President Biden and President-elect Trump during a meeting in the Oval Office on Nov. 13, 2024. Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
President-elect Trump has made a litany of ambitious pledges that would gut his predecessor’s legacy as soon as Day 1 in office — and he could use his newly regained executive power to take immediate action.
Why it matters: Climate initiatives, LGBTQ+ protections and student loan forgiveness are among President Biden‘s biggest policy achievements that are at risk once Trump retakes the Oval Office.
- Biden took a similar course when assuming office in 2021, succeeding Trump: rejoining international agreements, adjusting COVID-19 mandates, and repealing some of Trump’s most controversial policies, like the so-called Muslim travel ban.
Among Trump’s paper trail of promises:
- In July, he vowed on the campaign trail to “restore the travel ban, suspend refugee admissions, stop the resettlement and keep the terrorists the hell out of our country,” on Day 1.
- He repeatedly said that he’d “drill, baby, drill” within his first 24 hours.
- And within “maybe the first nine minutes,” he said after his election win, he’d start “looking at” Jan. 6. He’s repeatedly vowed to pardon rioters who faced charges.
Project 2025
Project 2025 could also swiftly remake U.S. society.
Trump has repeatedly tried to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation-backed plan.
- But he plucked a number of officials straight from the pages of the 900-plus-page Heritage Foundation-backed blueprint, and within a day of his victory, allies and right-wing commentators claimed that Project 2025 was the agenda all along.
Here are some of Biden’s key issue areas Trump will most likely strike first:
Energy and the environment
Environmental policy became a central tenet of Biden’s White House tenure. But his progress on climate change and clean energy will be vulnerable.
- Trump said earlier this month that he would “immediately” reverse Biden’s ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along hundreds of millions of acres of the U.S. coastline.
- Biden’s order could help limit greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming. Reversing it could do the opposite.
Reality check: Biden’s memorandums implementing the policy rely on an open-ended provision in the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act — making it harder to erase than with a simple executive order.
- A provision in the act allows the president to permanently withdraw parts of the Outer Continental Shelf from the table for leasing, and it does not provide a means for another president to undo the action, Axios’ Andrew Freedman reports.
Between the lines: The question of whether Trump can revoke the withdrawal status Biden ordered could trigger a legal battle, Cary Coglianese, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told Axios.
- The U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska considered the dilemma in 2019 when Trump tried to revoke an Obama-era offshore drilling ban in parts of the Arctic. The judge ruled an act of Congress would be needed to undo the ban.
- “If this went all the way to the Supreme Court, it’s anybody’s guess how it would play out,” Coglianese said.
Trump has also vowed to “terminate” spending on the “Green New Deal,” seemingly referencing Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, which is not the same as the Green New Deal. The 2022 IRA marked the largest investment in addressing the impact of climate change in U.S. history.
- But some Trump allies, like House Speaker Mike Johnson, have backed preserving parts of the IRA, like some of its tax credits to make major investments in new U.S. energy.
- Trump has singled out the IRA’s electric vehicle tax credit. He’s also signaled plans to roll back vehicle emissions standards.
Federal employees and the “deep state”
Trump pledged in 2023 to “immediately reissue” his controversial 2020 executive order “restoring the president’s authority to remove rogue bureaucrats” in the so-called “deep state.”
- The first-term executive order he referenced established a new “Schedule F” employment category for federal employees, increasing the president’s power to oust civil servants who historically were shielded during changing administrations.
- Trump didn’t sign the order until two weeks before the 2020 election. Its vast implications for non-partisan federal employees — and the possibility to replace them with MAGA loyalists — flew under the radar.
- Biden rescinded the order shortly after he assumed office in 2021. But Trump has vowed repeatedly, as he approaches his next turn in the Oval Office, to gut the federal workforce as his Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, an unofficial advisory body, aims to slash millions in spending.
Reality check: A rule published by the Office of Personnel Management in April reinforcing worker protections could make it more difficult for Trump to make his desired changes. They could have to go through multiple steps of review, an OPM official told NPR.
- “Rescinding a rule is itself something that calls for going through a rule-making process,” Coglianese explained. “And that requires developing a proposed rule, putting that proposed rule out for public comment, and then finalizing it, and then being able to withstand judicial review.”
Immigration policy
Trump has promised sweeping immigration reform — some of which walks back Biden administration policies, while other parts of his plan push constitutional boundaries, like his vow to end birthright citizenship.
- His immigration crackdown will likely ride on a flurry of executive orders, in particular taking action to end Biden’s parole programs.
- Axios’ Stef Kight reported that the Trump White House will prioritize reinstating Title 42, a COVID-era public health policy that uses concerns about spreading illness to facilitate the swift expulsion of migrants at the border and prevents them from attaining asylum. Biden ended the policy in 2023.
Yes, but: Later in his presidency, Biden took a more hardline approach on immigration, issuing a sweeping executive order to crack down on illegal border crossings.
LGBTQ+ protections
LGBTQ+ people, in particular transgender Americans, were a target of Trump’s often hyperbolic and false campaign anecdotes and promises.
- Trump vowed to roll back “on Day 1” Biden-era expansion of Title IX for LGBTQ+ students, protecting against “discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.”
- But a federal judge struck down the rule just before Trump’s inauguration in a major blow to the Biden administration.
Zoom out: Project 2025 also calls for the revoking of Biden’s executive order in 2021 creating the first-ever White House Gender Policy Council.
AI and tech
Trump has promised to nix Biden’s sweeping executive order on artificial intelligence, a signature part of the administration’s tech policy.
- The deadlines that agencies have already met may be difficult to walk back, Axios’ Maria Curi reports.
- But some directives that carry deadlines after Trump’s White House return, such as OMB guidance for labeling and authenticating government AI, could be at risk.
Student loan forgiveness
Biden’s push to cancel student debt for millions of Americans will likely meet its demise under Trump.
- The new administration will likely pull defense of some of Biden’s policies in court, leaving them to crumble under litigation.
- But rolling back the congressionally created Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which the Biden administration worked to expand access to, could be trickier.
The bottom line: Even if Trump can’t feasibly push through some of his promises, Coglianese noted, “he gets credit among his base for trying.”
Go deeper: Breaking down presidents’ executive order powers after Trump vow
