An Impressive Start

The Democrats' answer? Litigation.

It’s less than a month into President Trump’s second term and even the most optimistic have to be pleasantly surprised at the progress.

There have been confirmations of even the most “controversial” cabinet members, like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (HHS) and Pete Hegseth (DOD), both of whom were narrowly approved. Bondi and Tulsi are in. And yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines, 12-10, to advance Patel’s nomination to the floor.

President Trump’s Executive Orders have been robust, evidencing a desire to take advantage of the momentum of the 2024 election to effect swift change. As we observed on the day of his inauguration, Trump signed 55 executive orders in 2017. He has already exceeded that number.

The chaos that took place during the initial phase of his first term, much of it having to do with being the target of an illegal investigation (and the vicious media cycle and leaks and Congressional hearings that came with it), has now been replaced by a calculated execution of Trump’s will. Trump 47 isn’t Trump 45. Credit to the President and his team.

Much of what we have seen thus far has been simple streamlining of federal agencies and the excision of waste, whether it be through cutting spending or the purge of federal employees. DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), along with various agencies, will save taxpayers billions of dollars. DEI and LGBTQ+ grants, inflated “contracts” to Politico, funding for NYC hotels for illegal immigrants, and millions for foreign liberal causes (“Central American gender assessment consultant services”), are all on the chopping block. The Department of Education has terminated 89 contracts worth $881 million.

The Trump Administration is investigating, and hopefully cutting, $1+ billion in grants to hundreds of nonprofit groups made in Biden’s last 20 days in office. President Trump has also directed heads of executive departments and agencies “to stop funding NGOs that undermine the national interest.” This is all a drop in the bucket for a federal government that spends trillions, but it’s a good start.

Along with those savings, we will see a significant reduction in the federal workforce. Eight days after his inauguration, President Trump offered severance to “roughly two million federal workers.” He ordered a “critical transformation of the Federal bureaucracy” to reduce the size of the Federal Government’s workforce. On Thursday, the federal government’s “human resources division advised agencies to terminate most of an estimated 200,000 workers on probation.” The Department of Veterans Affairs has terminated over 1,000 employees. The Department of Education will see large cuts – we doubt it gets completely eliminated.

There is a benefit to immediate action - an obvious truth understood by Trump and his team. Instead of debates surrounding spending and workforce cuts, better to just get it done. The longer a proposed action is discussed, the greater likelihood the political opposition can undermine those plans.

Not that there isn’t opposition – it’s just not necessarily coming from the leadership of a Democratic party that is in disarray. Whether the Democrats can redefine themselves is another matter; the marginal causes they embraced have become their identity. (Who is the party of the 60 year-old man who wants to use the little girls’ room? In the alternative, who is the party of the young girl who doesn’t want to run track against a boy?)

Instead, the greatest challenge thus far to the Trump agenda is in the courts. How to fight a robust Executive? Ask the courts to curtail the Executive’s power. Or, at a minimum, clog the courts with cases. Litigate everything.

And that’s exactly what we are seeing.