Trump's "Day One" Promises

President Elect Donald Trump has said he won't be a dictator "except for day one." We take a look at all of the "day one" promises he's made over the course of his campaign and explain how he might get them done. Or not. For a sense of how many times Donald Trump made these promises, check out the Washington Post's data here. Click HERE to buy tickets for NHPR's Holiday Raffle! NHPR’s Holiday Raffle is open to any United States resident 18 years or older in any state where the Raffle is not prohibited by state, local or other laws. (States where raffles are not permitted: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, North Carolina, and Utah.) (edited) CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more! To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro. Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hosts Thanksgiving with industry-leading quality standards from Whole Foods Market. There are no antibiotics in their meat department, ever, so carve up turkey and spiral-cut ham with peace of mind. Shop organic sides like stuffing mix and cranberry sauce from 365 Brand. And guess what? All their delectable pies are made with no high-fructose corn syrup. Gourmet Thanksgiving flavors with the quality you want, only at Whole Foods Market.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes, para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro, para los que están lejos, los que no ven de lejos, y los que no ven de cerca, para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos, para los que piensan y los que hacen, para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola, para todos. Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de usted.

• 1:00Speaker 02

  It's getting chilly outside. But you know what that means?

• 1:06Speaker 02

  It's time to cozy up with Panera Bread. Let's get toasty, cheesy. Oh, hello, broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl. How about melty? Okay, Chipotle Chicken Avo Melt. It's dip in bread and soupy goodness season. Oh yeah, we are so back. It's Panera season. Order now.

• 1:29Speaker 03

  You would never abuse power as retribution against anybody.

• 1:34Speaker 04

  Except for day one.

• 1:36Speaker 03

  Except for?

• 1:36Speaker 04

  He's going crazy. Except for day one.

• 1:38Speaker 03

  Meaning?

• 1:39Speaker 04

  I want to close the border, and I want to drill.

• 1:42Speaker 03

  That's not, that's not, that's not retribution.

• 1:46Speaker 04

  I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be, you know, he keeps, we love this guy. He says, "You're not gonna be a dictator, are you?" I said, "No, no, no, other than day one. We're closing the border, and we're drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I'm not a dictator."

• 2:04Hannah McCarthy?

  I'm Hannah.

• 2:05Nick Capodice?

  I'm Nick.

• 2:05Hannah McCarthy?

  And this is Civics 101. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to be a dictator for one day. After that, he says he won't be a dictator anymore. But given the fact that no president-elect of the United States has ever vowed to be a dictator, even for one day, I figured that we should make an episode about that. So let's start with what he actually said he would do during his one-day dictatorship. I also have to add here, no, you cannot, in the United States, as things stand today, simply be a "dictator." A dictator has ostensibly absolute authority over a place and its people.

• 2:46Hannah McCarthy?

  Trump will not have that on day one, because we have a government established by our framers to actively prevent absolute authority for anybody. Dictatorships take time to establish.

• 3:01Speaker 04

  We're going to close the border, day one. The border gets closed.

• 3:07Hannah McCarthy?

  Okay, closing the border, by which Trump means the US border with Mexico. Nick, how does one close a border?

• 3:14Nick Capodice?

  I know of two historical instances of the southern border being pretty much entirely locked up. They were, however, short-lived.

• 3:22Hannah McCarthy?

  All right, let's hear it.

• 3:23Nick Capodice?

  Okay, it happened for one day after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The whole southern border was closed. And then I know that Ronald Reagan closed a bunch of what are called, quote, "ports of entry." And that was after a DEA agent was kidnapped in Mexico, and that only lasted for a few days.

• 3:42Hannah McCarthy?

  And importantly, Nick, neither of those closures were challenged in court.

• 3:47Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, they were not. That is true. I also know that during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, both the Trump and Biden administrations really restricted entry to the US and asylum. It wasn't a closure exactly, but immigration slowed to a trickle. But again, that was during a specific thing, a specific emergency.

• 4:10Hannah McCarthy?

  Right. There was an immigrant visa ban at that time and visa processing the world over came to a near standstill. And when it comes to the US Mexico border, officials started quote unquote expelling people without giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum and suspended asylum hearings for people who had already applied.

