A rundown of Trump's first day executive orders (01-21-2025--Hour3)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] All right, so Donald Trump gets sworn into office yesterday, goes to a whole bunch of parties, dances with a sword, and then he starts signing a whole bunch of executive orders. As promised, there were a lot. I have a list.

[00:00:48] From Reuters. President Trump, now remember, this is Reuters, so I'm just going to read these things. I don't agree with the, with some of the, some of the ways that they are defining, you know, what was done. So there's going to be some bias here.

[00:01:09] But I'm going to run through these because there's a lot. But in case there's one on this list that you've been waiting to hear, you'll hear it. Okay, so here we go. Direct the DOJ not to enforce the TikTok divest or ban law for 75 days. Not allowed to do that. Halt 78 Biden-era executive actions. So he put a stop on 78 executive actions from Biden.

[00:01:33] Withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord. End all federal cases and investigations of any Trump supporters. Revoke protections for transgender troops. That's what they call protection. Okay, whatever. Pardon about 1,500 people criminally charged in the January 6th attack while commuting the sentences for six.

[00:01:55] By the way, I'm seeing reports also that the D.C. jail, where a lot of these J6ers are locked up, they're not cooperating and releasing the people who have been held there. Overhaul the refugee admission program to better align with American principles and interests. Declare a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border. Designate drug cartels and Tren de Aragua as foreign terrorist organizations.

[00:02:23] Which, by the way, that means the military can now target them. Reverse several immigration orders from the Biden administration, including one that narrows deportation priorities to people who commit serious crimes. And are deemed national security threats or were stopped at the border. Rescind a policy created by the Biden administration that sought to guide the development of AI to prevent misuse.

[00:02:52] Rescind a Biden era. So once again, all of these are framed in sort of a Biden did the right thing context, right? Rescind a Biden era policy that allowed federal agencies to take certain initiatives to boost voter registration. Yeah, because why are all these federal agencies like sending out voter material? You know. Anyway. Stay in your lane, guys. Do what you're supposed to do.

[00:03:22] Rescind the 2021 Title IX order, which bans discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation in education programs that get federal funding. Revoke Biden's recent removal of Cuba from U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list. So that got undone. And if Biden had actually cared about it, he should have done it way earlier. But he waited to the last minute to do it. Order federal employees back to work in office five days a week.

[00:03:49] Order a federal hiring freeze, including exceptions for posts related to national security and public safety and the military. Direct every governmental department and agency to address the cost of living crisis. Restore freedom of speech and prevent censorship of free speech. End the weaponization of government against the political adversaries of the previous administration. Did you hear that, lefties?

[00:04:15] End the weaponization of government against the political adversaries of the previous administration. The previous, the political adversaries of the previous. So I'm thinking that means we're still allowed to go after lefties. I'm just kidding. No, he said it would end. He said that he said we are not doing this. This is over. Impose 25 percent tariffs on products from Mexico and Canada as of February 1.

[00:04:43] Reverse Biden sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Reverse Biden order requiring 50 percent of new cars sold in 2030 to be electric vehicles. Proclaim that there are two biological sexes, male and female. End diversity, equity and inclusion programs within federal agencies. Establish the Department of Government Efficiency or the DOGE.

[00:05:09] Institute enhanced screening for visa applicants from certain high risk nations. It's a Muslim, man! Are we still doing that? I know it's been eight years, but are we getting that band back together again? Where we pretend that there are certain nations that really, really hate us and have been indoctrinating their populations to really, really hate us. And so maybe like we should take another look at them before we just let them in. Okay.

[00:05:36] Reopen Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration. Order Attorney General, Secretary of State and Secretary of Homeland Security to, quote, take all appropriate action to prioritize prosecution of illegal aliens who commit crimes. And by the way, we are already seeing some operations now, I think, out of Chicago today. Withdraw the U.S. from the global minimum tax agreement.

[00:06:03] Why are we entering into any deal with any other country for a global minimum tax? Why would we do that? That's stupid. That's Biden. Anyway, institute a 90-day pause in the issuance of U.S. foreign aid. Order the Attorney General to pursue... By the way, one of the things that Trump talked about this too, like when we give donations of aid,

[00:06:28] when the government does that, and like you can make an argument that you get more bang for the buck by delivering pallets of rice to people who need food, right? That that is a higher bang for the buck for diplomatic outreach than, you know, building an embassy and, you know, staffing it with the people and all of that and hosting the fancy dinner parties and stuff. Like all of that expense.

