Dictator for a day: What to expect from Trump’s first day in the Oval Office

The first day of the second Trump era passed relatively quietly at the gates of Mar-a-Lago, the resort where the president-elect has his residence. There were plenty of Palm Beach police patrols, but they were outnumbered by television crews looking for the best shot of the extravagant property. Only a few Donald Trump supporters were gathered in the early afternoon in the parking lot.

There was Greg, bearded and red-haired, riding a trial bike, who said that it was Trump’s “unique personality” that had won him over. Bridget, a woman in a MAGA hat, pushing her baby’s stroller, said she had been convinced Trump would win but had been nervous “in case the others cheated.” Cindy Falco DiCorrado has been coming here “since 2016″ with friends, holding up Republican signs to get a honk from passing cars and other signs of support.

Asked what she imagines the first day of Trump’s return to the Oval Office will be like, Falco DiCorrado responded as though reading off a Hollywood script: “Giving power back to ‘us the people,’ because we see and we know we’ve been cheated.”

During his long and eventful campaign, in which he survived two assassination attempts, Trump talked obsessively about what he plans to do on his first day in the White House. Two days after the election, he sent a message to his supporters asking for their help in fixing his priorities. What, he asked, was more urgent: “Build the wall [with Mexico],” “Stop rampant crime,” “Save the economy,” or “Protect the Second Amendment,” which guarantees the right to bear arms?

Besides being a roundabout way of asking for more donations, Trump’s obsession with those inaugural hours has a lot to do with the promise to be “dictator for a day” that he made last year during an interview with Fox News host and family friend Sean Hannity in Iowa. When Hannity asked him if he planned to abuse his power or retaliate against the people who had wronged him after the 2020 ballot box defeat, Trump replied, “No, except on day one,” a day on which he planned to “close the border” and “drill, drill, drill… After that, I’ll stop being a dictator,” he added.

At his rallies, Trump consistently promised that, besides blocking immigration from Mexico and “closing the border,” he plans to detain and deport millions of immigrants living in the U.S. without papers — an estimated 11 million people. Moreover, he promised he would begin to do this on the famous first day, tackling what he terms “migrant crime.” “I will launch a rescue for all the cities and towns that have been invaded and conquered, and we will put these cruel and bloodthirsty criminals in jail, and then throw them out of our country as quickly as possible,” he said on the eve of the election in Reading, Pennsylvania.

Trump’s obsession with the border has proven to be a magnet, even among Latino voters. The question now is how he intends to seal it and how much it will cost: the task of expelling one million undocumented immigrants per year would cost $88 billion, according to a report by the American Immigration Council. On Thursday, October 8, Trump told NBC News by phone that the cost of such an operation will not be a problem on the U.S. side; how the countries receiving the migrants will manage is not, of course, his concern.

The climate agenda

Regarding the environment, the word “drill” has been one of Trump’s favorites during the campaign. It encapsulates his plans to reverse some of the gains of the Biden administration — one of the most environmentally concerned presidencies in history, with milestones such as the Inflation Reduction Act, a somewhat anodyne name for Biden’s ambitious plan of action against climate change.

“I will revoke all unspent funds [provided for in the act],” the president-elect has said. He has also promised to boost oil exploration — a source of energy he considers an essential part of the American identity — and to encourage fracking. Finally, he will put an end to offshore wind energy projects “from day one,” because he claims with no scientific evidence, that “they kill whales.”

Trump also has immediate plans for U.S. foreign policy, although he has been less specific about these than about the firing “in two seconds” of special counsel Jack Smith, appointed by the Justice Department to handle two of his pending trials; or his plans to pardon the hundreds of people “unjustly” imprisoned for the assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, whom he calls “hostages” and “incredible patriots.” It is not clear, for example, how he intends to fulfill his promise to achieve peace between Ukraine and Russia, although no one doubts that it will be very different from Biden’s approach, which Trump considers is taking the U.S. into a “Third World War.”

Trump has expressed his admiration for the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, who said two days after the election: “I am ready to contact him, I do not consider it shameful to call him myself.” During his campaign and at every rally, Trump repeated that this personal relationship with Putin would be enough to bring him to the negotiating table with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. How such a thing would actually happen is being debated among Republicans, though there is little doubt that the ultimate decision will be made by Trump and Trump alone on his side of the Atlantic.

As The Wall Street Journal reports, there are several schools of thought among those who are emerging as candidates to influence his foreign policy. The more old-fashioned conservative hawks, such as Mike Pompeo, who was his secretary of state and now aspires to head the Pentagon, are hoping to reach the kind of deal that Moscow cannot sell as a diplomatic victory. Then there are those who prioritize ending the war as soon as possible, even if that means forcing Kyiv to make heavy concessions.

The vice-president elect, J. D. Vance, meanwhile, is adamant the U.S. should no longer be expected to police the world. In an interview in September, he suggested the creation of a demilitarized zone between Ukraine and Russia: a no-man’s land “heavily fortified so that the Russians would not invade again.” In this deal, Russia would keep what it has conquered, which would mean a loss to Ukraine of up to 20% of its territory, and would also mean Kyiv guaranteeing neutrality.

New York Daily News reports on another of the ideas being discussed among Trump’s entourage. This one would make the continuation of military aid to Ukraine conditional on Kyiv not joining NATO for at least 20 years — a scenario that would mean the front line would remain where it is, and both sides would agree to an 800-mile demilitarized zone.

Given Trump’s bid for a foreign policy that “prioritizes the interests of the United States,” and his impatience with NATO members failing to cough up the stipulated sum for the alliance’s defense budget, Washington analysts fear that Trump will resurrect his aspiration to undermine the power of multilateral organizations and, specifically, to pull the U.S. out of NATO. Last year, Congress passed a law preventing any president from making such a decision without the approval of the Senate and the House of Representatives, but it seems Trump could control both.

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