Day 1
Plus: Pardoning the Proud Boys, revoking birthright citizenship, Elon Musk's not-a-Nazi-salute, and more...
Elon Musk is a lot of things, but Nazi ain't one of them: Yesterday, Donald Trump was inaugurated as president. True to form, he held a rally afterward where he signed executive orders on stage, seemingly unable or unwilling to distinguish between campaign-rally mode and actual lawmaking mode. The crowd seemed to love it. We'll get to those executive orders in a second, but first: Elon Musk spoke and made some sort of bombastic gesture, saying "My heart goes out to you" and "It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured," noting that some elections don't really matter very much but that this one did.
Naturally, people are losing their fucking minds over this:
Historian of fascism here. That was a Nazi salute - and a very belligerent one too https://t.co/PB9sFCVJGA
— Ruth Ben-Ghiat (@ruthbenghiat) January 20, 2025
"Did Elon Musk Seriously Just Do a Nazi Salute at Trump's Inauguration?" asks The New Republic. Um, no. He didn't. And it's kind of insane that the media appears to be getting ready to do this whole thing again—the one where Trump, and any Trump affiliate, gets called a Nazi over and over again. Musk was kind of just gesticulating wildly the whole time, as he does when he gets excited. And, look, you may not want to colonize Mars or have a million babies (with a vast array of gals) or replace your conventional car with an electric vehicle or drive in the tunnel under Las Vegas, but you're fooling yourself if you think Musk's pattern of behavior is consistent with that of a Nazi; ethnonationalism ain't his thing, nor is government suppression of speech, nor is rounding up political enemies and putting them in camps. Calm the hell down.
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Trump tries to end birthright citizenship: Trump's flurry of executive orders indicates all his tough talk on immigration was much more than bluster. Despite its likely conflict with the 14th Amendment, an executive order was signed yesterday by Trump that would revoke our country's longstanding tradition of granting birthright citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil. California's attorney general has already said he will challenge this order in court; expect him to be joined by many other states' attorneys general.
SHOCKING but not shocking. As I predicted, Trump's birthright citizenship EO includes a Kamala Harris clause, specifically designed to deny the legitimacy of her US citizenship as the child of someone with a temporary status. This order jeopardizes the citizenship of millions… pic.twitter.com/J82coOOA3b
— David J. Bier (@David_J_Bier) January 21, 2025
Trump also signed this executive order, which asks for deportations to happen not in order of security risk, contradicting everything J.D. Vance had been saying on the campaign trail:
As I predicted, Trump has signed an order deprioritizing public safety threats for removal, requiring that DHS target anyone removable regardless of their security risk. This EO is a dangerous threat to the public, diverting resources away from critical security tasks. pic.twitter.com/4hxodOTdAR
— David J. Bier (@David_J_Bier) January 21, 2025
But it's even worse! Trump's order requires the attorney general to prioritize misdemeanor criminal cases for illegal entry OVER the rest of its criminal workload: terrorism, fraud, trafficking, homicides, and other crimes just got bumped down. This is insanity. pic.twitter.com/gfk4XKiPav
— David J. Bier (@David_J_Bier) January 21, 2025
With yet another stroke of his pen, Trump appears to have ended the refugee program, which has resettled some 3 million people since its creation in 1980.
"Nearly 1,660 Afghans cleared by the U.S. government to resettle in the U.S., including family members of active-duty U.S. military personnel, are having their flights canceled under President Donald Trump's order suspending U.S. refugee programs, a U.S. official and a leading refugee resettlement advocate said on Monday," per Reuters.
This isn't altogether shocking. "Nearly 30,000 refugees arrived during the final three months of 2024, coming close to meeting Biden's annual cap of 125,000," notes the Associated Press. "Trump admitted about 11,000 during the final year of his first term, the fewest since the U.S. began resettlements." He's said he wants to "immediately end the migrant invasion of America"; it's a shame he counts thoroughly vetted refugees taking part in a longstanding, worthwhile American government program as invaders.
