Call Executive: Easy to execute but easy to cancel

Washington- When President Donald J. Trump boarded the plane for Florida on Wednesday, he spoke of his accomplishments as far-reaching, ambitious, and most of all lasting – just hours before his successor began to demolish his legacy very quickly.

“We’ve accomplished a lot together,” Trump told a group of supporters, highlighting what he believed were his key successes in immigration policy, deregulation, veterans affairs and taxation – adding, “We were not a regular administration.”

The passage of Trump’s tax proposal in 2017 and his appointment of three Supreme Court justices are clearly his most enduring achievements. However, many of Trump’s other signature measures have been activated through the Executive Channel, making it particularly vulnerable to being quickly rolled back in the same way – through an executive order.

President Biden, a more experienced operative in Washington, is not using this process to build his legacy, as Trump has tried, but as a way to erase Trump’s legacy.

In his first 48 hours in office, Biden issued nearly 30 executive orders, 14 of which focus on Trump’s broad set of executive mandates, with a reminder aimed at implementing emergency measures aimed at dealing with the pandemic and economic crisis.

A former senior adviser to Trump agreed, speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation. “Very little of what Trump did was to ensure permanence. At the rate that Biden moves, everything Trump did will be gone by the sunrise on Monday – except for the judicial appointments.