• 4:31Speaker 07

  The pandemic era emergency rule known as Title 42, the policy has allowed US immigration authorities to quickly expel immigrants and asylum seekers to stop the spread of COVID-19. The rule has blocked nearly 2 million people from crossing the border since it was enacted during the Trump administration in March 2020.

• 4:51Nick Capodice?

  But again, Hannah, that is all tied to a public health emergency.

• 4:55Hannah McCarthy?

  It is. However, during his first presidency, Trump issued other immigration-related proclamations. Do you remember this?

• 5:03Nick Capodice?

  I do. There was the so-called Muslim ban, which was actually even more broad than immigration, right? It restricted travel to the US for people from various Muslim-majority countries.

• 5:15Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, the Supreme Court upheld that in Trump v. Hawaii, but Biden removed the ban when he took office. Trump does vow to bring it back, by the way.

• 5:25Speaker 04

  On day one of the Trump presidency, I'm restoring the travel ban, suspending refugee admissions, and keeping terrorists the hell out of our country like I had it before.

• 5:38Nick Capodice?

  And then, lest we forget, there was the zero-tolerance family separation policy and the remain in Mexico policy, which I think had to do with people not being allowed to come into the US while they waited to hear if they were going to get asylum.

• 5:54Hannah McCarthy?

  That was also undone by Biden. Trump also issued a proclamation saying that anyone who did not enter the United States at a port of entry, in other words, anyone, including children who crossed the border illegally, would not be allowed to apply for asylum. Now, a circuit court invalidated this. We have a law that says that any non-citizen Crosses the US border anywhere is allowed to apply for asylum. We also have a longstanding treaty obligation to not refoul anybody.

• 6:25Nick Capodice?

  Refoul anybody? What is refoulement?

• 6:28Hannah McCarthy?

  It means that we do not force someone to go back to their home if they're going to be persecuted there.

• 6:33Nick Capodice?

  All right.

• 6:34Hannah McCarthy?

  Last one I want to mention, Trump also issued a proclamation suspending the crossing of non-citizens who did not have health insurance or the ability to pay medical bills.

• 6:44Nick Capodice?

  I completely forgot about that one. Wasn't that also stopped by a court?

• 6:49Hannah McCarthy?

  Great question. One court said that this was illegal. And then another court said, you know, no, we're going to uphold it. This is permissible.

• 6:59Nick Capodice?

  Wait, but I know that policy did not stick around.

• 7:03Hannah McCarthy?

  It did not. Turns out that the second court's opinion was moot. We do not need to get into how that happened. But the point here, Nick, is that there was no definitive answer. One court said no, another court said yes.

• 7:17Nick Capodice?

  Meaning, if I may, I think that we are not actually sure what a president can or cannot do when it comes to immigration bans and border closures. Unless there's an emergency.

• 7:29Hannah McCarthy?

  Which Trump has declared before.

• 7:31Speaker 04

  So we're going to be signing today and registering national emergency. And it's a great thing to do because we have an invasion of drugs, invasion of gangs, invasion of people, and it's unacceptable.

• 7:54Hannah McCarthy?

  The president-elect has also vowed to deliver mass deportations of undocumented immigrants on day one and invoke an old law, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport suspected members of drug cartels and gangs without giving them a court hearing. He plans to funnel military spending into border security and hire thousands more border agents. So how does one close a border? I guess we're going to find out. The once and future administration is famously light on the details here, but we do know how Trump has done versions of this in the past.

• 8:27Nick Capodice?

  And like you said, we are not completely sure how far the executive branch is allowed to go when it comes to the border.

• 8:34Hannah McCarthy?

  I can tell you that we do know that the Department of Homeland Security and the executive branch alike have broad authority to close ports and suspend entry to the United States. How broad they are exactly will probably be tested in 2025. All right, moving on to drilling.

• 8:52Speaker 04

  Drill, baby, drill. We're going to start that day one.

• 8:57Nick Capodice?

  All right, I got this one. It's shorthand for expanding oil and gas production in the US.

• 9:04Hannah McCarthy?

  This one is interesting because we already are the number one producer of crude oil in the world and have been for about six years. So the expansion part remains to be seen, you know, what that is going to look like. But Trump has made clear that he believes that wind turbines and electric vehicles stand in the way of the oil and gas future he wants.

