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The President's Daily Brief
PDB Afternoon Bulletin | January 20th, 2025: Trump's Deluge Of Executive Orders, Biden's Preemptive Pardons, & Israel Releases 90 Palestinian Prisoners
00:12:43
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- [00:01]
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Mike Baker
Mike Baker here now. As you may have read in the gossip papers, I'm currently in the Middle east, part of a team of five riders, 10 camels and an amazing support team traveling 700 miles through the deserts of Saudi Arabia and Jordan on behalf of the UK Special Forces Benevolent Fund. And while I'm away, the terrific Mike Slater is filling in for me here on the PDB.
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Mike Slater
Foreign Thanks Mike. Monday, 20 January 2025 welcome back to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. Mike Slater filling for Mike Baker. Let's get briefed. First, President Donald Trump is reportedly planning to kick off his second term in office by signing as many as 100 executive orders just within hours of taking office today. Meanwhile, outgoing President Joe Biden used his final hours in office to issue a wave of controversial preemptive pardons. Later in the show, Israel has released 90 Palestinian prisoners as part of the ceasefire in Gaza following the release of three Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity on Sunday. First today's afternoon spotlight Donald Trump sworn into office as the 47th president of the United States and he's hit the ground running. Trump expected to sign close to 100 executive orders on Monday, aiming to immediately deliver on dozens of campaign policy priorities while taking a hatchet to a number of his predecessors executive actions. While full picture of the orders is not yet clear, they will cover a wide range of issues, including immigration, climate and energy policy, diversity initiatives in the federal government. It's all according to the New York Times, Trump told supporters at a rally on Sunday, quote, with the stroke of my pen, I will revoke dozens of destructive and radical executive orders and actions by the Biden administration and by this time tomorrow, they will all be null and void. Notably, Trump will invoke a national emergency at the US Southern border to unlock funds from the Defense Department to address the immigration crisis. He will also move to designate a number of drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and direct his administration to reinstate his first terms remain in Mexico policy for illegal aliens or migrants seeking asylum in the United States. Trump is expected to reinstate a series of his first term policy directives that President Biden had rescinded on his first day in office back in 2021. Moving on from immigration, Trump will declare a national energy emergency in an effort to immediately boost domestic production and lower consumer costs. At the same time, he will sign an executive order to, quote, unleash Alaska's natural resource potential, which will facilitate liquefied natural gas exports from the state. A senior advisor to Trump told Axios, quote, national security is a key issue here. Energy is fundamental to our foreign policy, and reducing American energy production curtails our ability to exercise our foreign policies. Trump's executive actions on energy are expected to facilitate greater investments in America's domestic energy markets with the hopes of boosting job creation and lowering prices for the American people. They also aim to ease construction of fossil fuel infrastructure, such as new pipelines, which President Biden cracked down early in his administration. Trump also plans to overturn a suite of Biden era energy policies, including his predecessor's cap on oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico, which Trump also said at his inauguration speech will now be known as the Gulf of America, and a slew of EPA regulations targeting power plants, vehicles and oil and gas infrastructure, often dubbed the Green New Deal. Moving on to the bloated federal government, Trump will issue an executive order called Schedule F, which will curtail job protections for federal workers. This will pave the way for the activity of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or doge, led by Elon Musk, which seeks to cut waste within the federal government. Notably, Trump will also sign orders rescinding federal government diversity, equity and inclusion policies, as well as one proclaiming that the US Government will recognize only two sexes, male and female. Advisors framed the actions as part of Trump's restoring sanity agenda and said it would go a long way towards, quote, defending women from gender ideology extremism. In his inaugural speech, he also talked about just restoring common sense. Now, we're just scratching the surface here, but you get the idea that Trump wants to send the message from the outset that his second term will be marked by promises made, promises kept. Meanwhile, former President Biden spent his final hours in office issuing a wave of controversial preemptive pardons, including earlier in the day ones for Tony Fauci, retired General Mark Milley, Representative Liz Cheney, and all the members of the House January 6th Select Committee. The Biden administration had expressed fears that the recipients would be targeted for investigation and prosecution under the Trump administration. Those were followed by last minute pardons for members of the Biden family, including for his brothers Jimmy and Frank and his sister Valerie, along with their spouses. Biden said his family has faced unprecedented attacks and threats and that he had no reason to believe these attacks would stop after he leaves office. Regarding the political pardons, Trump immediately slammed the move, calling it disgraceful and a text message. NBC News adding, quote, many are guilty of major crimes. Don't forget, of course, Biden a couple weeks ago preemptively pardoning Hunter Biden not only for the crimes he was charged with, but also any other criminal activity that he possibly could have been engaged in than a very specific amount of time. With Trump now officially sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, we'll keep you updated. And what promises to be a chaotic week that drastically shakes up the status quo in D.C. coming up next, Israel has released 90 Palestinian prisoners as part of the ceasefire in Gaza following the release of three Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity on Sunday. More on that after the break.
