“Shock and awe” is what the public can expect from President-elect Donald Trump’s first day in office when he issues a “blizzard” of executive orders set to re-shape U.S. policy on the economy and immigration.
Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming invoked the antagonistic military-strategy phrase while describing a preview of January 20, when Trump is sworn in.
“When President Trump takes office next Monday, there is going to be shock and awe with executive orders,” Barrasso told CBS’s Face The Nation on Sunday after meeting with Trump last week. “A blizzard of executive orders on the economy as well as on the border.”
It’s long been established that Trump will sign various executive orders to fulfill his campaign promises of closing the U.S.-Mexico border, beginning mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, and reversing Biden-era clean energy policies and civil rights protections for LGBT+ people, among other actions.
Newly inaugurated presidents typically sign a series of executive orders within their first days in office, making good on their opening salvos for administration priorities after their campaigns.
But as January 20 draws closer, it’s becoming clear that Trump intends to overwhelm the public and government with new, and potentially drastic, changes — what Barrasso described as “shock and awe”.
Invoking “shock and awe” — a term used to describe a rapid and frenzied forceful use of power to overwhelm and defeat enemies — paints an eerie picture.
The president-elect has indicated he plans to rely on executive actions to bypass congressional approval. He has hinted at using recess appointments to get his various controversial cabinet picks in a position of power, thus bypassing Senate approval. He has also suggested using impoundment to circumvent federal spending should Congress continue to allocate money to projects, agencies or departments he does not support.
Last summer, Trump successfully asked the Supreme Court to award sitting presidents immunity from criminal prosecution, thus enhancing the power of the presidency. Arguments in the months that followed from his criminal defense attorneys — who are now poised to join top ranks at the Department of Justice — have pushed for extending that “immunity” to actions outside his “official” duties in office.
Trump is returning to the White House scorned and with a better sense of how to utilize the position to get what he wants. Though he’s returning to the White House with a Republican-controlled Congress, he’s seemingly indicated to those who defy him that he will go to great lengths to ensure they cannot get in his way.
It’s left Trump-allied lawmakers, such as Barrasso, empowered to promote Trump, his team and his policies at every corner.
