It’s like clockwork: Most weekday afternoons, whether he’s due to speak to the press or not, President Donald Trump summons reporters. The Trump Hour is about to begin.
Since returning to office Jan. 20, Trump has used lengthy televised gab sessions − packaged as executive order signings − to make himself ubiquitous to Americans, shooting from the hip on question after question and dominating the news. The flood of orders, and the verbal provocations that accompany them, are part of an early strategy to overwhelm the system with aggressive policy changes and command the national conversation through brute administrative force, Trump allies and insiders say.
“They’re talking a lot about what they’re doing. And talking about it again, and again, and again,” said Bradley Rateike, a former Trump White House aide. “They see that as a real tool to remind the American people of why they put them there.” Trump has sought to fire thousands of federal workers, dismantle independent agencies, end birthright citizenship and impose tariffs on countries that have a trade deficit with the U.S. or have aggrieved him in some other way.
The result has been one of the most head-spinning, boundary-pushing and politically polarizing opening stretches of a presidency in modern history. And a second wave of action is expected soon. Trump has quickly laid the groundwork for a consolidation of power through mass firings and the use of executive orders that dictate his funding priorities to Congress. And he’s just getting started. “There are more executive orders that have been researched,” said Ken Blackwell, a close White House ally at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute. “I think you’ll be surprised that that pace might not slow down to a screeching halt, or a snail’s pace, because there are stacks of more executive orders that have been thought out.”