• 9:26Nick Capodice?

  All right. And I also know that Trump has promised to, quote, repeal the Green New Deal. But the Green New Deal doesn't actually exist.

• 9:37Speaker 07

  As of now, it looks like the resolution on the Green New Deal has now officially failed to advance in the Senate. Back over to you.

• 9:45Hannah McCarthy?

  All right, quick primer on that. What do you mean?

• 9:47Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, absolutely. The Green New Deal is proposed climate change policy that says we are going to phase out fossil fuels, we're going to reduce emissions and get to 100% clean renewable energy. But given that it hasn't actually been passed, I'm pretty sure when Trump says that, he just means he's going to get rid of other environmental policies.

• 10:09Speaker 04

  They've spent trillions of dollars. On things having to do with the Green New Scam. It's a scam.

• 10:16Hannah McCarthy?

  Some Republicans have taken that term, Green New Deal, which, like you said, is the name of climate policy. It was proposed by liberal Democrats in Congress. And they have applied that term to things like greenhouse gas mitigation and lessening dependency on fossil fuels. These are policies that are found in the current Inflation Reduction Act.

• 10:36Nick Capodice?

  And I know the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, has new emission standards for vehicles.

• 10:41Hannah McCarthy?

  They do. Trump promises to eliminate those on day one. He says that this will save American automakers who currently have to abide by emission standards and incentives to make electric cars. So vehicle emission standards and wind turbine investment, Trump says, are going away on day one. And drilling is gonna get bigger. So what else does Trump say will happen on day one? I will get to that after a quick break.

• 11:13Nick Capodice?

  Haven't you out there ever Googled your own name? Like, actually done it? You'll find your address, your phone number, maybe even that police report from the time you went to see Rain Man in the movie theater, but you were underage? Maybe that one's just me. But here's the thing. There are companies called data brokers whose entire business model is collecting your personal information and selling it to advertisers, to strangers, sometimes to people running scams. And once your data's out there, it just keeps circulating. That is where Incogni comes in. Incogni contacts data brokers on your behalf and sends them removal requests over and over so your info doesn't just pop right back up. You set it up once, and they keep working in the background.

• 11:58Nick Capodice?

  You can even track the progress on a dashboard. And for our listeners, we have an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan. Just go to incogni.com/civics or use the code civics at checkout. There's a link in the episode description. Remember, they can't harm you if they can't find you.

• 12:18Nick Capodice?

  There is nothing quite like having stuff in your closet that you love and you know you can count on for any occasion, except maybe giving someone else that feeling. And this holiday season, Quince is where I'm finding those pieces. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and it is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories that cut out the middleman, so you get luxury quality pieces without the luxury price tag. As this lovely fall is winding to a close and we slouch into winter, I wish more than anything, someone had gifted me a yak wool hoodie.

• 13:02Nick Capodice?

  I'm dead serious. It's good enough for the yak. I mean, it works really well for the yak, right? It would work for me. And it looks hot. So give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK as well. And last thing, when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Civics 101. It's the best way to support the show. All right.

• 13:37Speaker 00

  Host Thanksgiving with industry-leading quality standards from Whole Foods Market. There are no antibiotics in their meat department, ever, so carve up turkey and spiral cut ham with peace of mind. Shop organic sides like stuffing mix and cranberry sauce from 365 brand. And guess what? All their delectable pies are made with no high fructose corn syrup. Gourmet Thanksgiving flavors with the quality you want, only at Whole Foods Market.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes. Para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro. Para los que están lejos, los que no vende lejos, y los que no vende cerca. Para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos. Para los que piensan y los que hacen. Para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola para todos. Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de usted.

• 14:40Hannah McCarthy?

  We're back. We're talking about the many things that President-elect Donald Trump has said that he will do on day one of his presidency. The only day, he says, during which he will be a "dictator." So what else is going to happen on day one? Trump has said that he is going to fire Special Counsel Jack Smith immediately. Now, he didn't say "day one," per se, but I'll let you listen.

• 15:07Speaker 04

  We got immunity at the Supreme Court. It's so easy. I would fire him within two seconds.

• 15:13Nick Capodice?

  Jack Smith being the Justice Department Special Counsel who brought two federal cases against Trump.

