President-elect Donald Trump vowed to sign a sweeping slate of executive orders in the first hours of his presidency on Monday, including ones aimed at closing access to the southern border and delaying a ban on TikTok.
“By the time the sun sets tomorrow evening, the invasion of our borders will have come to a halt,” Trump said at a victory rally on Sunday at Capital One Arena in downtown Washington, DC, on the eve of his second inauguration.
“The American people have given us their trust, and in return, we’re going to give them the best first day, the biggest first week, and the most extraordinary first 100 days of any presidency in American history,” Trump said, teasing the massive number of executive actions expected on Monday.
The president-elect is expected to sign an order that clears the way for TikTok to operate in the US despite a law that went into effect over the weekend barring the Chinese-owned social media app from being used in the states unless its owners divest. Trump suggested the app could exist here longterm so long as the US government assumes a major financial stake alongside an American company.
“I’ll approve, but let the United States of America own 50% of TikTok,” Trump said. “I’m approving on behalf of the United States, and they’ll have a lot of bidders, and the United States will do what we call ... [a] joint venture, and there’s no risk. We’re not putting up any money. All we’re doing is giving them the approval without which they don’t have anything.”
After going dark on Saturday night, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, restored access to the app on Sunday based on assurances from Trump that he would not seek to enforce the law banning it in the U.S.
Trump is planning, per Fox News, more than 200 executive actions his first day back in the Oval Office, including declaring a “national emergency” at the southern border, dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion programs, rolling back electric-vehicle mandates, and easing limits on offshore drilling.
“Every radical and foolish executive order of the Biden administration will be reversed within hours of when I take the oath,” Trump said. “You’re gonna have a lot of fun watching television.”
Trump gave an uncharacteristically short speech of about an hour at the arena as a winter storm bore down outside. The treacherous single-digit weather in the region prompted the president-elect to move his inauguration ceremony indoors, from the National Mall to the US Capitol Rotunda.
Preceding Trump on stage on Sunday were his two eldest sons, Don Jr. and Eric; daughter-in-law and former RNC co-chair Lara Trump; senior advisor Stephen Miller, political commentator Megyn Kelly, and Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White.
“Accountability is coming. Justice is coming. The whole federal bureaucracy is about to learn that they don’t work for themselves. They work for you. They work for President Trump, and they work for the American people,” Miller said.
Thousands of people were lined up in the freezing cold and snow to hear from Trump in DC. It was a strange sight for the deep-blue District: Red MAGA hats were everywhere — flooding local bars and restaurants — as U.S. National Guard troops and police officers stood on high alert in the streets.
It was also Trump’s first rally back in DC since the infamous post-2020 election “Stop the Steal” rally that sparked the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.
“It’s beautiful — like Christmas,” one Trump supporter, waiting in line to get inside, remarked of the large snowflakes falling.
Igor Bobic contributed reporting.