All of Trump’s Biggest Executive Orders and How They’ll Impact You

Within the first week of Trump’s second term in office, he’s already made changes that will impact every American in this country. In today’s member’s lounge, we’re going to go over what exactly an executive order influences, and spotlight some of the orders that are affecting millions across this country right now.

What executive orders do have control over

First, we need to talk about what these executive orders actually are. If you forgot everything you learned in AP Gov, here’s the basic definition refresher: an executive order is a directive from the President of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. It is basically a way for the president to sidestep the legislative process that usually comes with putting rules into place, and gives the president a broad executive and enforcement authority to determine how to enforce the law or manage anything under the federal government's executive branch (which includes agencies like the Department of Interior, overseeing our water, parks, land, and environment; Homeland Security, which handles immigration, borders, and cybersecurity; Health and Human Services, which runs operations and funding of Medicare and Medicaid, and also calls the shots on investing in medical research). Trump’s administration removed the webpage explaining all of these departments, but you can find a comprehensive chart of all the agencies here.

Executive orders are not legislation, which means they don’t need approval from Congress, and Congress cannot simply overturn them. Yes, executive orders have the force of law, which means defying them is illegal, but they are not laws, so they’re still moveable and much easier to undo than repealing a law. The only way to overturn an existing executive order is if a sitting US president issued another executive order undoing it (which President Trump has done, and we’ll get into).

What executive orders don’t have control over

Given this definition, we can deduce that executive orders do not have any direct control over agencies that are not the federal government. Executive orders cannot control private corporations, obviously—not to say there’s no relationship between the public and private sectors (look no further than the fact that Nancy Pelosi’s husband dumped 10,000 Nvidia shares just before DeepSeek rolled out, or the fact that South African billionaire Elon Musk pressured the Federal Aviation Administration head to resign), but if it directly opposes state law, local officials can cite those laws as a reason to not comply with the order, which we’re already seeing in some cases. Also, if an executive order seems to violate the Constitution, it can be reviewed in court, which we will also talk about today.

Not all executive orders have knife-hot impacts. Sometimes, Congress can pass legislation that makes it difficult (or impossible) to carry out the order, like removing funding (money talks, even in the House of Representatives). Given all this, it’s safe to say that executive actions are most valid and effective when the president acts with the implied or express authority of Congress, because there won’t be anyone to challenge the order. Executive orders can legally shape policy if the law or Congress has been silent on an issue.

HYCU; If you disagree with one of the executive orders, do not believe the statements from Congresspeople or Senators that there is literally nothing they can do! There is always something that an elected official can do—that’s why the job exists at all. Write and call them and ask them to vocally oppose and take action against whatever you feel is against your right as a voter. If you aren’t sure who your elected officials are, you can search it up here. Just enter your address and it’ll give you a full list of your representatives.

Now, let’s get into the specifics of some of these orders and how they’ll impact you.