• 15:19Speaker 04

  Trump has said he would fire Special Counsel Jack Smith within two seconds, erasing the two federal prosecutions he's brought, one over subverting the 2020 election, the other for retaining classified documents.

• 15:31Hannah McCarthy?

  Now, we should mention here, word is that Smith is already winding down both of those cases, and Trump would likely not actually have to fire him to make them go away, at least not while he's in the White House.

• 15:43Speaker 07

  Jack Smith and his colleagues would look to wind these cases down, one way or another.

• 15:49Hannah McCarthy?

  Trump has also identified many people who he considers to be his enemies and who he plans to go after, though he's indicated that that project might be bigger than a day-one thing.

• 16:01Speaker 04

  Revenge does take time, I will say that. It does. And sometimes revenge can be justified, though I have to be honest. Sometimes it can.

• 16:09Hannah McCarthy?

  All right, moving on, because day one promises to be busy. While we're on the subject of retribution, Trump has said he will "free" the January 6 rioters who have been arrested and charged, though probably not all of them. He says a couple of them "probably got out of control." They've got the gallows set upside this Capitol building.

• 16:29Speaker 07

  Time to start using them.

• 16:42Nick Capodice?

  And to be clear, this one's pretty straightforward because the president has broad constitutional pardon powers, though I will say they do only apply to federal cases and specifically do not apply to impeachments. And we still don't have a firm answer on whether Trump can pardon himself, right?

• 17:02Hannah McCarthy?

  Right. So in case you missed it, Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts in New York State. Notably, that is a state case, and Trump is expected to appear in court for sentencing on November 26th. His lawyers are obviously filing a petition to delay sentencing since he is now White House bound. And the judge in that case, Juan Mershon, might throw away Trump's conviction before that.

• 17:26Nick Capodice?

  Really?

• 17:27Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, given the Supreme Court immunity ruling, which we have a whole episode about, and Trump's presidential victory, Mershon gave himself until November 12th to decide whether or not to overturn that conviction.

• 17:40Nick Capodice?

  Right. But one way or another, Trump can't pardon himself in a state case.

• 17:44Hannah McCarthy?

  He cannot. And as far as pardoning himself in the federal cases, you know, as we said, those appear to be going away anyway. So he very well might not have anything to pardon himself for. All right, back to day one.

• 18:02Hannah McCarthy?

  Trump has said that on day one, he will, quote, "return to a foreign policy that puts America's interests first."

• 18:09Nick Capodice?

  All right, now, what does that mean? Like, do you have any details on that one?

• 18:14Hannah McCarthy?

  Not in terms of what that actually looks like on day one, but we do know that Trump has said that he will end the war between Russia and Ukraine before he even takes office. So that is foreign policy. Trump is also openly critical of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which is an intergovernmental military alliance. Now, last year, Congress passed a law saying that the president cannot leave NATO without consent from the Senate or a new act of Congress. But that law is a little weak, and legal experts are not sure it would even be enforced. And the Senate will have a comfortable Republican majority by the time they have to think about it.

• 18:54Hannah McCarthy?

  All right, moving on, Trump has vowed to find time in that busy day to revoke protections for transgender students.

• 19:01Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, and this is Title IX, right?

• 19:03Hannah McCarthy?

  Yes, so the Education Amendments of 1972 have a statute that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, and it applies to any education, quote, "program or activity that receives federal funding." Last spring, the Department of Education, which Trump promises to dismantle, though we'll explain why, that's really not a day one project some other time. Anyway, the department, working under an executive order from Biden, added sexual orientation and gender identity protections to that statute.

• 19:37Speaker 04

  Crazy. What would you do on? Well, we're gonna end it on day one. Don't forget, that was done as an order from the president. That came down as an executive order, and we're gonna change it on day one. It's gonna be changed. We're gonna end it.

• 19:50Nick Capodice?

  And as for whether and how Trump can do this, he pretty much just told us, Hannah, he can issue an executive order regarding the Department of Education, just like Biden did.

• 20:01Hannah McCarthy?

  Yep. Trump has also promised to ban trans women from women's sports.

• 20:05Speaker 07

  Do you go to the sports leagues? Do you go to the Olympic?

• 20:08Speaker 04

  You just ban it. The president bans it. You just don't let it happen.

