--- title: How Trump 2.0 Is Already Sowing Confusion description: Along with formatting errors and typos, Trump's first executive orders also contain potential errors, sowing confusion over their meaning. canonical: https://time.com/7209247/trump-executive-orders-gender/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-01-22T22:21:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-19T07:49:48.163Z article:section: Politics og:title: How Trump 2.0 Is Already Sowing Confusion og:description: Along with formatting errors and typos, Trump's first executive orders also contain potential errors, sowing confusion over their meaning. og:url: https://time.com/7209247/trump-executive-orders-gender/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt648b3a410b17b0ab/6998b2a807a30d831377ac4b/GettyImages-2194454560.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Inauguration of U.S. President Trump og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Trump 2.0 Is Already Sowing Confusion twitter:description: Along with formatting errors and typos, Trump's first executive orders also contain potential errors, sowing confusion over their meaning. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt648b3a410b17b0ab/6998b2a807a30d831377ac4b/GettyImages-2194454560.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Trump 2.0 Was Pitched as Less Chaotic. The Executive Orders Tell a Different Story > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME D.C. Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition D.C. Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington. D.C. Brief goes beyond the Washington headlines to explain the politics, personalities and power dynamics shaping what happens next. Senior correspondent Philip Elliott brings sharp context to the issues driving the capital, connecting the decisions made in Washington to the institutions, industries and people they affect. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=f5dab14c-c4f9-43cd-97b2-6db7d9209376&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Trump Issues a Series of Presidential Actions on Day 1 [Watch (HLS stream): Trump Issues a Series of Presidential Actions on Day 1](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/GxXJnNk4.m3u8) (3:50)  _Published 2025-01-21. President Trump on Monday issued a barrage of executive orders, kicking off his presidency with a muscular use of power intended to signal a sharp reversal from existing policies on issues including immigration, the environment and diversity initiatives._  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Jan 22, 2025 10:21 PM UTC President Trump on Monday issued a barrage of executive orders, kicking off his presidency with a muscular use of power intended to signal a sharp reversal from existing policies on issues including immigration, the environment and diversity initiatives.  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Jan 22, 2025 10:21 PM UTC _This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox._ The pitch was as plausible as it was persuasive: a second term for Donald Trump would be less erratic, more disciplined, and savvier about the presidential powers he barely understood when he had them the first time. His team would also be better calibrated to keep him coloring in the lines. All of the worst impulses had been excised and fresh energy was his tailwind. Rather than gunning from his gut, Trump had reams of drafted [ideas](https://time.com/6986995/what-is-project-2025/) at the ready thanks to his pals in Washington’s back-hall think tanks and their [Project 2025](https://time.com/7014767/project-2025-imperial-presidency/) agenda. The argument proved to be foolish, as evidenced in the first days’ sloppiness. Despite assurances that the conservative movement’s best minds would have a Day One agenda ready backed up by legal genius’ years of preparation, the first steps proved full of trouble. Seemingly limitless resources at the ready for the incoming team was not enough to avoid myriad typos, internal contradictions, and an inability to pick a format and stick with it. Take the [barrage of executive orders](https://time.com/7208691/trump-day-one-presidential-actions-executive-orders-memorandum-proclamation-explainer/) Trump issued over the first 12 hours. When first published, they were filled with strange formatting errors. Bold here. Bigger there. Passages duplicated. Lists were sometimes ordered with the same numbers used over and over again. (Not everything can be a 1, especially within a political movement that has made participation trophies a subject of ire.) Legal eagles on social media were eager to point out the hiccups in the formatting and more than a few typos that were cleaned-up on the White House’s website before they got pilloried too badly. One laundry list of Interior Department [tweaks](https://bsky.app/profile/mjsdc.bsky.social/post/3lg7wdicpgs27) had six subsections numbered as Part One. Another first-day memo [announcing](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/organization-of-the-national-security-council-and-subcommittees/) the structure of the National Security Council members identified more than one member as number one, and others in the same list with bullet points. Others [noticed](https://x.com/MarkSZaidEsq/status/1881558819609985445) typos that probably don’t change the weight of these actions but still are embarrassing for a new administration that promised to restore greatness to the Oval Office. But then there are the errors that could meaningfully change what some executive orders do. For instance, in an effort to give the culture warriors a win and transgender individuals a loss, Trump ordered that people would be pinned down to use the biological “sex”—and not gender—assigned at the moment of conception. What the order [missed](https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/sarah-mcbride-trump-executive-order-trans-b2683936.html), though, is