Trump Holds Tiny Desk Concert From Hell

The 47th president's adoring cult members cheered as he announced he was undoing nearly 80 of Biden's executive orders and dropping out of a global climate agreement.

By Susan Rinkunas  |  January 21, 2025 | 3:11pm
Photo: Getty Images Politics
Trump Holds Tiny Desk Concert From Hell

Monday was the first day of convicted felon Donald Trump’s second presidential term and, boy, did he send a message with his words and executive actions. Most of them were about revenge and dehumanization—signals of who will have power and who will be targeted.

During Trump’s Inaugural speech, he invoked “Manifest Destiny,” the genocidal idea that white settlers were justified in colonizing westward across North America, said he would close the southern border, and also called January 20, 2025, “liberation day.” Liberation for whom, exactly? Ah, yes: People charged with storming the Capitol in Trump’s name.

Before Trump issued those 1,500 or so January 6 pardons at the White House, he signed some executive orders in front of a live audience at the Capital One Arena like it was a fucking UFC fight—except with a very small desk on a stage instead of the Octagon. (Trump held a rally at the stadium on Sunday night and said he planned to sign more than 200 executive orders after being sworn in, some at the arena and some at the White House.)

Trump had a long windup to the business at hand in which he ranted about windmills, whales, Al Capone, and Joe Biden issuing preemptive pardons—all while the families of Israeli hostages stood directly behind him. He literally referred to the January 6 defendants as “hostages,” which sure is awkward!

The orders he signed at the arena included rescinding 78 of Joe Biden’s orders, “restoring freedom of speech,” pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, and calling all federal employees back to full-time in-person work. Biden rescinded about 10 of Trump’s orders on the day he took office, and 24 total in his first 100 days, so Trump is slashing way more policies.

Trump proudly displayed each signed folio to the adoring crowd, then threw his used Sharpies at them like they were game balls. Some people literally scrambled to catch them, with security rushing to prevent possible chaos (scroll to 5:30 in this vide0). It was a Tiny Desk Concert from hell.

Later in the evening, Trump signed more missives including declaring a “national emergency” on the U.S.-Mexico border, trying to halt refugee entry for at least for months, purporting to end birthright citizenship (the 14th Amendment would like a word), ending all federal DEI programs, and legally defining sex as “male and female” based on reproductive cells that exist at fertilization. This last order defies scientific understandings of development, as embryos don’t develop sex-specific characteristics for weeks after fertilization. It would also restrict identity documents and prohibit federal prisons from offering gender-affirming care; during Trump’s first term, he didn’t restrict that care.
He also revoked security clearances held by former intelligence officials including John Bolton, who said the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation, and, we shit you not, began the process of renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”
Aside from taking down an informational site on reproductive health care, he didn’t do much of anything on abortion on Monday, but don’t worry, he still has more pieces of paper to sign! And there will undoubtedly be more news on that front if and when his nominees for Health and Human Services secretary and Food and Drug Administration commissioner get confirmed. Stay tuned (derogatory).

 
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