Trump’s Remarkable First Four Weeks & What Comes Next – Top 3 Takeaways – February 18th, 2025
- Start your engines. Yesterday marked four weeks since Donald Trump once again became President of the United States. There’s not been a single day that’s gone to waste. Not even Sunday when President Trump and his trip around the track in the Beast brought about the biggest applause and greatest response of anything that happened at the Daytona 500 that day...on Sunday the Trump administration filed its first emergency appeal with the United States Supreme Court seeking to be able to fire Hampton Dellinger, a Biden appointee, as head of the Office of Special Counsel. I’ve mentioned this to illustrate a point about President Trump and his administration not even taking a Sunday, when he’s visiting the Daytona 500, off – not because it’s really worth getting into Hampton Dellinger. But since I have, here’s the quick deal on Hampton. He was appointed by President Biden to a 5-year term to head up the Office of Special Counsel just last year. Trump has sought to fire him and place his own appointee in his place. Lower courts have ruled that it’s not Trump’s place to be able to do this. I said it last week, I said it the week before, I’ll say it until these types of matters aren’t issues anymore. As president of the United States the entire executive branch of government works for you. If the chief of executive of the country, or for that matter if it were even just a CEO of a company, couldn’t make hiring and firing decisions, we’d have a crisis. In the case of the president, it would be a constitutional crisis. It’s beyond absurd for courts to say he can’t hire and fire federal government employees – who are his employees – hence Trump should – and must, win this case which could have long lasting impacts on personal decisions, in the end. In any event we’re continuing to see...
- A record-breaking pace for Trump administration policy. So, about that... Over Trump’s fourth week, we had 8 new executive orders – including an end to plastic straw bans and mandates for kids to have COVID-19 vaccines to attend school (not a thing in Florida – but very much a thing in left wing states like California). President Trump has now issued a total of 68 executive orders, or already more than quarter, within his first four weeks, than he signed during the entire four years of his prior presidency. By way of comparison Trump has been enacting policy at a rate that’s greater than double that of Joe Biden at the same stage in his presidency and is greater than 3x faster than he worked at the same stage in his first administration. Trump saw three more members of cabinet confirmed: Tulsi Gabbard for the Director of National Intelligence, RFK Jr. to lead Health and Human Services and Brooke Rollins as Agriculture Secretary, – all cabinet members that have come up for a vote have been confirmed. Also, Trump now has 16 of his 22 cabinet members requiring senate confirmation, confirmed – with only six nominees to go (Trump only had six of his cabinet members in place on this date eight years ago). And while the Trump administration is remaking policy through overhauled cabinet and executive orders – there's no slowing down the work at the border – including sending those who don’t belong here back over it. According to the latest from ICE, the level of activity through the administration's first three weeks looks like this... ICE arrests at jails are up 59%, arrests of illegal immigrants with a criminal history are up 100%, arrests of gang members are 105% higher and overall arrests and deportations checked in at levels 137% higher than what we had before. But of course, it’s not just that so many illegal immigrants are being arrested and detained for deportation by ICE – it's that they’re also not making it into the country in the first place. Even the low Biden administration arrest and deportation numbers were misleading because there were always more people entering the country than those ICE was making leave it. Not anymore. Aside from the rampant abuse of the asylum system by seekers at our southern border during Biden’s time in office, there were rampant “gotaways”, or those who evaded authorities at our southern border – over 1,800 per day. Since the onset of the Trump administration that total is down to only an average of 132 per day – good for a 93% decline. After just the first three weeks – for every illegal immigrant making their way into our country – about seven have been leaving it...and that’s also independent of the potential large numbers of “self-deportations” by those who aren’t waiting around for ICE to find them. Also, unofficially, as many cuts are currency held up in the courts – DOGE has been double timing it as well with spending cuts totaling over $49 billion in savings having been realized for a total savings per taxpayer of over $327. Notably the Trump administration is closing in on having laid off 200,000 employees while shrinking and closing many government agencies.
- This week. It may be an abbreviated week for many with President’s Day on Monday, but it’s a critical week for potential world peace. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff are in Saudi Arabia meeting with senior Russian officials to discuss an end to the Russia – Ukraine war. Also, Kash Patel is likely to see a senate confirmation vote after having been recommended out of committee. There’s also a likelihood we could gain greater legal clarity on many of the Trump administration's early initiatives that have been held up in the courts. As the late great Paul Harvey always said... Stand by for news...there’s sure to be a lot of it yet again as Trump continues his quest to make America Great Again.