# 2025 Inauguration and First Wave EOs (January 20, 2025) On **Monday, January 20, 2025**, Donald Trump was inaugurated for his **second presidential term** at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda — the inauguration ceremony having been moved indoors at the last minute due to severe cold weather, the first indoor presidential inauguration since [[Ronald Reagan]]'s 1985 second inauguration. Within hours of taking the oath, Trump began signing what became, over the **first week of his second term**, the **largest single-cycle executive-order blitz in modern American history** — over **30 executive orders** signed on Day One alone, and approximately **70 executive orders, proclamations, and presidential memoranda** in the first 7 days. The Day-One executive-order blitz included **[[Executive Order 14160]]** (attempting to end birthright citizenship for children of unauthorized immigrants and temporary visa holders); **Executive Order 14151** (eliminating federal DEI programs and the federal civilian DEIA offices); **Executive Order 14148** (rescinding 78 Biden-era executive actions across immigration, labor, climate, and equity policy); **Executive Order 14171** ("Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce" — renaming and reinstating **Schedule F** as "**Schedule Policy/Career**," with OPM estimating ~50,000 civil-service positions reclassified into at-will employment); the **Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism order** (mandating federal recognition of only "two sexes, male and female"); and the **[[Department of Government Efficiency]] establishment order** (see [[DOGE Establishment]]). The same day, Trump issued his **mass pardons and commutations** for approximately **1,500 January 6 defendants** (see [[J6 Mass Pardons]]). The first-wave EOs matter for the KB as **the largest single-cycle institutional restructuring action of any administration since the [[New Deal]]**, and as the **operational launch of the Project 2025 "[[Mandate for Leadership]]" implementation framework** that the [[Heritage Foundation Founding]] and its [[Council for National Policy Founding]]–coordinated allied organizations had spent four years preparing. The content of the first-week orders — the Schedule F revival, the federal DEI elimination, the birthright-citizenship reinterpretation, the climate-policy rollback, the energy-emergency declaration, the Schedule A appointment-authority expansion, the federal-hiring freeze with reclassification authority, the gender-recognition restriction — implemented, in operational form, the **substantive priorities of Project 2025's 920-page Mandate for Leadership** that Trump had publicly disavowed during the 2024 campaign. The disavowal was political messaging; the implementation was operational reality. By the end of the first week, the **disjunction between campaign-cycle distancing and post-inauguration implementation** was no longer politically salient. ## The Founding Story ### The Pre-Inauguration Preparation The first-wave EOs were not improvised. The Heritage Foundation's [[Project 2025]] had begun in **April 2022** producing the 920-page **Mandate for Leadership** (the ninth in the [[Heritage Foundation Founding]] series since 1981), a **30,000-name personnel database** matched to specific federal positions, a **Presidential Administration Academy** training program for political appointees, and a **180-day playbook** for each federal agency. The Project 2025 advisory board, with over 100 movement-conservative organizational signatories, had drafted detailed agency-by-agency restructuring plans through 2023 and 2024. The 2024 Trump campaign, in the **final six months** of the cycle, publicly **disavowed** Project 2025 after Democratic-campaign opposition research surfaced the most politically salient provisions. Trump claimed in **July 2024** that he had "not read it" and "didn't know who's behind it." The disavowal was substantially performative: senior Trump-orbit personnel ([[Stephen Miller]], [[Russell Vought]], [[Tom Homan]], Christopher Miller, [[John Ratcliffe]], [[Linda McMahon]], [[Ben Carson]], [[Peter Navarro]]) had been Project 2025 contributors; the campaign's personnel-vetting operation drew substantially on Project 2025's 30,000-name database; and senior policy advisers had been Project 2025 chapter-authors. The **transition period** (November 6, 2024 – January 20, 2025) operationalized the pre-existing Project 2025 framework. The Office of Presidential Personnel — under returning **John McEntee**, with **[[Sergio Gor]]**, **Ric Grenell**, and the **CNP**-aligned network — drew from the Project 2025 personnel database. Senior agency picks (Vought at OMB, Bondi at DOJ, McMahon at Commerce/Education, RFK Jr. at HHS, Hegseth at Defense, Lutnick at Commerce, Burgum at Interior, Wright at Energy, Carr at FCC, Bessent at Treasury) substantially reflected Project 2025 chapter-author selections. ### The Day-One Order Blitz The Day-One executive-order signings occurred in three phases on **January 20, 2025**: **Phase 1 — Symbolic / Capitol Rotunda (early afternoon).