Donald Trump was roughly eight hours into his second term in the White House when he sat down in the Oval Office before an eager pack of reporters, took up his familiar Sharpie-brand pen and opened the floodgates.
Prompted by White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf, Trump began signing a series of executive orders — one to end what he called “the weaponization of the federal government,” another to wipe away large chunks of his predecessor’s work by rescinding dozens of orders signed by Joe Biden, plus more orders upon more orders that re-implemented policies he’d tested out during his first term, or trying out new and aggressive theories of presidential power to accomplish long-held goals that had eluded him over his initial four years in office.
