hayward offers a clear history of how we got to “the most dishonest legal regime ever imposed, especially since Title VII included, at critics’ insistence, language explicitly prohibiting preferential hiring by race.” Trump has ordered the shutdown of all federal DEI offices and is monitoring the effort to retain them and their personnel under dodges like name changes. Michael Shellenberger has an interesting observation about the silence of the proponents of DEI:
Democrats and BLM attacked and protested Trump as racist. After Tuesday’s anti-DEI Executive Order? No. In 2017, 2018, and 2019. Since Tuesday, Democrats have been weirdly quiet. The reason is because, deep down, they know DEI is wrong, and that most Americans really hate it.
We hate it because it is discriminatory, divisive and anti-meritocracy.
Less publicized but also important was his action on Schedule F relating to the civil service, a move to prevent the burrowing in of old regime functionaries into the civil service and its protections.
Two weeks before Trump left office that last time, he issued an executive order that would have given the people through their elected president new powers over the bureaucracy. It asked agencies to reclassify all employees that deal with policy as Schedule F. To my way of thinking, it was the most brilliant and visionary executive order in a century, because it was the first giant step to give government back to the people. That order was instantly reversed once Biden took office, on day one. The Biden administration spent four years building in protections for the administrative state that would make President Trump’s future attempts to control the bureaucracy null and void. As part of the new executive orders issued on the first day, we find “Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions within the Federal Workforce.” It is Schedule F rebooted but the name has been changed to make it less opaque. Any federal worker involved in policy as a career is now directly under the control of the people through their elected representative. That is already done. All of Biden’s attempts to stop this have been repealed.
At the Department of Justice, 20 career officials were sidelined, including in the criminal, national security, and international affairs divisions. New U.S. attorneys were installed in D.C., the Southern District of New York and the Eastern District of New York. All are qualified, experienced lawyers committed to enforcing the law. A few of the judges in the federal district of D.C. have been openly critical of the Trump pardons. One, Judge Amit Mehta, has gone so far as to forbid a pardoned man from returning to the capital without his permission. The new U.S. attorney Ed Martin characterized this as overt rebellion and sought dismissal of that order. Attorneys in the Civil Rights Division were forbidden to file any new complaints, amicus briefs, or other court documents until further notice.
The President fired 17 inspector generals, leaving in place Joseph V. Cuffari, Jr., who is conducting investigations into the Secret Service, and Michael E. Horowitz of the Justice Department.
At the National Security Council, so many staffers were let go on no notice that some were trapped in the buildings because their badges no longer worked and had to be let out by security officers.
Wrapping up the week were the President’s tour de force trips to North Carolina and California. In North Carolina, he listened to those displaced by the flood, heard how FEMA had failed to assist them, let them name the insurance companies which had been delaying payouts under the terms of their contracts. Under Trump, FEMA, which had done little to rehouse those whose homes had been destroyed — even allowing them to be forced out of hotel rooms into freezing weather without shelter, turned on a dime and placed them in furnished apartments. The President ordered the National Guard in to quickly rebuild the bridges and roads which had been washed out and left in rubble for months under Biden. Congress is now calling on the CEOs of the named insurance companies to testify about their performance in North Carolina.
In California, he displayed yet another side of his genius. Governor Gavin Newsom, used to dealing with voters who apparently confuse style with substance, showed up uninvited on the tarmac for some performative photo ops wearing scruffy togs to suggest he was hard at work. Trump ordered the pumps and valves opened in the North to get water down to Southern California. Newsom whined that more water wouldn’t change anything and was reminded by Trump that dry hydrants didn’t help and water works well at extinguishing fires.
After that, he met with a panel to which Newsom had not been invited. It included residents of burned-out areas and Los Angeles’ incompetent far-left mayor Karen Bass and Trump’s former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell, whom the President appointed to oversee the Los Angeles fire rebuild. Clearly the Democrats in California intend that they, who have squandered billions of federal and state dollars to pay off supporters rather than pay for forest management, infrastructure upkeep, and repair and improvement, think this administration will just hand them more money to do the same. (Like Ukraine’s Zelensky, whose funds were just cut off). They have a lot to learn.
Indeed, basic economics is not a Democratic strong suit. California Representative Brad Sherman tried to shift blame to the insurance companies and the President reminded him that the insurance companies left California because the state blocked them from raising rates. Bass claimed at various points that citizens of the burnt-out areas could get to work rebuilding immediately — or could do so soon — and that safety was her concern, but she resisted Trump’s demand that the highly restrictive permitting rules had to be relaxed. Grenell told interested residents who had dumpsters and stuff to clean up their property that they should just go do it and not wait for Bass’s regulators to act — something that even regarding clearing the land would take months. Saturday morning, he received reports that the National Guard and local police were still blocking their access.
The point is that citizens own their land and what remains of their possessions. President Trump gets this key point. Mayor Bass does not and is using “safety” as an argument against owners cleaning their own debris and searching for their own belongings on their own lots, those few belongings that may have survived and which even the best contractor may not recognize. Mayor: Send a lot of police to the Palisades. Have them check IDs. Keep looters and doom gazers away. Supervisors: Send sheriffs to the Eaton fire zone to do the same. Help with bringing scores or hundreds of dumpsters. Put city employees under orders to follow the directions of the homeowners if you want to help. But blocking residents from their own property ought to be seen as the ridiculous overreach by an embarrassed city government that wants to be seen as “doing something” when it couldn’t even deliver water to brave firefighters. This will be a test of the local governments. President Trump spoke a tough truth to Mayor Bass. Will she pout or do the right thing?
In the meantime, deportations continue. By Saturday morning six planeloads of illegals were filled and landed in Mexico and Guatemala, and local law enforcement agencies were authorized to assist in the cleanup. The roads to Mexico were jammed with cars full of self-deporting illegals.
As predicted, the President’s order respecting termination of birthright citizenship has been enjoined by a district court judge, but I think the arguments in support of his reading of the Constitution and law will ultimately prevail.
I haven’t a clue about what the President will do next week. Even less do I understand how he can maintain this high energy for so long. I’m exhausted just watching him in action.
