What Trump Taught Me About Executive Orders
Trump's first day in office for his second term was January 20, 2025. As of February 13, he has issued 98 executive orders.1 In just 24 days, he implemented nearly half as many orders as he issued in his entire first four years (220 orders).
Number of executive orders issued by recent presidents in their first 100 days
Biden: 42
Trump (1st term): 26
Obama (2nd term): 6
What is an Executive Order?
An executive order is a tool that any president can use to manage the government’s workforce. Congress makes the laws, the president makes sure the laws are followed, and the judiciary branch interprets the laws if there is any confusion over them. So, really, an executive order is meant to be like your job’s employee handbook. It explains how to best follow the corporate policy (aka, laws set by Congress). To continue this analogy, I would liken the judiciary to HR. They’ll hear your argument and decide if you’ve breached policy—maybe even changing it to prevent future confusion.
Article II of the Constitution vests the president with executive power over the government, including the obligation to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” An executive order is a written directive, signed by the president, that orders the government to take specific actions to ensure “the laws be faithfully executed. 2
An example of what this means, to paraphrase the ACLU, is that Congress can declare a certain action legal or illegal. Then an executive order from the president could tell the Department of Justice whether prosecuting those cases is a priority or not. For instance, if the illegal action is relatively harmless, like parking tickets, a president could say, “Only process parking ticket cases after you’ve processed more important crimes like violent insurrection or assaulting Capitol Police officers.” This is just a random example. The president could not say, “Don’t process parking tickets at all,” because by law and the Constitution, criminal cases have to be processed.3
TLDR:
The biggest takeaway is this: an executive order IS NOT LAW. It is only a directive of how government divisions should execute their responsibilities set by exiting law.
Footnotes
https://www.cnn.com/politics/tracking-trump-executive-orders-actions-dg/index.html
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/what-is-an-executive-order-and-how-does-it-work
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/sixth_amendment