On Monday, President Donald Trump signed executive orders federalizing law enforcement in the District of Columbia and lengthening the suspension of threatened tariffs on China by three months. They were the 187th and 188th executive orders of Trump's second term, on just its 203rd day.
That's more executive orders than predecessor Joe Biden issued in his entire presidency, 162. It's also more than George H.W. Bush (166), Gerald Ford (169), and 24 of the first 25 presidents. (Ulysses S. Grant, with his 217 over eight years, will likely be eclipsed by Trump's 2025 totals this fall.) Neither the famously power-expanding George W. Bush, nor Barack Obama of the notorious "pen and phone," signed as many as 188 executive orders in any of their combined four terms.
The only American president to compete with the size of Trump's second-term pen was the man whose energetic aggrandizement of the executive branch inspired generations of conservative and libertarian opposition: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That a MAGA Republican is competing on process with the ultimate progressive Democrat is an indicator of just how radically Trump has reshaped the ideology of the GOP.
