← Chronicle · Decision · January 20, 2025

First-Day Executive Actions: 78 Prior Orders Rescinded

Hours after taking the oath, President Trump began signing the first-day slate of executive actions that opened his second term. The first of them, Executive Order 14148 — “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,” signed January 20, 2025 — rescinded 78 presidential orders and memoranda issued by President Biden, a figure the White House itself carried into the text of its follow-on rescissions order that March.

The order’s stated policy was “to restore common sense to the Federal Government and unleash the potential of the American citizen,” and its purpose section named the targets: the prior administration’s diversity, equity and inclusion practices across the agencies, its border orders, and its climate and environmental regulation. The revocations, the order said, “will be the first of many steps the United States Federal Government will take to repair our institutions and our economy.” The day’s further actions — on the border emergency, energy, the federal workforce, and pardons — are recorded across this chronicle as their own files opened.

Sources: The White House, Executive Order 14148, “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,” January 20, 2025 (whitehouse.gov); The White House, Executive Order 14236, “Additional Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,” March 14, 2025 (whitehouse.gov), recording the 78 rescissions.