** Following the inauguration ceremony and the Capitol Rotunda luncheon, Trump signed a small number of high-symbolic-value orders, including the **renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America"** and the **renaming of Denali to Mount McKinley**. Both came under a single instrument, **Executive Order 14172, *Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness***. These signings produced the most televisable first-day-of-administration imagery — and the order proved to be a template rather than a one-off: it is cited by name as the governing policy in the August 2026 [[Lake America Renaming Executive Order]], which extends the same authority to a lake shared with Canada. The through-line is at [[Manifest Destiny]]. **Phase 2 — Capital One Arena rally signing (afternoon).** Trump and his team relocated to the Capital One Arena (originally booked as the alternative inauguration site if the indoor ceremony fell through), where Trump signed a larger set of orders before a crowd that included **Elon Musk** (who made a hand gesture that became substantially controversial; Musk subsequently characterized it as "just being autistic" and the gesture's interpretation has remained contested). **Phase 3 — Oval Office signing ceremony (evening).** The largest single signing session — approximately 26 orders signed in the Oval Office, with the press present, between approximately 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. The Oval Office session produced the most operational-impact orders. The cumulative Day-One total was approximately 30 executive orders and presidential memoranda. The Day-Seven cumulative total reached approximately 70. By comparison, **President [[Joe Biden]]'s first-week order count had been 31**; **President [[Barack Obama]]'s had been 19**; **President [[George W. Bush]]'s had been 12**. ### The Substantive Day-One Orders The Day-One orders' content can be categorized into seven principal areas: **Federal workforce restructuring** - **Executive Order 14171** — "Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce" (Schedule F reinstatement, renamed Schedule Policy/Career) - **Federal hiring freeze** (proclamation) - **Return-to-office** order ending most federal-employee telework - **Office of Personnel Management directive** on Schedule Policy/Career implementation **Immigration and birthright citizenship** - **Executive Order 14160** — Birthright citizenship reinterpretation (immediately enjoined in multiple federal courts; the litigation reached the Supreme Court in 2026) - **National emergency declaration at the Southern border** - **Resumption of Migrant Protection Protocols** ("Remain in Mexico") - **Designation of Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations** - **Asylum-processing suspension** at the Southern border - **Refugee admissions suspension** - **EO ending "catch and release"** **DEI elimination** - **Executive Order 14151** — "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing" - **OPM directive** to close all federal DEIA offices, place employees on paid leave, terminate DEIA contractors by January 22 - **[[Executive Order 14173]]** — "Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity" (private-sector DEI provisions; substantial subsequent litigation) **Gender and identity** - **Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism order** — federal recognition of only "two sexes, male and female" - **Reversal of military trans-inclusion policy** (Hegseth subsequently issued DOD implementing guidance) - **Withdrawal of federal recognition** of gender-marker changes on passports and federal documents **Climate and energy** - **Energy emergency declaration** - **Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement** (procedural; took effect 2026) - **Suspension of offshore wind project permits** - **"Unleashing American Energy" omnibus order** **Pardons** - See [[J6 Mass Pardons]] **DOGE establishment** - See [[DOGE Establishment]] ### The 78-Order Biden Reversal **Executive Order 14148** — among the highest-impact single Day-One orders — rescinded **78 