President Donald Trump is issuing executive orders at a breakneck pace during his second White House term.
On Monday, June 16, Trump signed his 163rd executive order since taking office in late January, which means he has signed more orders in 147 days than President Joe Biden did during his entire four-year term.
The order that pushed Trump past Biden’s record came with less fanfare than many controversial ones that preceded it, centering around the United States’ trade agreement with the United Kingdom amid the president’s global tariff war.
Including the 220 orders Trump signed during his first term, he has so far issued 383 executive orders as president with more than three years remaining in the White House. That’s significant by modern standards, beating out all of his predecessors since Dwight D. Eisenhower, including Barack Obama (276 total orders), George W. Bush (291), Bill Clinton (364), George H. W. Bush (166), and Ronald Reagan (381).
Trump still has quite a ways to go, however, before he would set the all-time record. Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed 3,725 executive orders over the course of his presidency, though FDR served three full terms and several months of his fourth before term limits were installed by Congress.
Roosevelt was also in a unique position, tasked with getting America back on track following the Great Depression and seeing the country through World War II.
Some of the most consequential orders of Trump’s second term came on his very first day in office. Following the inauguration ceremony, the president sat down in the Oval Office and signed 26 orders, including one whose entire purpose was to rescind 78 of Biden’s orders.
He also signed orders withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords and World Health Organization; terminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government; freezing refugee admissions and applications; and directing the interior secretary to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and Alaska’s Mount Denali as “Mount McKinley.”
Additionally, Trump’s day one executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” declared the existence of just two genders, male and female, and mandated that the federal government only refer to individuals by their sex at birth and not their gender identity.
Changes went into effect immediately, with many transgender people — including Euphoria actress Hunter Schafer — reporting that their gender had been changed on their passports.
Another order that took aim at trans Americans was Jan. 27’s “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” which declared that service members with “gender dysphoria” and those with “shifting pronoun usage or use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex” were unfit to serve in the U.S. military.
Further anti-trans orders threatened funding to medical facilities that provide gender-affirming care and sports organizations that allow trans athletes to compete.
Many of Trump’s orders seem to be aimed at appeasing his MAGA base. Another of the Jan. 20 orders declared an end to birthright citizenship, a March 1 executive order declared English as the national language of the United States, and on March 20, he issued an order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin the process of dismantling the Department of Education to the extent that she could.
On March 28, he issued an order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which directed Vice President J.D. Vance — in his capacity as a member of the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents — to remove “divisive, race-centered ideology” from Smithsonian museums, research centers and the National Zoo.
However, some of Trump’s EOs are simply issued to correct or pause previous orders. For example, after issuing two orders to levy trade tariffs against Mexico and Canada on Feb. 1, he had to issue two more two days later to announce the tariffs had been paused after major pushback.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer.
Trump’s comments to reporters following the signing of his executive orders indicate that he won’t be slowing down anytime soon.
“I think it’s very important to state that incredible things are happening in our country,” he said on Feb. 18. “I think we’ve made more progress in three weeks than they’ve made in four years, especially with respect to the reputation of our country, and people are respecting us again as a country and as a powerful country and maybe a smart country.”
Read the full article here