JD Vance on Sunday tried to offer a rationale to a record number of executive orders and controversial policy shifts enacted by Donald Trump during the first five days of the latter man’s second presidency, claiming without evidence that the moves “accomplished more than Joe Biden” and his administration did in the previous four years.
But one of those moves – Trump’s blanket pardons for about 1,500 people who attacked the US Capitol in early 2021 – was labeled a “mistake” by a prominent fellow Republican: the US senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who feared the clemency could end up spurring more violence.