Biden-era executive actions** by reference, including: the federal $15/hour minimum wage executive order for federal contractors; the federal nondiscrimination protections expanded under [[Bostock v. Clayton County]]; the federal climate-adaptation orders; the federal racial-equity Whole-of-Government executive order (EO 13985); the COVID-era federal mask and vaccination requirements (largely vestigial by 2025); the AI executive order (EO 14110) on safety standards. The 78-order rescission was operationally consequential because it removed the **legal-administrative scaffolding** under which numerous Biden-era subsidiary regulations had been issued; the rescission of the parent EOs raised the question of whether the subsidiary regulations remained operative absent their EO authority. ### The Schedule Policy/Career Implementation The Schedule F revival — renamed Schedule Policy/Career — is, in operational terms, the most consequential single workforce policy in the first-wave EOs. The original [[Schedule F]] order (October 2020) had been signed in the closing months of the first Trump term but had not been operationally implemented before the January 2021 transition. The 2025 reinstatement therefore operates as the **first operational implementation** of the policy. The implementation pattern through 2025–2026: - **January 2025:** OPM issues implementing guidance; estimates approximately **50,000 federal civilian positions** (approximately 2% of the federal civil-service workforce) eligible for reclassification - **February–April 2025:** Agency heads begin reclassification reviews; first wave of Schedule Policy/Career conversions - **April 2025:** White House releases final regulations characterizing prior civil-service protections as "**unconstitutional overcorrections**" against presidential authority - **2025–2026:** Sustained reclassification activity; substantial federal-employee voluntary-separation activity; **deferred resignation program** (the "Fork in the Road" buyout) draws approximately 75,000 federal-employee acceptances - **February 2026:** Trump administration advances broader regulatory framework to strip civil-service protections from larger categories of career federal employees The Schedule F implementation has produced operationally substantive changes in: - **DOJ personnel** (FBI senior leadership, U.S. attorneys, OLC, civil-rights division) - **Intelligence community** (CIA senior analysts, DNI, ODNI) - **Public-health agencies** (CDC, NIH, FDA leadership) - **Climate/environmental agencies** (EPA, NOAA, USGS) - **Diplomatic corps** (State Department senior careerists) - **[[Inspectors General]]** (multiple IG firings or constraints) ## The Project 2025 Connection The content of the first-wave EOs maps directly onto the **Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership** chapter-by-chapter recommendations. Approximate correspondence: | First-wave EO subject | Project 2025 Mandate chapter | |--------------------------|------------------------------| | Schedule F revival | Chapter 3 (White House Office); Chapter 19 (OPM) | | DEI elimination | Chapter 18 (Executive Office); Chapter 19 (OPM); private-sector chapter | | Birthright citizenship | Chapter 17 (DHS); Chapter 16 (DOJ) | | MPP / asylum / cartels | Chapter 17 (DHS) | | Gender / sex restrictions | Chapter 18 (Executive Office); Chapter 14 (HHS) | | Climate / Paris withdrawal | Chapter 13 (Energy); Chapter 12 (Interior); Chapter 11 (EPA) | | Federal workforce reductions | Chapter 19 (OPM); cross-chapter | | Civil-service reform | Chapter 19 (OPM) | | AI EO 14110 rescission | Chapter 6 (Commerce); Chapter 4 (Defense) | | J6 pardons | Chapter 16 (DOJ) — though pardons themselves are sui generis presidential authority | The mapping is operationally specific. Project 2025 chapter-authors who joined the administration brought to their roles the same policy framework they had drafted in 2022–2023. The "disavowal" of Project 2025 during the 2024 campaign produced no operational discontinuity in the implementation. ## The Through-Line | Strand | How the inauguration connects | |--------|--------------------------| | [[Heritage Foundation Founding]] (1973) | The 52-year institutional project whose ninth *Mandate for Leadership* the first-wave EOs operationalized | | [[Council for National Policy Founding]] (1981) | The donor-strategist coordinating body whose cross-institutional alignment produced the Project 2025 advisory board | | [[Project 2025]] | The 920-page Mandate that the first-wave EOs implemented | | [[Schedule F]] | The October 2020 first-term policy that the 