The Daily Fuckup

By January 30, 2021, the Biden administration was already moving through an early review of Trump-era policy. That process did not begin on January 30. It was set in motion on January 20, when President Biden signed orders directing agencies to revisit actions tied to climate policy, equity, immigration, the pandemic response, and other areas of federal work.

The first round of actions was concrete. Biden’s order on climate told agencies to review or consider suspending several Trump-era environmental measures, including the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. Another order directed agencies to advance racial equity and look across government for practices that could produce unequal outcomes. A White House fact sheet the same day listed additional agency actions for review, making clear that the new administration expected a broad internal audit of the prior government’s work.

That kind of review is common at the start of a presidency, but the pace mattered. The Biden team was not waiting for a long transition period or a slow policy memo cycle. It was using executive authority on day one to tell agencies what needed a fresh look and, in some cases, what should be unwound immediately. In practical terms, that meant staff lawyers, policy offices, and agency heads had to work through the legal basis for existing orders, guidance, and regulations before deciding what would stay in place.

By the end of the month, the picture was less about one dramatic announcement than about an administration taking inventory of the federal government it had inherited. Some Trump actions were being paused. Others were being replaced. Still others were simply being reviewed for compliance, durability, and alignment with the new president’s agenda. That is a normal part of a transfer of power. In this case, it also marked the beginning of a fast reset across multiple agencies at once.

The result was an early sign of how Biden intended to govern: by reversing some of Trump’s most visible directives quickly, while forcing agencies to justify what remained. The policy fight would continue, but the opening move was already clear by January 30. The new White House had begun treating a large share of the previous administration’s work as provisional, subject to review, and in some cases subject to reversal.