President Donald Trump’s senior staff went on a victory lap Thursday, celebrating a barrage of executive actions that have led to roughly 80 lawsuits as the president seeks to reshape the federal government.
“President Trump is on what we call ‘Trump warp speed,’” Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security advisor and longtime political ally, said flanked by press secretary Karoline Leavitt, Stephen Miller and Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council.
“The president has already signed 73 executive orders, that is more than double the number signed by Joe Biden and more than quadruple the number signed by Barack Obama over the same period,” Leavitt said.
The White House is facing legal action against the vast majority of its biggest agenda items. The courts have issued injunctions against Trump’s attempts to eliminate birthright citizenship, freeze federal grants and stop gender-affirming care for teenagers.
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But he’s also fulfilled many of his promises, including dismantling environmental initiatives, cutting funding for foreign aid programs and laying off or pushing out portions of the federal workforce through the Elon Musk-run Department of Government Efficiency.
Conservatives, both on and off the Hill, see Trump’s unprecedented use of executive power as helpful to their broader movement, with Republican leadership saying it wants the actions codified into law.
“The whole will of democracy is imbued into the elected president,” Miller said. “What President Trump is doing is he is removing federal bureaucrats who are defying democracy by failing to implement his lawful orders, which are the will of the whole American people.”
Trump has suggested a future move could be to give some of the funds cut by DOGE directly to taxpayers — something that would require congressional approval. Miller praised DOGE but did not say definitively whether taxpayers would receive funds.
“All is going to be worked on through the reconciliation process with Congress that’s going underway right now,” Miller said. “The way that it works is when you achieve savings, you can either return to taxpayers, you can return it to our debtors or it can be cycled into next year’s budget.”
If Trump does try to push for direct checks, it could set up a rare conflict with congressional Republicans. On Thursday afternoon, Speaker Mike Johnson said that while a stimulus check might benefit Republicans politically, it would go against party principles.
“We need to pay down the credit card,” Johnson said at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
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Samuel Larreal is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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