Image credit grrrgraphics.com, February 12, 2025.

The rapid pace and impact of President Trump’s activity during the first few weeks of his second term has not been seen since the early weeks of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency in 1933. In the first 100 days of FDR’s administration, a record number of 99 executive orders were issued along with enactment of 15 major bills from Congress. Trump’s actions thus far are comparable to FDR’s, not in terms of legislation, but certainly for everything else.

The initial five weeks of Trump’s second term (thru February 24^th) has seen a whopping 75 executive orders issued along with 15 presidential proclamations and 36 presidential memoranda. Also impressive are the 18 Trump nominees for cabinet positions that have already been confirmed by the Senate with four more expected to be confirmed by early March and many second-tier positions already filled or awaiting Senate confirmation.

FDR’s administration from 1933 to 1945 greatly expanded the American administrative state with the creation of 69 federal agencies and programs. If FDR’s presidency is viewed as a revolutionary embark on big-government socialism with a powerful administrative state, Trump’s second term should also be considered as revolutionary in the opposite manner, i.e. as an attempt to dismantle the administrative state that has grown ever more bloated, intrusive, and unaccountable in the 80 years since FDR’s presidency.

Trump’s new administration is remarkably better organized and effective than his previous one. It has an aggressive agenda being administered by a highly competent and loyal Trump inner circle. This is in sharp contrast to Trump’s first administration that was marred with poor personnel decisions, infighting, and political appointees who were not supportive of Trump’s policy agenda.

The critical difference between Trump’s first and second terms is Trump’s own understanding of how the Washington, DC political establishment operates, aka the “DC Swamp.” When Trump entered the White House in 2017, he was a true outsider with no experience in the political world; he was the first person elected president in U.S. history with no prior government experience of any kind. Thus, he had little sense of who to surround himself with to carry out his agenda in the complex web of political interests in the DC Swamp.

But Trump soon learned first-hand about the breadth and depth of corruption and political weaponization within the DC Swamp. First came the Russia collusion hoax that perpetrated the bogus Mueller investigation in May 2017; then two politically-driven impeachment proceedings in December 2019 and January 2021, respectively; and, finally, several malicious lawfare cases against Trump during the Biden administration. All of this has benefited Trump for the conduct of his second term as it has made him far wiser, bolder, more committed, more strategic, and more effective in implementing his America First political agenda in the DC Swamp.

The whirlwind of Trump’s presidential actions thus far, including his continual stream of public statements and media appearances, seems to have congressional Democrats, the legacy media, and the federal bureaucracy stunned, almost in a state of shock and awe. Trump’s executive actions have been impressive not only in terms of quantity in a short period of time, but in their far-reaching scope and aggressiveness in directly confronting the federal bureaucracy and well-established federal government policies and norms.

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

By far, Trump’s most impactful executive action has been the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Inauguration Day with (Executive Order 14158). Led by Elon Musk, DOGE is a dream come true for conservatives and libertarian-minded Americans who have been longing for a down-sizing of the federal government for decades.

DOGE hit the ground running as soon as it was established. It immediately began reviewing and terminating hundreds of wasteful contracts, leases, and grants across multiple government agencies. It set up a website for itself, doge.gov, which provides up-to-date information on cost savings achieved, agency spending budgets, workforce data by agency, and regulation data by agency. It has even set up a “DOGE Clock” to provide live tracking of the cost savings it is achieving in aggregate. As of February 27^th, the DOGE Clock was reporting $54.6 billion in aggregate cost savings:

DOGE Uncovers Potential Fraud of Massive Proportions

A recent DOGE finding at the Treasury Department may prove to be an indication of financial fraud of massive, historic proportions. On February 17^th, DOGE posted on X that it discovered that accounting codes used to identify payments made by the Treasury Department was optional and often left black for approximately $4.7 trillion in payments. This makes the traceability and audit of these payments almost impossible:

This is a shocking revelation based on the sheer magnitude of the dollar amount. A thorough investigation is needed to understand why accounting codes were left blank on such a large amount of payments, who has been receiving these payments, and to what extent were these payments improper or outright criminal fraud. Even if only 1% of these payments were fraudulent, that’s still $47 billion. Maybe this helps explain tens of billions of dollars in improper entitlement program payments and a reason the Defense Department has been unable to pass an audit for the past seven years.