[00:06:56] And you could say that that, you know, redounds to the benefit of Americans in some way. You have these foreign relations, all that, blah, blah, blah. Okay, fine. But, like, I am open to the argument and actually I lean towards the argument that putting bags of rice and corn and food, you know, on planes and boats and delivering them to people who are starving, giving them that kind of aid is way more cost effective.

[00:07:25] But here's the thing, and Trump talked about this. If you're going to do that, you put our name on the aid, right? For the love of me, why would you not do that? Well, we don't want to offend the local populations. Okay, well, then you don't get the food. Like, seriously. Seriously. If you hate us so much that you would not eat a bag of rice that comes to us and you'd rather starve to death, okay, then that's your choice.

[00:07:52] But there are other people that may not make that same choice. And so let's give them a bag of rice and let's let them know where it came from. Let's, like, for example, let's take the example of China. They put made in China on everything, even stuff that's not made there, right? They steal a whole bunch of stuff, slap a made in China tag on it. Like, why can't we at least label the rice that we send to them?

[00:08:22] By the way, I had a friend who did a tour in the Peace Corps over in Africa, and he said that the people, I think he was in Guinea, and he said that they would not eat. Like, you would see the pallets of rice stacked up at the port and from all these different countries that were sending aid, and the Chinese rice was untouched. They would not eat the Chinese rice

[00:08:54] because I don't know if this is true, but this is what they believed. They believed that the Chinese fertilized their rice patty with human feces, and so they called it poop rice, and they would not eat it. See, that's the kind of marketing that redounds to our benefit, right? You have an entire continent, Africa, that is open to us.

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[00:10:46] I cannot wait to see what the next 26 hours hold in making America great again. Well, these are executive orders, so they only last as long as his term. This is the problem with these types of orders. I've always been highly skeptical and critical of the use of these orders for that very reason. If you want stuff to be permanent and you've got, you know, common sense solutions, then you put them into practice and you put them into law.

[00:11:14] That's the way, and that codifies it and makes it much more difficult to get stripped away because everything that we're saying, now we're going back and forth every four years or every eight years or so, right? We're going to be swinging back and forth and back and forth because Congress refuses to do its freaking job because it's easier for them to fundraise off of YouTube clips than it is to actually pass legislation. All right, let me go over to the phone lines. Here's Larry. Welcome to the show. Hey, Larry. Pete, how are you? Hey, I'm good, man. What's up?

[00:11:44] Well, I can assure you one thing. A lot of midnight oil was burned last night in law offices across the country. Yeah. And I have since learned that to get a pardon, one must be charged or convicted as of Hunter Biden. And that was done and there's nothing one can do about it.

[00:12:10] But the Constitution, I'm told, clearly states that a pardon cannot be given on a presumption or an anticipation or something in the future. One must be charged or convicted to get it. So, therefore, the Biden family has been neither.

[00:12:36] And so that pardon is not really worth the paper it's written on. Well, Hunter Biden was charged and convicted. So it would apply to the cases where he was charged and convicted. Correct. Right. But the other members, and I don't know what you're saying is true. My understanding is not that. My understanding is that the pardons are total. Like, the president has this power.

[00:13:04] I read a part of the Constitution yesterday when we were talking about this. So I don't know. I'm not aware of that. I've not done a deep dive into the research. It's just the Constitution is not open-ended to where something might. A pardon would be given an idea. Well, what's the exact language that you're citing that says it's not based on anticipated or whatever? Because that's what they did for Nixon.

[00:13:32] Presumptuous or – it basically boils down to – No, no, no, no. It's not what it boils down to. It wouldn't even go to the Supreme Court because it's written in there that you can't – you can't predict or forecast a pardon. No, well, it's saying – It's got to be on someone that's charged. It's got to be on a charge or a conviction. No, no. I think what you're reading is the part where it's like it can't be for future things. It can only be for things in the past, any crimes committed in the past.

[00:14:01] And the crimes then – that's why Biden gave this – you know, for Hunter, it was a 10-year window or whatever. And for the rest of his family that got the pardon yesterday was, I think, going back to 2014. So I think that's the – I think it's a look back. They can't be charged. They have pardoned for anything they may have done in that time frame. It doesn't pardon you for future things.

