MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump is headed to the White House in a little more than two months. January 20, 2025, will be Day 1 of a second Trump term. Over the months of campaign speeches, he has made a lot of promises, especially about what he will do on Day 1. So what might it look like? NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben is here to take that. Hi there.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Hey, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Hi. OK, so Day 1 - what's his plan?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, we don't have a specific plan-plan. But like you alluded to there, we do know what he has said will be his priorities based on what he would do on, quote, "Day 1." This is a thing he said a lot in his campaign speeches. On Day 1, I will do X. In fact, here he was this fall at a town hall in Flint, Michigan. You're going to hear Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders here asking Trump a question.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS: Tell us what you will do on day one to...
DONALD TRUMP: OK.
HUCKABEE SANDERS: ...Help protect our country.
TRUMP: So Day 1, we're doing two things - closing the border and drill, baby, drill.
KURTZLEBEN: And this was common for him. Border security and drilling came up over and over for him as Day 1 priorities.
KELLY: Yeah. And as I've listened to him say that over and over, I have wondered what that actually means - the first piece, closing the border. What does that actually look like?
KURTZLEBEN: You know, it's unclear what this means, as with many Trump policies. It's a simple slogan that gets applause, but it has few to no details attached to it. Now, I've asked the campaign what this would look like, but they did not explain in response either. So it could be a few things. There's Title 42, which is the shorthand for the policy by which he and, later, the Biden administration used to stop and deport migrants. But that was a public health measure, and the COVID emergency is over. So it's not clear if or how Trump could use that again.
He might also try to end the Biden policy of allowing people to make appointments for asylum using something called CBP One. Trump has railed against this. But also, it's not clear that's what he means either by, quote, "close the border." So that's something we're still unclear on.
KELLY: He has said over and over and seems to mean that he wants mass deportations.
KURTZLEBEN: Yes.
KELLY: He's made that promise central in his campaign.
KURTZLEBEN: Yes, very central. He has said this is also something he would start immediately, and he has said he would use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to do those deportations of undocumented people. But there could be some really big hurdles to that. One is legal. You will have groups like the ACLU come together to fight deportation, to say, for example, that it's unconstitutional.
And even if Trump did have a legal way to do it, there are also logistical problems. There just aren't enough ICE personnel to deport millions upon millions of people. And even beyond that, you would need some place to hold all of those detainees at some point. There are diplomatic hurdles. You can't just put undocumented people on a plane and send them to Mexico City. You would need to work it out with the Mexican government and say, hey. We are sending X number of people to you.
I could go on. There's economic issues. Even if he did do all of this, the economic fallout could be massive. Now, I say all of that - none of it is to say that deportations won't happen. I'm not saying that at all. This has, as you pointed out, been the central promise of his campaign. Really, what I'm saying here is that those deportations might not be as rapid, as easy or as big as he and his supporters hope. But you can bet he'll do something. This was central for him. It's just unclear what he'll be able to do.
KELLY: Circle back, Danielle, to the other thing we just heard him say he would do on Day 1 - drill, baby, drill.
KURTZLEBEN: Right.
KELLY: What's he going to be able to do there?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, all the time in his stump speech, he said he would, quote, "unleash U.S. energy." But the thing is it's been unleashed. Oil production is at an all-time high in the U.S. Now, the administration can issue more oil and gas permits, but it doesn't have power over private industry. It doesn't have power over global markets. So, yeah, Trump can make it easier to drill. That might bring prices down in the short term, but that doesn't mean anything for what's going to happen in the long term.
KELLY: NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben walking us through a couple of things we might see on Day 1 of a second Trump term. Thank you.
KURTZLEBEN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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