Pick your metaphor: freight train, bulldozer, whirlwind, whatever.
However you picture it, the pattern is clear: President Donald J. Trump has made big, far-reaching moves during his first two-and-a-half weeks in office.
Many are aimed at trimming the large federal agencies that dominate Washington.
Trump has even floated eliminating some of them, like the Department of Education, with a 4,400-person headcount. Meanwhile, the website of foreign aid agency USAID has gone dark; Secretary of State Marco Rubio has assumed an acting administrative role amid talk from Elon Musk that the president intends to close it down.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a time-limited commission in the Executive Office of the President, is a big driver of early Trump administration actions, as well as the inevitable reactions.
DOGE’s access to Treasury Department payments data prompted Democrats to attempt to enter the building and federal employee unions to file a lawsuit. An agreement between the litigation’s parties lets a pair of DOGE-linked employees access that data; they will only be able to read it and unable to alter it.
Throughout the week, protests raged outside USAID and the Department of Labor as well as in cities across the country.
Without majorities in the House and Senate, lawsuits, protests, and procedural hurdles are among the only tools available to Democrats as they try to resist Trump’s agenda.
They also hope for more GOP defectors, like the senators who voted against Pete Hegseth’s nomination for Secretary of Defense.
Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.), who protested outside the Treasury Building, told The Epoch Times he hopes some Republican lawmakers “develop, if not the stiffness of spine, at least the viscosity of spine, to raise their voices.”
Republicans, meanwhile, are working to backstop Trump’s executive action through the Congress—a major theme of Trump’s talks with House leadership and other members on Feb. 6.
Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) and Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) have introduced a new version of the “Dismantle DEI Act,” which aims to lay a legislative foundation for Trump’s executive orders to counter diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
Cloud told The Epoch Times via email that “eliminating the DEI bureaucracy does not mean erasing history—it means rejecting divisive, race-based policies that undermine the principles of fairness and excellence.”
Trump has also fired numerous inspectors general and Justice Department employees involved in investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
Of course, all the shake ups in the administrative state are just part of the Trump whirlwind (or freight train, or bulldozer).
His administration has imposed new tariffs on China, negotiated concessions from Panama, and even renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, to name a few of many examples.
Vice President JD Vance told Breitbart he expects the pace to be sustained.
“I think the pace is going to be the same, it’s just the priorities are going to change,” he said.
—Nathan Worcester
President Donald Trump speaks at the national prayer breakfast at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Feb. 6, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times
TRUMP: ‘LET’S BRING GOD BACK’
The president stood before bipartisan lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Thursday and called for a national return to faith in God.
“Let’s bring religion back. Let’s bring God back into our lives,” Trump said while delivering his first of two National Prayer Breakfast speeches.
Hours later, he took executive action to do just that.
Trump signed an executive order establishing a new Justice Department task force, spearheaded by Attorney General Pam Bondi, to eliminate anti-Christian bias from all federal departments and agencies.
The Task Force to End the War on Christians will include members of Trump’s Cabinet and key federal agencies. The group will also focus on prosecuting violence and vandalism against Christians.
Under the Biden administration, the Justice Department came under fire for prosecuting peaceful pro-life protesters, including some senior citizens, for blocking access to abortion clinics while attacks on churches and pro-life organizations went unresolved.
The FBI also faced backlash over a leaked memo that depicted traditional Catholics as violent extremists and proposed spying on them in their churches. The IRS’s aggressive scrutiny of conservative groups, including Christian organizations, under the Obama administration likewise sparked a scandal.
At his second prayer breakfast of the day, Trump announced the formation of a new White House Faith Office, led by Pastor Paula White, and a Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty.
“If we don’t have religious liberty, then we don’t have a free country, we probably don’t even have a country,” Trump said.
The president’s new resolve to make religion “an important factor” follows his own religious transformation.
As he spoke at the Capitol, he said his faith had grown stronger in the wake of the assassination attempt that almost claimed his life last July. Attributing his survival to divine intervention, he said the incident “changed something” for him.
“I believed in God, but I feel, I feel much more strongly about it,” Trump said.
—Samantha Flom, Emel Akan
BOOKMARKS
Kash Patel’s confirmation as Director of the FBI has been pushed back at least a week by Democrats in the Senate. Although Senate rules allow the one-time procedural delay, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) noted that the GOP had waived that rule 17 times in the past Congress.
Trump has imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) after it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant. A White House fact sheet accused the group of possessing “unaccountable powers that pose a significant threat to United States sovereignty and our constitutional protections.”
Details of a planned raid against members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang were leaked ahead of the operation, border czar Tom Holman said on Feb. 6. Homan said his team had already identified the leaker, and intends to hold them accountable.
Two pro-LGBT advocacy groups have asked a federal court to block an executive order by Trump which banned recipients of federal grants from performing transgender procedures on those under age 19. That order, signed on Jan. 28, said the gender transitioning of youth is “a dangerous trend will be a stain on our nation’s history, and it must end.”
Federal workers pondering a proposed buyout will have a few more days to decide if they want to quit in exchange for eight months of continued pay and benefits. A federal judge has extended the deadline to accept the offer—proposed in an effort to shrink government workforce—from Feb. 7 to Feb. 10.
—Stacy Robinson
