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President-elect Donald Trump plans to issue EOs in three buckets: energy, government reform and immigration-border security.

What’s different about Trump’s 2025 return

President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance will take the oath of office in the Rotunda today, the first to do so since Ronald Reagan in 1985. The stated reason is the frigid temperatures that have gripped D.C. since late Sunday.

The Trumps and the Bidens will have coffee and tea at the White House this morning, and then the action shifts to Capitol Hill. Trump and Vance will be sworn in during the 11 a.m. hour. Trump will speak, and the Bidens will then depart from the East Side of the Capitol. Afterward, the new president will sit down with lawmakers and VIPs for the traditional post-inaugural lunch.

Trump’s decision to hold his inaugural ceremony inside the Rotunda instead of on the West Front of the Capitol scrambled plans for the thousands of his supporters who came to Washington to attend the historic event. Yet beyond those who can squeeze into the Rotunda and the Capitol One Arena, MAGA is going to be disappointed.

Members and senators can still attend the swearing-in ceremony, but the 300 tickets that each lawmaker distributed to constituents, donors and friends are only good as memorabilia. There’s no widely attended ceremony or parade, except for the dramatically scaled-down event at the Capital One Arena.

Executive orders. We broke the news Sunday that Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief policy hand, had briefed top House and Senate lawmakers about Trump’s planned executive orders. Trump plans to sign some executive orders in the Capitol today and then do more signings at Capital One Arena.

Miller didn’t give away many specifics on the executive orders to the 40-something GOP lawmakers and aides who took part in the Sunday afternoon call. But Miller outlined the stunning breadth of the planned EOs, some of which may be part of “omnibus” packages. And please remember this is all still in flux, as is usual for Trump world.

Trump plans to issue EOs in three buckets: energy, government reform and immigration-border security. The entirety of the list can be found in our Sunday special report.

Energy-related EOs include halting spending on the “Green New Deal” and other climate-related priorities of the Biden administration; speeding energy permitting and the construction of pipelines; opening tens of millions of acres of federal land, including offshore areas, to oil drilling; and declaring a national energy emergency.

In seeking to overhaul the federal government, Trump wants to make it easier for government agencies to fire workers and order them back to the office; bring back the “Schedule F” classification for federal employees; and rescind DEI and gender-related directives from the Biden administration.

On immigration and border security, Trump plans to classify drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations;” declare an emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border; reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy; end “catch and release”; and more generally restrict entry into the country.

The Trump operation. Sunday was a good example of what a new Trump administration could look like. During his first term in office, Trump was distant from Capitol Hill, choosing to keep lawmakers at arms-length.

Compare that to now. Trump started this Sunday with a breakfast at Blair House for Senate Republicans. The event went on for hours, with Trump riffing on a variety of topics, including how he prefers one reconciliation bill to two. Miller, a one-time Hill staffer, then hosted a call with GOP lawmakers and aides about the executive orders. In his previous term, Hill Republicans would’ve been completely blindsided by Trump’s news.

Trump will meet with Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Tuesday, followed by a meeting with the full bicameral Republican leadership.

Trump has been active for some time behind the scenes with GOP lawmakers. He met with Johnson in November about reconciliation and government funding. Trump met with Thune as well. Trump met with Senate Republicans last week. He met with the House Freedom Caucus, House GOP chairs, SALT-centric lawmakers and other rank-and-file Republicans.

Trump wants to get a quick start – that much is clear – and he is laying the groundwork to do so. He spent half of 2017 on a failed quest to repeal Obamacare. Trump and his team appear dead set on avoiding that kind of inefficiency this time around.

Sure, Trump and GOP congressional leaders have huge challenges ahead of them. There are 53 days until a government shutdown, and negotiators don’t even have a topline spending number yet for FY 2024 spending bills. The debt limit will need to be raised by summer, although we expect Congress to lift it as part of any government funding deal. And Trump has an aggressive reconciliation agenda that he wants to pass quickly with a slim House majority.

Yet, with the help of a relatively submissive Republican leadership on Capitol Hill, the Trump transition team has been a highly professional operation compared to 2017.

Noms, noms, noms. Trump will press for his Cabinet nominees to be confirmed quickly, but only one — Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Trump’s pick for secretary of state — will be confirmed today. The Senate will also finish work today on the Laken Riley Act and send it to the House.

After Rubio is confirmed, Thune is expected to move ahead with another national security position. CIA nominee John Ratcliffe or defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth are both under consideration. DHS nominee Kristi Noem is also a possibility.

Senate Democrats won’t agree to speed up Hegseth’s confirmation, so that’ll take at least a few days. The same could be the case with Noem. Ratcliffe may be an easier lift. He’s been confirmed by the Senate previously as DNI. The Intelligence Committee will vote on Ratcliffe’s nomination this evening

Thune has indicated he’ll keep the Senate in nights and weekends to confirm Trump’s nominees quickly. That may have to start as early as this week.

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Editorial photos provided by Getty Images. Political ads courtesy of AdImpact.