• 20:19Hannah McCarthy?

  Along these same education sphere lines, Trump promises to cut federal funding to schools that teach what he calls "critical race theory," which, you know, we've talked about before on the show, but just as a reminder, is a legal framework taught mostly in law schools and very much not taught to grade school students, much in the same way that we do not teach grade school students tort law.

• 20:40Nick Capodice?

  But what he means, I imagine, is schools that talk about race.

• 20:44Hannah McCarthy?

  Which, given teaching, you know, the history of the United States, it is unclear how or where he will draw that line. He also plans to cut funding on day one to schools that teach, quote, "transgender insanity." In other words, schools that foster conversations about gender and sexual orientation.

• 21:03Speaker 04

  We will get critical race theory and transgender insanity the hell out of our schools.

• 21:09Hannah McCarthy?

  Trump also plans to, day one, cut federal funds for schools that have vaccine or mask mandate policies. Now, to be clear, Trump cannot unilaterally cut education funds. He would need Congress to help him do that. And finally, in terms of kids and gender, Trump promises to ban gender-affirming surgeries for minors on day one.

• 21:30Speaker 04

  Here's my plan to stop the chemical, physical, and emotional mutilation of our youth. On day one, I will revoke Joe Biden's cruel policies on so-called gender-affirming care. Ridiculous.

• 21:45Nick Capodice?

  And this banning of gender-affirming surgeries, are we again talking about an executive order?

• 21:51Hannah McCarthy?

  Probably, which could do something, have some effect. But again, ultimately, something like that requires multi-departmental coordination and probably requires Congress and will almost certainly be challenged in court.

• 22:05Nick Capodice?

  While we're on the subject of executive orders, I do know that one of the easiest things a president really can do on day one is to revoke the executive orders of other presidents, right? So the guest we had on our episode about the executive branch, she called it unwinding, unwinding the actions of former presidents.

• 22:26Hannah McCarthy?

  Yes, I am glad you brought this up. While executive orders can be swift and decisive, they are also only as strong as the sitting president wants them to be. Trump has promised to revoke Biden's orders on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the federal workforce, an order on background checks for gun purchasers, and an order on safety and security of artificial intelligence.

• 22:49Nick Capodice?

  All right, Hannah, what else you got?

• 22:54Hannah McCarthy?

  You want more than that?

• 22:56Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, fair enough. That's a lot for one day.

• 22:59Hannah McCarthy?

  It's a lot for four years. That said, there are other day ones that have come up here and there, eliminating certain commercial fishing regulations, for example. And of course, this does not account for the many, many other promises to keep. Day one is just the beginning. We have got miles to go. And you know what? That is what we are here for. This is Civics 101.

• 23:26Nick Capodice?

  It is. We will be paying attention. We'll be asking questions. We'll be figuring it out. We will be here, civil or not.

• 23:41Hannah McCarthy?

  This episode was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy, with Nick Capodice. Christina Phillips is our senior producer. Rebecca Lavoy is our executive producer. Music in this episode by Cushy, Toby Trantor, Matt Large, Magic Jutbo, Bonkers Beat Club, Doug Way, Ballpoint, and Dama Beats. We have gotten a lot of emails in the past week, and we are beyond ready to answer your questions about how this country works. If you have anything you want to ask us, you can do that at our website, civics101podcast.org, or by emailing us at [email protected]. And Civics 101 is, in fact, a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  This is Phil Bradison, former Democratic governor of the state of Tennessee. If you love digging into how history shapes US policy, check out the new season of You Might Be Right. And this is Bill Haslam, former Republican governor. This season, we're asking the questions that have defined every pivotal moment in American political history. Is democracy really under threat? Or is that just a story as old as the republic itself? We're tackling the biggest questions shaping the 2026 midterms, so join us. Follow You Might Be Right wherever you get your podcasts.

• 25:38Speaker 02

  It's getting chilly outside. But you know what that means?

• 25:44Speaker 02

  It's time to cozy up with Panera Bread. Let's get toasty, cheesy. Oh, hello broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl. How about melty? Okay, Chipotle Chicken Avo Melt. It's dipping bread and soupy goodness season. Oh yeah, we're so back. It's Panera season. Order now.