Slightly more than a week has passed since the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States. Over this short span of time, President Trump has thrown the country into a tumult. This article will detail the arguably most significant actions of the new President of the United States over the course of last nine days.
President Trump began his presidency by telling provable falsehoods regarding the size of the crowd at his inauguration speech. His White House Press Secretary, Sean Michael Spicer, furthered the lie, stating that, "[the crowd at Presiden Trump's election] was the largest audience to ever witnessed an inauguration, period." Spicer went on to declare that the administration was, "going to hold the press accountable" for stating the truth (which is that the crowd at Trump's inauguration speech was far smaller than that at former president Barrack Obama's).
On the subject of his losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, President Trump has gone on to claim that he only lost because three to five million undocumented immigrants managed to avoid detection and vote for Clinton on Election Day. This claim has no basis in any evidence to date, and works to erode the population's trust in the workings of the nation's democracy while simultaneously serving as an excuse for further voter suppression.
On the subject of undocumented immigrants: President Trump has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to publish a weekly list of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants in so-called "sanctuary cities" such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc. When pressed on the falsehoods put forward by the administration, President Trump's White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Sunday stated that the Press Secretary Spicer gave "alternate facts." White House strategist Steve Bannon has gone on to tell The New York Times that, "the media here is the opposition party," and that it should "keep its mouth shut."
President Trump has signed a slew of executive orders during his first week in office, so quickly, in fact, that he has not had them examined by the relevant congressional committees, legal counsel, and cabinet agencies. Last Monday, he signed three presidential memorandums, one of which calls for the United States to withdraw from the negotiations surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Another presidential memo set a hiring freeze for federal workers (military workers are exempt). He reinstated the "Mexico City Policy", which bans the federal government from funding any organizations that do not belong to the government that either perform or promote abortions (every Republican President since Ronald Reagan has reinstated this policy).
President Trump signed four presidential memorandums and one more executive order, the latter of which focused on the country's infrastructure and pipeline projects. Two of the memos are for the purpose of furthering the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines. On Wednesday, President Trump signed an executive order to begin building his proposed border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. He signed another calling for the removal of undocumented immigrants that "pose a risk to public safety or national security." The order also stipulated that federal funding be withheld from the aforementioned sanctuary cities.
President Trump signed a presidential memorandum calling for reviews of the military, with the aim of building up the United States Armed Forces. The final executive order of the week, titled "Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States", moves to suspend the United States Refugee Admissions Program for one hundred and twenty days, and prohibit for ninety days any immigration from primarily Muslim countries, the list of which includes Libya, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.
Widespread protests have followed President Trump's actions, including the Women's March on January 21st, the largest organized protest in U.S. history. However, as of yet President Trump has not paid significant attention to public denouncements of his policies.