The impressive early performance of DOGE is promising in its mission to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal government and drain the DC Swamp. If it can continue at its current pace, DOGE may come close to achieving $1 trillion in cost savings by the time its work is mandated to end on July 4, 2026. The DOGE completion date was chosen by President Trump to coincide with the celebration of America’s 250^th birthday as a symbol of America’s restoration to its founding principles under the U.S. Constitution.

More Executive Actions to Drain the Swamp:

In addition to establishing DOGE, President Trump has issued other executive orders that should have a significant impact in draining the DC Swamp. These include:

· Ending the weaponization of the federal government. (Executive Order 14147)

· Ending radical and wasteful DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs and preferences. (Executive Order 14151

· Reforming the federal hiring process and restoring merit to government service. (Executive Order 14170)

· Restoring accountability to policy-influencing positions within the federal workforce, which includes the reinstatement of Executive Order 13957 from President Trump’s first term creating the new “Schedule F” federal government employment category and revoking President Biden’s Executive Order 14003 protecting the federal workforce. (Executive Order 14171)

· Implementing the President’s Workforce Optimization Initiative, which mandates the Director of the Office of Management and Budget reduce the size of the federal government workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition and require each agency to hire no more than one employee for every four departing employees with certain exemptions. (Executive Order 14210)

· Ensuring accountability for all federal agencies, which mandates that so-called “independent agencies” are subject to the same presidential supervision and control as the rest of the executive branch. (Executive Order 14216)

· Ensuring lawful governance and implementing the President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” deregulatory initiative, which mandates the rescission of regulations that are unconstitutional, unlawful, impose significant costs on private parties, or harm the national interest. (Executive Order 14217)

· Commencing the reduction of the federal bureaucracy, which includes the elimination of non-statutory components and functions of government entities and councils to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law. (Executive Order 14218)

· Unleashing prosperity through deregulation, which mandates that every new regulation be offset by at least 10 existing regulations. (Executive Order 14192

Executive Actions on Foreign Policy and International Organizations:

· Directing the Secretary of State to bring the Department of State’s policies, programs, personnel, and operations in line with an America First foreign policy putting American interests first. (Executive Order 14150)

· Withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization. (Executive Order 14155)

· Putting American interests first in any international environmental agreements and notice to withdraw from the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (Executive Order 14162)

· Reevaluating and realigning United States foreign aid. (Executive Order 14169)

· Withdrawing the United States from and ending funding to certain United Nations organizations and reviewing United States support to all international organizations. (Executive Order 14199)

Executive Actions on Education, Society, and Culture:

· Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological gender truth to the federal government. (Executive Order 14168)

· Restoring names that honor American greatness. (Executive Order 14172)

· Ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling. (Executive Order 14190)

· Expanding educational freedom and opportunity. (Executive Order 14191)

· Keeping men out of women’s sports. (Executive Order 14201)

· Eradicating anti-Christian bias. (Executive Order 14202)

Executive Action on Past Assassinations:

· Declassification of records concerning the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Executive Order 14176)

Latest Polling Favorable to Trump and His “Drain the Swamp” Agenda:

In spite of the expected outcry from Democrats and the legacy media over Trump’s aggressive agenda to drain the DC Swamp, a new Harvard/Harris poll released February 24^th shows President Trump with a 52% approval rating and even stronger support for his policies.

One particular question in the poll asked respondents whether they favor or oppose “Undertaking a full-scale effort to find and eliminate fraud and waste in government expenditures.” The poll shows that a strong majority of 76% are in favor of this policy.

Another indicator in the poll that is encouraging for the new Trump administration is the “Right Track/Wrong Track” question. The percentage of respondents indicating that the country is on the right track jumped 14% in just one month from 28% in January to 42% in February. This is a hopeful sign that the new Trump administration’s aggressive agenda in draining the DC Swamp and addressing other important issues will be embraced by a strong majority of Americans in the coming months.