The Senate voted 56-42 to approve Lee Zeldin as director of the Environmental Protection Agency. Robert F. Kennedy junior’s hearings are under way. Republicans treated Mr Trump’s nominee for health secretary with kid gloves, but Democrats unsurprisingly asked tough questions about his vaccine scepticism and his fondness for conspiracy theories. Mr Kennedy faces another hearing on January 30th. Tulsi Gabbard, Mr Trump’s choice to lead America’s spy agencies, and Kash Patel, whom the president wants to head the FBI, will also have hearings that day.
Mr Trump passed four executive orders on January 29th. Three focused on education: expanding parents’ ability to use federal money for non-state schooling; aiming to end “radical indoctrination” in schools; and combating antisemitism in universities. The fourth approved plans for a celebration of America’s 250th anniversary next year, including the construction of a “National Garden of American Heroes”.
On this page we are tracking ten of the pledges he has repeated most often. Follow the cards below, which we’ll update as Mr Trump makes some, or substantial, progress on each. Watch too how many executive orders he is racking up. And as the confirmation process kicks into high gear, see our who’s who of the Trump cabinet that is taking shape.
Joe Biden signed nine executive orders on his first day (counted as ending at midnight on his inauguration day). Mr Trump was determined to best that—and did so handsomely. With a single executive order, he reversed 67 of his predecessor’s. He signed 25 more of his own. Opponents could find it hard to agree on how to try to derail so many at once. Some of these edicts are almost certain to be challenged in court. But the speed and number of orders signed immediately after his inauguration is a sign of intent: Donald Trump is here to get things done.
Cabinet picks
When Mr Trump began his first term, he was a political neophyte and an outsider in the Republican Party. His cabinet was a hodgepodge of establishment Republicans, business people and generals. Many of their stints were brief—ten of Mr Trump’s cabinet picks left within his first two years in office, several of them after a falling-out. This time his nominees are varied again. They include career politicians, Wall Street titans and news presenters. But they all share one important characteristic: unquestioning loyalty to Mr Trump.