By Anijah Franklin
Howard University News Service
President Donald Trump hasn’t deviated from his original message and rhetoric, but this term he was urgent to start implementing his plans.
In 2017, his first year in office, President Trump signed 55 executive orders. On his first day back this time, he signed over 20 executive orders and made executive actions and proclamations.
He also revoked 78 “harmful executive orders and actions” put in place during President Joe Biden’s term.
What’s Different About Trump’s First Week in Office?
Urgency to Implement His Agenda
During his inaugural speech on Jan. 20, the president pulled the U.S. out of the World Health Organization, proposed a constitutional change to revoke birthright citizenship, declared a state of emergency at the Mexico border and delayed the TikTok ban.
His other presidential actions include an anti-inflation ban, an order to federally recognize only male and female as sex, and ending federal DEI and DEIA policies.
The Row of CEOs at His Inauguration
A row of CEOs from the biggest tech and media companies attended the president’s inauguration — Elon Musk (Tesla), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Shou Zi Chew (TikTok), Tim Cook (Apple) and Sundar Pichai (Google).
Critics of Trump and even former President Biden are wary of this potential influence and point to the forming of an oligarchy of the wealthiest.
Or a plutocracy, as Norman Sandridge, Ph.D., a political science professor at Howard University, specified. Sandridge, whose expertise is in ancient leadership and global leadership development, pointed to tycoons in the past.
“These are not railroad tycoons and oil tycoons of a prior generation. These are titans of media and social media,” Sandridge said making a point to the intersection of wealth, media and power.
Media Training
Robert Benedetto, a former White House correspondent for 30 years and a professor of politics and mass communications at American University, said he thinks President Trump has learned to be more measured in his responses.
President Trump visited the Episcopal Church House-Diocese of Washington on Wednesday. The Bishop of Washington, Mariann Budde, asked the president “to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”
Budde was referring to the LGBTQIA+ community following Trump’s male and female order and undocumented immigrants in the U.S. subject to his deportation policies.
“The old Trump would’ve walked out,” Benedetto said. “He just sat there. He had an awful look on his face, but he sat there through the entire thing and then made his comments after he got out of there. So, he’s learned.”
So, What’s the same?
Trump’s Message: Make America Great Again, Golden Age of America
President Trump plans to restore sovereignty, reclaim safety and rebalance the scales of justice in America.
“I felt then and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason,” he said. “I was saved by God to make America great again.”
Karen Maria Alston, a formerly active Republican who became Independent, believes his message is the same, but it’s evolved in how he’s simplified it and specified it — America first, no wars and a stronger economy. He’s also saying that he’s the person who can solve the nation’s global problems.
“Understanding the importance of messaging, President Trump is an incredible expert at understanding the media, how to communicate to different demographics and how to get his message across,” said Alston, founder and president of The Spectrum Circle, which empowers women interested in business and entrepreneurship.
“Similar to an artist who goes on tour, he understood how you connect with people by going around the country in small towns across America and talking to the average person.”
Sandridge, the political science professor at Howard, compared Trump’s promising messaging of restoration and the golden age of America, to that of Emperor Augustus in ancient Rome. Augustus ushered in an empire and simultaneously presented it as a restoration of Rome’s virtues, political integrity, military success and cultural success.
However, Sandridge’s concern with Trump’s actions and what he worries others will emulate is what he called “the erosion of trust in democracy.” The process includes eroding distrust in media, research and being able to listen to others’ views, even if you disagree.
“Those kinds of behaviors point you to oligarchy and monarchy or tyranny because they erode trust in the power of individuals to make a fact-based, informed, compassionate contribution to their own self-governance,” Sandridge said.
He highlighted how Trump’s leadership challenges traditional democratic norms, reshaping how power and policy function.
“It’s not just that [Trump’s] doing things [some] don’t like from a policy standpoint, he’s changing the very ways in which policy gets made, in which policy gets talked about, in which policy is explained to people.”
Bad Press and Distrust in Media
Robert Benedetto thinks Trump’s distrust of the media is justified.
Trump’s re-election could be pivotal to U.S. media, the Pew Research Center said in November. Since his first term, he and his allies have openly opposed the media, threatening to prosecute those they see as enemies and revoke TV broadcast licenses for “fake news.”
“He’s had bad press from the very, very beginning,” Benedetto said. “A part of it is his own doing, but the fact is that he doesn’t get any positive stories, very few, unless you go to maybe one of the conservative news sites or something like that.”
Despite his acknowledgment that most coverage has a negative slant on Trump’s actions, Benedetto emphasized the importance of balanced journalism and criticized the media for their biased coverage and failing to report hard news.
“You’ll probably see more about what the Episcopal minister over at the church across the street from the White House said to the president up at the National Cathedral yesterday,” he said, than about President Trump’s teleconference for the World Economic Forum on Jan. 23.
Benedetto said this imbalance in coverage points to a broader issue in how the media prioritizes certain narratives.
“The media don’t want to report the heavy news, and I know it’s boring, but it’s got to be reported,” he said. “Our job is not to praise politicians or criticize politicians. Our job in the media is to report what they’re doing and put it into context and in a fair way.”
Anijah Franklin covers the White House for HUNewsService.com.