CBP One app went dark: Meanwhile, as all this was happening, the app that would-be asylum seekers had been using to secure appointments with immigration officials to make their cases and be let into the country to await their court dates went dark. "Existing appointments are no longer valid," flashed upon the screen. The app had been used for this purpose by some 930,000 people to be let into the country; an estimated 270,000 migrants are currently waiting in Mexico, with at least 30,000 awaiting appointments which have in many cases been canceled—the rest appear to either have had further-out appointment dates or to not have scheduled them yet.
During his inaugural address, Trump said not only that he would declare a national emergency at the border, but also that would-be asylum seekers would now be instructed to remain in Mexico while their claims are being processed, vs. being let into the country in the interim before their court dates.
Asylum seekers, once let into the country, are generally allowed to apply for work permits as they await their court dates to figure out next steps.
Videos of would-be migrants crying over their canceled appointments have been making the rounds on Twitter, sometimes with Trump supporters cheering in response. For those who have fled violence in places like Honduras and Nicaragua and socialism in places like Cuba and Venezuela—a not-insignificant number—this must feel like your hopes have been cruelly dashed, like you tried to do things the right way, the legal way, the official way, and now you're right back where you started, with no prospect of a better life. Those who want a more orderly and restrictive immigration process should not celebrate these people's distress and devastation.
All of this taken together indicates that the immigration crackdown in the coming days, weeks, and months will be mighty and intense. For what it's worth, I'm skeptical that cutting the refugee program, ending birthright citizenship, and doing willy-nilly deportations (vs. prioritizing those with criminal records first) are the best approaches to curbing mayhem at the border.
Other executive orders: Trump withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement. He signed an executive order "promoting beautiful federal civic architecture"—an odd fixation of large swaths of the online right—and transformed the U.S. Digital Service into DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency (now free of Vivek Ramaswamy, who earned Trump's scorn). He revoked all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion guidelines.
Note that just signing executive orders does not mean that a) all will pass legal muster, or that b) the actions will actually happen. Note Barack Obama's 2009 noises about closing Guantanamo Bay, a base that…to this day remains open.
One big symbol: The inauguration stage was festooned with one unusual force: many founders and CEOs of great American tech companies, from the aforementioned Musk to Mark Zuckerberg (who may be in trouble with his wife now) to Jeff Bezos to Sundar Pichai.
Sundar Pichai is the poorest guy in this picture with a net worth of $1.3B. pic.twitter.com/X8BNbY8O9v
— Shiv Aroor (@ShivAroor) January 20, 2025
Everyone's acting in their own glorious self-interest, right? The tech overlords saw what an administration hell-bent on harassing them was like, whether by COVID-censorship demands or the new antitrust moment (which seemingly aims to punish tech companies for their sheer bigness, not even establishing any sort of consumer harm standard); now they probably see currying favor with Trump as a means of turning their fortune around. Trump probably sees Hollywood and media as staunchly opposed, but, hey, here's a wildly rich and heretofore politically untapped industry that just so happens to be into capitalism and good old-fashioned law and order.
Scenes from New York: New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has already been attempting to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump, hoping the newly sworn-in president will work to halt congestion pricing in Manhattan.
QUICK HITS
- Donald Trump pardoned 1,500 January 6 rioters yesterday, on his first day in office, including the leaders of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. Some of those rioters, like the ones involved with the aforementioned groups, will have their sentences commuted and be freed from prison. There are also some 450 pending cases, which Trump has directed the attorney general to dismiss.
- The Senate confirmed Marco Rubio as Trump's secretary of state.
- I do think Pirate Wires' Mike Solana has some solid theories when it comes to what might be motivating Trump's TikTok play:
tiktok is now operating illegally — this is an unambiguous fact. yes, the company is "back," but trump can decide at any moment, and in perfect keeping with the law, to thanos snap it out of existence. in other words, it's now a hostage. and that's what we call leverage.
— Mike Solana (@micsolana) January 20, 2025
- The pussy hat era is over, not a minute too soon.
- Gotta be a girl for a second and note how much I appreciate all the Oscar de la Renta from yesterday's inauguration and all the Usha Vance fanfare. The official Reason Roundup take is that…she's a babe:
Melania Trump and Usha Vance will singlehandedly turn the White House into a catwalk and I, for one, cannot wait. pic.twitter.com/PulxPywNNm
— Danielle Franz (@DanielleBFranz) January 19, 2025