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Mike Baker
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Mike Slater
Welcome back to the president's daily brief afternoon bulletin. I'm Mike Slater filling in for Mike Baker. Want to provide an update here on the Israel Hamas ceasefire agreement? Early Monday, Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners just hours after Hamas freed three Israeli hostages. On Sunday, three female Israeli hostages in the opening exchange of this fragile accord aimed at halting 15 months of war. Now there are some conflicting reports, but best we can tell, prisoners included between 62 and 69 women and a dozen East Jerusalem residents, which were released in two waves. The Israeli prison service did not provide a breakdown of those released. Most of the prisoners were transported from Ophir prison to the Baytuniya checkpoint in the West Bank. There, crowds of relatives and supporters gathered in the hundreds, cheering and chanting, some climbing onto buses waving the flags of Fatah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas and other terrorist factions, including Hezbollah. The East Jerusalem residents were released in a second wave to their homes after being transferred from the detention center. However, tensions marred the process, with Israeli officials accusing the Red Cross of deliberate delays to depict Israel's uncooperative claims that the organization has yet to address. Among those released were figures accused of brutal terror related activities, though notably none were charged with murder. According to the Associated Press, high profile names include Khalida Gerar, a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terror group that carried out attacks on Israelis decades ago, including plane hijackings. Gerar was accused of masterminding the 2019 bombing that killed a 17 year old Israeli girl in the west bank and was arrested again in 2023, detained without formal charges under Israel's administrative detention policy. Other notable names released are Dalal Kashib, the sister of Hamas's former second in command, and Abla Abdel Rasool, the wife of the PFLP leader who ordered the assassination of the Israeli tourism Minister back in 2021. Under the terms of the ceasefire agreement brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the us, Hamas will, and I should say the Biden administration. Hamas will gradually release 33 hostages, including children, women and elderly individuals, some of whom may already be deceased. In return, Israel is committed to releasing nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners over the next six weeks. If the ceasefire holds, the next exchange is set for Saturday, with Hamas slated to release four living female hostages in exchange for 30 to 50 Palestinian detainees for each hostage. Looking ahead, the more challenging second phase of the ceasefire agreement arrives in two weeks, with plans to negotiate the release of the remaining living hostages and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. For now, the ceasefire holds tenuously as questions linger about its durability and the broader implications for Israeli Palestinian relations. There's also a new variable of the now President Donald Trump world watches closely, uncertain whether this fragile peace can endure or if the cycle of violence is inevitable. That is the PDB afternoon bulletin for Monday 20th January. This Inauguration Day to listen to the show ad free. Go become a premium member the President's Daily brief by visiting PDB premium.com I'm Mike Slater for the podcast Politics by Faith, host of the morning show on SiriusXM Patreon. We will be back tomorrow. Until then, stay safe. Spread the word.