[00:14:26] I think that was – but like I said, I would have to go and read the actual text of the Constitution and find out if it's ever been adjudicated as such. All right. I hope you had a happy holiday season. But tell me if something like this happened at your house. Your family and friends are gathered around. Maybe y'all are in the living room. You're laughing, swapping stories, reminiscing. And then somebody says, hey, Dad, remember those old VHS tapes? Did you ever get them transferred? And then the room gets all quiet.

[00:14:53] All eyes are on Dad who says, oh, you know, well, I've been meaning to. But I just haven't gotten around to it. Look, don't let those priceless memories sit in a box for another year. All right. Create a Video has been helping families in the Charlotte area preserve their history since 1997. Simply bring in your old camcorder tapes and Create a Video will transfer them to a USB flash drive for just $14.95 per tape. You have a big collection? They've got a discount for you.

[00:15:21] And next year, instead of talking about those memories, imagine gathering the family to watch them together. Talk about a memorable gift. So do what I did. Trust the experts at Create a Video, conveniently located in Mint Hill, right off I-485, and online at createavideo.com. And thank you, Monica, for sending along also information about this as well. But here is what the Constitution says about pardons.

[00:15:51] It's under Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1. So 2-2-1, Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1. And you can read the whole thing. It's a very long run-on sentence with a bunch of semicolons. The first, like 90% of it is not related to the pardons. It's about presidents, the commander-in-chief of the Army and the Navy. He may require the opinion in writing of the executive departments and blah, blah, blah.

[00:16:20] And then it says, the very last part says, And that's it. That's it. He shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the U.S., except in cases of impeachment.

[00:16:46] So, as I suspected when I was chatting with Larry there, I think what he was thinking of is you can't pardon things that haven't happened yet. In other words, you can't say, here's a pardon, and now you get to do whatever you want and just, like, use this pardon for future crimes. You can't do that. It's for offenses against the United States, except impeachment. And so there are some limitations, though.

[00:17:17] The Constitution's text provides—this is, by the way, according to constitution.congress.gov. The text provides for at least two limits on the power. First, clemency may only be granted for offenses against the United States, which means a state could charge you, and the feds can't pardon you for that. It's a state crime. And it's also not civil claims. They're not covered.

[00:17:46] So just crimes, right? Criminal acts. Also, the other limitation here is that the president's clemency authority cannot be used in cases of impeachment. Beyond the textual limits, certain external constitutional and legal considerations may act as constraints on this power. For instance, the Supreme Court has indicated that the power may be exercised at any time after an offense's commission,

[00:18:13] reflecting that the president may not preemptively immunize future criminal conduct. So I think that's the thing. Like, the people that Biden pardoned have not been charged with anything, but the pardon covers a period of time before yesterday. So if they were to commit something after, you know, today going forward, that would not be covered. That's the limitation there. Not the fact that they haven't been charged. It's when the offense occurred.

[00:18:42] And if the offense occurred during that 10-year window, whatever it was, or five-year window, whatever it was, that he pardoned everybody for that window, anything inside of that window, gone. So that's what the Constitution says on that. All right. Other things that Trump did yesterday.

[00:19:04] Order the Attorney General to pursue the death penalty for killing of a law enforcement officer or any capital crime committed by an illegal immigrant. Order the Secretaries of Commerce and the Interior to restart efforts to route water from California's Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the state. Withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization.

[00:19:29] Order Treasury Department to explore creation of external revenue service. So instead of the IRS, it would be the ERS. We're going to tax everybody else. Revoke security clearances for ex-National Security Advisor John Bolton and 51 intelligence officials who said Hunter Biden's laptop bore, quote, classic earmarks of Russian disinformation. Yeah.

[00:19:57] See, here's the thing, and I've said this about all forms of protest, virtually all forms of protest. If there is no risk of penalty, it's not really a protest. It's just a performance. Okay? Like when you lay down in a grocery store and there's no real threat that you're going to get arrested, if you sit down on a freeway and there's no threat you're going to be arrested, that's not really protesting because there's nothing on the line for you. You know?

[00:20:26] Well, aside from getting run over by some angry motorists. But as far as I know, that hasn't really happened yet. Um, but if there's no threat of a penalty, then it's just a performance. You're just a theater kid, basically. And God knows we're tired of being governed by the most hysterical, neurotic segment of our society. I know I am. And I say that as one who did participate in theater performances until, like, ninth grade.

