President Donald Trump’s detractors took some solace as he prepared to take office the second time. It’s notoriously tough to budge the federal bureaucracy, and the courts are always there as a backstop.
But nearly a year into Trump’s second term, the administration’s critics have been gobsmacked by how far the administration has gone to fire government workers, reconfigure the executive branch, and raze energy and environmental policies put into place by previous presidents.
“What they did, how fast they did it, the scope and the impact of what they did is simply stunning,” said Don Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. It may even be beyond what the new administration “expected they were going to be able to pull off,” Kettl said.
The administration’s first year in office has in many ways gone beyond what the first Trump team achieved during the first full term when it comes to squeezing the bureaucracy, slashing environmental regulations and weeding out climate programs.
