“Trump’s initial turn to executive orders is particularly telling because the Republican Party controls the White House and both houses of Congress — not to mention the conservative majority on the Supreme Court,” commented The Washington Post (WP) on Trump’s second term in office. He thus reminded that a large part of the number of executive orders, which he signed in front of cameras and cameras with pomp, could pass through the standard legislative process without any problems.
“But Trump has decided to use his executive powers to demonstrate his determination and also to prevent the pace of government from stalling, at least for now,” adds WP.
Can he rule indefinitely through executive orders?
The quick signing of laws in front of the cameras is a grateful PR event. Before his re-election, Trump caused a stir by claiming that he would rule as a “dictator” for “only the first day”, but even executive orders do not give presidents unlimited power.
They can be stopped by the courts, future presidents and to some extent even legislators. Their rejection by Congress can be vetoed by the president, but legislators subsequently have the option of making the implementation of executive orders effectively impossible, for example by not providing financial resources.
Unsurprisingly, the lawsuits immediately poured in, for example, on Trump’s executive order, which is supposed to cancel the right to American citizenship for everyone who is born on the territory of the United States. Given that this right has been guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution since the 19th century, Trump’s team had to anticipate a protracted legal battle without a certain victory. But that did not deter the new head of the White House.
Trump’s whirlwind to begin with. He canceled dozens of Biden’s decrees and pardoned hundreds of those accused of the attack on the Capitol
US elections
“Presidents don’t only care about what they enforce, but also what they are seen to enforce… And even if the courts or the next president cancel it, you will show what you stand for and achieve at least a temporary victory,” he pointed out. for WP political scientist Thad Kousser from the University of California.
At the same time, some of the signed executive orders were not enforced by American presidents in practice, even temporarily. For example, the US prison Guantánamo in Cuba, which Barack Obama ordered to close in 2009 by means of an executive order, is still operating.
Executive orders can be about relatively small things, such as ordering federal offices to close for half a day on Christmas Day. But they can be used for big changes – in 1863, for example, this is how Abraham Lincoln decided to free slaves in the Confederate States, the American public network NPR pointed out.
Some observers relate the current use of presidential executive orders to Congress, which is able to pass fewer laws than before, due to the growing gap and irreconcilability between Democrats and Republicans. For decades, the least productive was the 118th Congress, i.e. the penultimate one, which ended recently.
According to data from the website Govtrack, he passed 275 laws between January 2023 and 2025, fewer than any other Congress since 1973, where these statistics go back. And despite the fact that the Republicans have a majority in both chambers, the vicissitudes surrounding the re-election of the head of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, have already shown that the risk of congressional paralysis still exists.
Record holder Roosevelt
Trump uses executive orders a little more than other presidents in recent decades. During his first term of office, he signed an average of 55 per year of government, which is the most since the time of the recently deceased Jimmy Carter, whose average was equal to 80. Overall, however, it is true that American presidents used this instrument the most in the first half of the 20th century, they clearly show presidential statistics.
The heads of the White House, starting with Theodore Roosevelt and ending with Harry S. Truman, signed hundreds of executive orders a year from 1901 to 1953. The absolute record holder is Franklin D. Roosevelt, who reigned the longest of all American presidents (12 years and one month). The Democrat, under whose administration the United States faced an economic crisis and subsequently the Second World War, did not hesitate to use the presidential powers to the maximum in order to achieve the desired goals. Its average is 307 executive orders for one year of government.
Presidential executive orders in the USA
Trump was sued by 22 states led by Democrats
America
