Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Mike Kelly wants President-elect Donald Trump to begin repealing President Barack Obama’s executive orders the moment he assumes office.
“President-elect Trump has a clear mandate to implement colossal change within the federal government,” Kelly said in a statement.
“I encourage him to begin his administration with a powerful, principled, and productive achievement: on the first day of his presidency, Mr. Trump should use his executive authority to end every harmful and unconstitutional executive order previously carried out by President Obama,” he said.
“By choosing to circumvent the legislative branch with most of his agenda, President Obama built his far-left legacy upon a hollow foundation,” Kelly continued. “Rather than moderate his policies and work with lawmakers in Congress after the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections, the president boasted of his ‘pen and phone’ and declared he would ‘use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions… that move the ball forward.’”
Republicans in Congress will back Trump when he moves to “unsign” Obama’s executive orders—as well as implement his own: “Now, after a historic campaign fueled by a nationwide rejection of President Obama’s failed philosophy and polices, a new president will wield that same pen to move the ball forward in a much more hopeful and prosperous direction for all Americans. The majority of America’s Congress will support Mr. Trump in this endeavor.”
Trump told supporters throughout the primary season and general election he would repeal Obama’s numerous executive orders.
“[T]he first thing I’d do is knock out some of the executive orders signed by our president,” Trump said after winning the Nevada caucus. “Especially the one on the border where people are allowed to come in and just pour into our country like Swiss cheese. I’m going to work out immediately to knock out Obamacare and start taking care of our vets and military.”
“The one good thing about an executive order is that the new president, when he comes in, boom, first day, first hour, first minute, you can rescind them,” Trump said last January.
Obama’s unilateral expansion of background checks for private gun sales, as well as his amnesty for some 1.4 million illegal aliens, are likely to be undone immediately after Trump’s inauguration.