[00:20:56] Like, from fifth grade through ninth grade. Well, sorry, fourth grade. Yeah, fourth grade through ninth grade. And look, in the K through six years, that was mandatory. I can't help it if I was good at it. You know, and then they wanted me to do, you know, alligators all around from really rosy. Um, or, yeah, chicken soup. Oklahoma. Jazz rock chorus. I, it was just to get into college, I swear.

[00:21:23] Um, next up, he declared the border crisis and invasion. And ordered the attorney general and secretaries of state and homeland security to take all appropriate action to repel, repatriate, or remove any alien engaged in such. And formally rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and Alaska's Mount Denali to Mount McKinley.

[00:21:49] Uh, oh, and, uh, by the way, our attorney general, Jeff Jackson, a.k.a. Baby Jesus, uh, he has joined with other attorneys general to sue over Trump's immigration executive order already. So that was, uh, they had that one already lined up in the legal chute, as it were, ready to be deposited, uh, upon the executive order signing. So, let the law fair begin.

[00:22:15] I think the real winners in all of this right now are the lawyers. All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do, too, and you've probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources. Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News. It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place, so you can compare coverage and verify information.

[00:22:43] You can check it out at check.ground.news slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description, too. I started using Ground News a few months ago, and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check.ground.news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link, and you'll get 15% off any subscription.

[00:23:14] I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Let me get Helen on real quick. Hello, Helen. Hi, Pete. Hey. I love your show. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. You make everyday entertaining. I'm trying my hardest. Well, you do a good job. They need to give you a raise. Yes. Mike Schaefer, listen up. Okay.

[00:23:43] Probably not going to happen, but thank you. Yeah. Anyway, my question is, I was listening to you and you said, baby Jesus got in on this lawsuit, immigration lawsuit. Who pays for that? That is a very good question. I don't know the answer to. I could see it being us taxpayers. If he's, you know, acting on behalf of the state of North Carolina, I could see them taking money from the budget that the attorney general's office has to do it.

[00:24:13] Or maybe there's a third party nonprofit that's kicking money to states for the litigation. I don't know yet. All right. Well, I was just curious because if President Trump is now the president from an overwhelming vote of the people, shouldn't that say something?

[00:24:33] Well, I would say that Jeff Jackson would argue that, no, this is the proper role of the states to challenge federal actions and, you know, overreach. And if the federal government is acting in an unconstitutional way, that's what the attorney generals are supposed to do. And Republicans do this against Democrat administrations also.

[00:24:55] And I would agree with that argument, that you do want states to push back against the federal government on things where the federal government is overreaching. The problem here is that the federal government is in charge of immigration law. And states have been disobeying and been flouting immigration law, right?

[00:25:17] So it seems to me like he is trying to sue in order to prevent the federal government from doing what the federal government is supposed to be doing. And for that, like I haven't read, it just came down like an hour ago, so I haven't read the lawsuit. But I am curious how he would argue that this is somehow in defense of the citizens of North Carolina. Because by definition, these are not citizens that we are talking about. Exactly.

[00:25:46] Well, Pete, listen, thank you so much. And keep doing what you're doing. We love you. Well, thanks, Helen. I'm going to try. That is up to management, though. I appreciate the call. Thank you, Helen. It's good to talk with you. And thanks for listening. Can I use you as a reference? I don't have time to play this clip. But there was apparently a service.

[00:26:14] Donald Trump, his family, like his whole family, his kids and their spouses and everybody and J.D. Vance and his wife. And they all went to some service at like the National Cathedral, I think, or something. And, yeah, the National Prayer Service. And this was at an Episcopalian church. There was an Episcopalian minister or preacher.

[00:26:36] And she delivered a sermon chastising the president to have mercy on the scared LGBT children and illegal immigrants and just made this overtly partisan political speech, which, by the way, it turns out this preacher chick was also like an anti-Trump protester. They've got video of her out in the streets screaming against Trump. So that's who they had up there. She then chastises the president. He is on his way back into the White House.

[00:27:04] And somebody asks him what he thought of the sermon. He said, not too exciting, was it? They could do much better. They could do much better. And Eric Erickson said, were I president, I would not go to a prayer service led by an Episcopalian because I am Christian and I would prefer to have a Christian minister lead the service instead of a pagan. I didn't say that's Eric Erickson. I'm just OK. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening.

[00:27:30] I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to the Pete Calendar show dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening. And don't break anything while I'm gone.