2025 first-wave EOs operationally activated | | [[Trump 2016 Nomination]] (July 2016) | The first Trump nomination that established the implicit bargain (movement-conservative judicial / policy / personnel commitments in exchange for political-cultural acquiescence) | | [[Barrett Confirmation Rush]] (2020) | The 6–3 supermajority that the first-wave EOs operate within — including the [[Trump v. United States]] (2024) presidential-immunity decision that constrains legal-accountability responses | | [[USA PATRIOT Act]] (2001) | The post-9/11 executive-power expansion framework whose extension to domestic-political-security applications the first-wave EOs operationalize | | [[Lafayette Square Bible Photo Op]] (June 2020) | The first-term operational template whose institutional constraints (Milley/Esper) the first-wave administration has dismantled | | [[COVID Response Politicization]] (2020) | The first-term political-cultural pattern whose institutional operationalization the public-health-related first-wave EOs and HHS personnel have substantially extended | | [[DOGE Establishment]] | Same-day companion action | | [[J6 Mass Pardons]] | Same-day companion action | | [[Trump II]] governance (2025–) | The first-week order blitz is the operational launch of the second term | ## Legacy The 2025 Inauguration and First-Wave EOs are, by 2026, the **largest single-cycle institutional restructuring action of any administration since the New Deal**. The transformations — the civil-service reclassification, the DEI elimination, the immigration enforcement framework, the climate-policy rollback, the gender-recognition restrictions, the federal-agency reorganizations — operate at a scale and speed that has overwhelmed the institutional capacity of legislative-and-judicial response. Multiple of the first-wave EOs have been judicially enjoined (Executive Order 14160 most prominently); the litigation pipeline has produced partial-and-contested reversals; the operational impact has proceeded substantially regardless of judicial pushback through interim implementation, alternative-authority redeployment, and resource-asymmetric attrition. The longer-arc reading: the first-wave EOs are the **operational fruition** of the institutional architecture the conservative movement built between 1971 ([[Powell Memo]]) and 2024 (Project 2025 publication). The architecture was designed to operationalize institutional change in a single concentrated cycle. The Day-One blitz pattern — sequence the highest-impact orders into the period of maximum executive authority and minimum institutional-resistance capacity — is the doctrine the architecture was built to execute. The 2025 first-wave EOs are the doctrine's first sustained operational test. The KB pattern: **the right's biggest structural victories are not produced by elections but by sequence-of-actions following elections**. The 2024 election was the necessary precondition; the January 20, 2025 first-wave EOs were the operationally consequential action. The structural changes the first-wave EOs initiate will likely persist substantially beyond the 2026 midterms and the 2028 election cycle regardless of subsequent political-electoral outcomes, because the institutional reconfiguration the orders produce is itself the durable consequence. ## See Also - [[Donald Trump]] — The president whose second term the inauguration launched - [[Stephen Miller]] — Senior adviser; principal architect of the immigration-related first-wave orders - [[Elon Musk]] — Senior figure at the inauguration; subsequently led DOGE through the first months - [[JD Vance]] — Vice President; senior figure at the inauguration - [[DOGE Establishment]] — Same-day companion action - [[J6 Mass Pardons]] — Same-day companion action - [[Project 2025]] — The 920-page Mandate the first-wave EOs operationalized - [[Schedule F]] — The civil-service policy the first-wave EOs operationally implemented - [[DEI]] — The policy target of multiple first-wave orders - [[Heritage Foundation Founding]] (1973) — The institutional project whose ninth *Mandate* the EOs implemented - [[Council for National Policy Founding]] (1981) — The donor-strategist coordinating body - [[Trump 2016 Nomination]] (July 2016) — The first nomination whose implicit bargain the 2025 inauguration operationalizes at scale - [[Barrett Confirmation Rush]] (2020) — The Court that constrains legal-accountability responses - [[Heritage Foundation]] — Principal institutional infrastructure - [[Federalist Society]] — Legal-movement infrastructure - [[Council for National Policy]] — Cross-institutional coordination