that all fetuses spend their first six weeks as females, and then some become males. In feeding an anti-trans ideology—one that swayed some voters during his campaign against Kamala Harris, to be sure—he also fed uncertainty in pursuit of imposing pronouns assigned at birth. Another Trump [order](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/realigning-the-united-states-refugee-admissions-program/) sowing confusion is one that suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program as of Jan. 27\. Despite that cut-off still being days away, Trump officials [shut it down](https://apnews.com/article/refugees-flights-trump-immigration-border-resettlement-33ebaa34bc4d0c069a22ee7aa5f8ff6d) almost as soon as he was inaugurated, leaving thousands of refugees who had already been vetted and booked to relocate to the United States stranded around the world, without an understanding if they’ll ever be allowed into the U.S. Trump’s first term was also beset with a whole rash of typos and confusion over language, too. That did not stop him from issuing more than 200 executive orders in those first four years, a tally he seems determined to break given the pace and ambition of his unilateral moves thus far. Beyond what he signs his name to, Trump is also revealing that, once again, the extent to which you should take what he says as what he means is going to be a moving target. On his first night in the Oval Office, with reporters watching and TV cameras rolling, he [appeared](https://www.newsweek.com/trump-mistakes-spain-brics-bloc-country-tariffs-2018394) to remake an informal global alliance of emerging economies. Instead of South Africa as the “S” in the BRICS bloc—Brazil, Russia, India, and China being the others—Trump told reporters with signature bravado that it was actually Spain—and that, as such, the European country could be among those swept up in his most punitive tariffs. "They're a BRICS nation, Spain. Do you know what a BRICS nation is? You'll figure it out,” Trump said in the Oval Office. Zero points for accuracy. All of the points for confidence. And, at this point two full days into this return to the Trump era, that might be the whole point. Americans knew they weren’t electing a details guy to lead the country. They were going with a vibe. And part of that vibe, it seems, is an aggressive indifference to the specifics. After all, Trump has other things to help draw the spotlight—including sensitive trips to tour disaster recovery programs in North Carolina and California where those trying to rebuild could not care less if the President gets there if he arrives on Air Force One or [Air Force Once](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/elected-to-lead-not-to-proofread-typos-spelling-mistakes-are-commonplace-in-trumps-white-house/2018/03/21/092cd086-2d16-11e8-b0b0-f706877db618%5Fstory.html). It’s why his casual care for buttoned-down professionalism may prove maddening for many, but is largely waved off by the folks who signed up for another four years of this style of slapdash government. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite)_._ ## Transcript First, we have a list of pardons and commutations relating to events that occurred on January 6th, 2021. Okay. And how many people have this? I think this order will apply to approximately 1500 people, sir. So this is January 6th, and these are the hostages. Approximately 1500 for a pardon. Full pardon. Full pardon or commutation. Full pardon. We have about six commutations in there where we're doing further research. Okay. Nice to see you again, sir. So this is a big one. Anything you want to explain about this? We hope they get them. We hope they come out tonight, frankly. This is a proclamation guaranteeing the state's protection against invasion based on the current crisis at the southern border. It invokes various executive powers relating to the ongoing invasion at the southern border. Sir, this is an executive order realigning the United States Refugee Admission Program to better align with American principles and American interests. This next executive order. Is about protecting America from foreign terrorists and other national security and public safety threats. Again, crisis at the border. But it goes beyond that. And it implicates other executive powers as well. Yeah. So President Trump, if the cartels are now going to be seen as foreign terror organizations, would you think about ordering U.S. special forces into Mexico to take them out? Could happen. Stranger things have happened. Can we expect Ice raids in major cities? I don't want to say when, but it's going to happen. It has to happen. Or we're not going to have a country left. This is actually an executive order designating the cartels and other organizations to be foreign terrorist organizations. That's a big one. Yes, sir. People have wanted to do this for years. So they are now designated as terrorist organizations. Foreign and. uh, Mexico probably doesn't want that. But we have to do what's right. So we paid $500 million to World Health when I was here, and I terminated it. China with 1.4 billion people. We have 350. We have. Nobody knows what we have because so many people came in illegally. But let's say we have 325. They had 1.4 billion. They were paying 39 million. We were paying 500 million. It seemed a little unfair to me. So that wasn't the reason, but I dropped out. They offered me to come back for 39 million. In theory, it should be less than that. But, you know, uh, and when Biden came back, they came back for 500 million. He knew that you could have come back for 39 million. They wanted us back so badly. So we'll see what happens. Mr. president, pretty sad, though. Think of it. China pays 39 million and we pay 500 million. And China is a bigger country. Don't you see the importance of organization like that to coordinate a global response? 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