Today’s notice: Welcome to the new age, déjà vu expected. Letting Trump be Trump means his supporters are left wincing sometimes. Executive actions will keep the courts busy. Undoing the last administration may be harder than it looks. Oh, and everyone is really mad at the last administration.
The Trump Steamroll President
Donald Trump has laid the groundwork for an America reborn in the image of MAGA. If you listened very closely, you could hear a unity message in his inauguration speech. But everything that came after explained what unifying means now: supporting exactly what Trump wants to do, when he wants to do it.
Republicans and Democrats have concerns about TikTok, but they were largely pushed aside by a president who signed an order supporting the app rooted in unclear legal reasoning. He moved to rename Denali despite the fact that Alaska said during his first administration it was happy with the name. Even members of his own administration have been skeptical of his “J6 hostages” talk, but Trump pardoned or commuted every sentence related to the attack on the Capitol anyway. Transgender Americans were left out of unity entirely, essentially told by executive orders that in the eyes of the White House, they don’t exist.
What comes next is the slow process of finding out how right Trump is about America now. Trump’s Monday moves on immigration — functionally redefining American citizenship — give a clear early test. An order ending birthright citizenship and others related to immigration “are sure to face legal challenges and cause chaos,” NOTUS’ Casey Murray reports. As he signed the birthright order, Trump said he knew it would end up in court, but that he felt good about its prospects. Casey reports that immigration lawyers who have been preparing for months for this are confident he’s wrong about that.
Trump supporters say they have a mandate from voters, a Congress that will do what Trump wants and a Supreme Court that is open to novel legal arguments like the ones underlying many of his executive actions yesterday. A unified government. Now will come the test of how unified the country is behind this style of leadership and its objectives.
—Evan McMorris-Santoro | Read the story.
Up Next: Let’s Go CRA-zy
Making good on the Republican trifecta’s vow to un-Biden the government quickly could hinge on an expanded interpretation of the Congressional Review Act, NOTUS’ Anna Kramer reports.
The CRA gives Congress until April to easily repeal Biden administration regulations published after last August. But two main Trump targets — Biden’s limits on offshore drilling and a rule allowing California to phase out gas cars — “were not standard regulatory actions,” she writes. The CRA “has not been used to undo those kinds of actions before, and experts told NOTUS that the actual boundaries of this congressional power are still not clear.”
Front Page
- Republicans and Democrats Have Their Doubts About Trump’s Vision of ‘Manifest Destiny’: Changing the name of Denali back to Mount McKinley is part of Trump’s vision of American expansion.
- ‘This Is Step One’: Trump Issues Order Declaring There Are ‘Only Two Sexes’: White House officials said more restrictions on transgender people will follow.
- Trump’s Orders Talk Big on Oil and Gas — And Seriously Target Wind: Biden’s administration saw record crude oil production. Trump still called a national emergency.
- Democrats Help Trump Secure His First Policy Win on Immigration: The Laken Riley Act passed the Senate with 12 Democratic votes.
- Elon Musk’s DOGE Is Already Facing Three Lawsuits: Groups are suing Trump’s “government efficiency” office for lack of transparency and possible conflict of interest violations.
- Marco Rubio Is Trump’s First Confirmed Cabinet Member: 99-0.
- Trump Is Withdrawing the U.S. From the World Health Organization: The agency is ripping off the U.S., he said, while signing the executive order.
The Two-Donald Problem
Once Trump delivered his first inaugural address of the day — the staid, on-script speech about “unity” and “the golden age of America,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called it “the best speech I’ve ever heard him give.” Shortly thereafter, Trump delivered a second, off-the-cuff, rambling speech. Equal parts vindictive and goofy, Trump called that speech “better than the one I made upstairs.”
For those who remember Trump’s first term, the split screen, the two versions of Trump, are nothing new. He’s both the entertainer-in-chief, most comfortable improvising a political stand-up routine, and an executive prepared to execute sweeping, life-altering policy that upends the lives of millions.
“It was classic Trump. I thought he rose to the occasion in the rotunda, and then he had a stream of consciousness down in Emancipation Hall,” Sen. Kevin Cramer told NOTUS.
The dynamic of dealing with Trump’s multifaceted governing style extends beyond his oratory skills. Therein lies another dichotomy of the Trump era: His supporters are excited for the big moves he’d promised, but the specifics of his early actions made some Republicans pause. On issuing blanket pardons to convicted Jan. 6 rioters, for example, Sen. Thom Tillis said, “I just can’t support a pardon for anyone who’s convicted of assaulting a police officer.”
But as Cramer noted, “He’s Donald Trump. Either get used to it or be frustrated.”
—Riley Rogerson | Read the story.
Democrats Kick Biden on the Way Out
…Or the other way around, depending how you look at it.
Democrats are pissed about Joe Biden’s last-minute pardons. They’re worried he seriously overreached, ceding Democrats’ moral high ground on presidential power and setting a precedent they fear Trump will abuse.
And with Biden’s political career effectively over, they weren’t afraid to sound off.
“It’s pretty baffling to apply it so broadly,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal told NOTUS’ Helen Huiskes and Em Luetkemeyer, “not just to his family but to others who could be charged.”
“You know what it feels like?” Sen. Andy Kim said. “It feels like politics is some exclusive club, you know, and like those that are in it just have a different experience and different opportunities available to them.”
Spotted: Strange Bedfellows
The Inauguration Day festivities’ seating arrangements had some major wedding-planning gone-wrong energy. We rounded up some of the most unexpected pairings at the luncheon:
- Donald Trump Jr. sat with Chuck Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries sat with Eric Trump
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dined with his skeptics Lisa Murkowski and Chris Coons
- Barron Trump dined with some heavy hitters: Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sánchez, John Thune and Marco Rubio.
- Tim Scott and his wife sat with Kelly Loeffler and… Bernie Sanders
- Bonus: During the inauguration speech, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew sat with Tulsi Gabbard
Wonder what they talked about?
Be Social
Does anyone still wear a hat? (The answer, from Melania Trump, was decidedly yes.)
POV Melania #Inauguration2025 pic.twitter.com/Br2lndFQL9
— Stef Hertsens (@stefhertsens) January 20, 2025
Tell Us Your Thoughts
Which pairings would make for the most awkward inauguration luncheon table?
Send your thoughts to newsletters@notus.org.
Thank you for reading! If you like this edition of the NOTUS newsletter, please forward it to a friend. If this newsletter was shared with you, please subscribe (it’s free!).