SAUNDERS: A list of lessons learned, applied in Week 1 by Trump 2.0

WASHINGTON

What did President Donald Trump learn during his four-year hiatus from the White House? For one thing, he seems to have learned how to listen. But also, to judge by the first week of his second term, Trump 2.0 seems more focused, mission-driven and prepared to get things done at warp speed.

Here’s a short list of other lessons learned:

Staff the administration with people who have your back.

All hail Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, a Florida-based political consultant who engineered Trump’s comeback. As they say in Washington, personnel is policy.

Then there are strong veterans from Trump’s first term. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt worked for the White House during the first term and on the Trump 2024 campaign. Former Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought will be in charge of the nation’s books again. Border czar Tom Homan, who worked immigration for the first Trump administration, will be Trump’s wingman on the border, if with a new title.

But also pick mavericks who excel at mixing it up.

In March 2020, when COVID-19 first alarmed America, Stanford medical school epidemiologist Jay Bhattacharya, Trump’s pick to be director of the National Institutes of Health, had the common sense to question whether excessive shutdowns were in the public’s best interest. He also is one of the three authors of the Great Barrington Declaration that advocated “focused protection” for the medically vulnerable, but normal life for others.

San Francisco lawyer Harmeet Dhillon is stalwart champion for conservatives facing roadblocks directed at conservatives only. She does not back down. She’ll be his assistant attorney general for civil rights.

I’ve never been comfortable with Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and his take on vaccines, but I cannot help but smile at the prospect of a HHS secretary who is not burrowed in the health care establishment’s confining pockets.

Make sure the permanent class inside the beltway knows you’re in charge.

Team Trump ended to the COVID-era, work-from-home bonanza that put too much space between beltway staffers and the public they are supposed to serve. Trump told federal workers it’s time to get back to their work stations, which is good news for taxpayers, but also D.C. eateries and retailers.

Put a cork in dinosaur initiatives like affirmative action.

In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson issued Executive Order 11246, which brought America decades of “de facto racial quotas under the euphemism ‘affirmative action,’” Pepperdine University visiting professor Steven Hayward wrote in the New York Post. Just when America thought it would never go away, Hayward noted, Trump revoked it in his first week.

Go after other giants of the establishment.

During a call into the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan asked Trump about the impact on the U.S. economy of his executive orders concerning trade and immigration. Trump used the opportunity to bring up a sensitive conservative grievance: the de-banking of conservative organizations by financial giants.

Bank of America responded on X, “Bank of America serves more than 70 million clients and we welcome conservatives. We would never close accounts for political reasons and don’t have a political litmus test.”

And yet a number of conservative groups have documented the closure of their accounts by big banks.

Don’t abandon the smaller campaign promises you made.

I salute Trump’s new “One Flag Policy” that limits flags furled outside U.S. embassies and outposts to the Stars and Stripes, as the Washington Free Beacon first reported. There is an exception for the Prisoner of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) emblem and Wrongful Detainees Flag, but the policy means you won’t see the Black Lives Matter flags and pride flags that were displayed abroad under President Joe Biden.

Keep it simple.

Finally, again, there are two genders.

Have fun.

Trump proposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. It was a classic Trump troll.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.