From the Washington Post
12 Trump
promises and how he could fulfill them
Here’s what the president-elect
would have to do to make good on these campaign vows.
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) at the Capitol on Nov. 10. (Zach Gibson/Getty Images)
By Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Darryl Fears November 10 at 7:40 PM
Hillary Clinton
Donald Trump said he would put her in jail, accusing her of
mishandling classified emails as secretary of state.
How would Trump be able to do that? To start, he would have
to appoint his attorney general and then order the attorney general to select a
special prosecutor to look into the matter. The special prosecutor would have
to agree with Trump that Clinton violated federal law pertaining to the
handling of classified information. Even then, Clinton would still be allowed a
trial, at which the prosecutor would have to contend with the fact that the FBI
investigation of Clinton found insufficient evidence to bring a case against
her. FBI Director James B. Comey said in July that “no reasonable prosecutor”
would bring a criminal case against Clinton.
Time frame: Trump
could get the process started as soon as he comes into office if he appoints an
attorney general willing enough to go after Clinton.
Obamacare
Trump has vowed to 'repeal and
replace' Obamacare. Here's why it won't be so easy.
Play Video1:52
Donald Trump has campaigned to repeal and replace the
Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, once he gets into office.
Now that he's won the presidency with a majority Republican House and Senate,
that feat might not prove to be too easy. Wonkblog's Max Ehrenfreund explains.
(Daron Taylor/The Washington Post)
Trump has pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act and
replace it with a set of new health-care programs.
Trump benefits from the fact that House and Senate
Republican leaders share his goal. Congress probably can readily rescind parts
of the ACA that involve federal spending, through a method called budget
reconciliation — a strategy that produced a bill early this year that President
Obama vetoed but Trump would sign. This method requires 50 Senate votes — one
fewer than the GOP majority in the next Senate — and could be used to eliminate
federal subsidies for ACA health plans, the requirement that most Americans
have insurance, and other important elements. Because it would require 60
Senate votes to avoid a filibuster, Trump might have more trouble winning
passage of some of his health-care proposals. They include converting Medicaid
from an entitlement program to state block grants, allowing insurance companies
to sell policies across state lines and letting individuals take tax deductions
for their insurance costs, as businesses already do.
Time frame: Quickly
for portions of the ACA to be abolished through reconciliation — as soon as the
House and Senate scheduled votes. Unclear for the rest.
Waterboarding
Harsh interrogation tactics such as waterboarding, Trump
said, should be used again.
Trump would have to appoint a team of lawyers to come up
with a law that could win court approval. Trump would probably have to restart
the program under a massive amount of public and congressional scrutiny. Former
CIA director Michael Hayden has said repeatedly that the agency would not
waterboard again, saying Trump would need “his own damn bucket.” Waterboarding
had been a key part of the U.S. military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and
Escape program and was used on trainees in controlled environments. In the
early 2000s the CIA hired two clinical psychologists to create an interrogation
program that incorporated aspects of SERE.
Time frame: Unknown.
Trump would need to appoint a CIA director willing to direct his personnel to
waterboard, as well as a defense secretary willing to do the same.
Trump suggests a 'merit system' for
accepting immigrants
Play Video0:47
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump mused about
accepting immigrants to the United States using a "merit system"
during a campaign rally in Pensacola, Fla. (The Washington Post)
The wall
Trump’s earliest campaign promise was perhaps his boldest —
to build a “beautiful” wall along the Mexico border to keep out illegal
immigrants and to force Mexico to pay for it.
To do this, Trump will have to work with two governments —
Mexico’s and his own. His first step would be to persuade Congress to
appropriate the money, which experts say could run into the tens of billions of
dollars with Mexico refusing to pay. Trump has said he would force Mexico to
pay by withholding about $24 billion in remittances to the country from
illegal immigrants. But those are many of the same migrants he’s vowing to
deport, and remittances also come from legal immigrants. To build the
structure, Trump would also have to overcome major obstacles, including environmental
and engineering problems; fights with people who don’t want to give up private
land; and the huge geological challenges of the border.
Time frame:
Trump says he’ll start immediately, but given the myriad obstacles, this could
take forever.
Deportation
In addition to the wall, Trump vowed to deport all illegal
immigrants convicted of crimes, to remove many other undocumented migrants and
to kill executive actions that protect some from deportation.
To do this, Trump has vowed to triple the number of U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, which experts say would
require congressional approval and be very costly. He would also have to
appoint an aggressive secretary for homeland security who would focus on
measures to make it easier for ICE to deport the estimated 820,000 illegal
immigrants who’ve committed crimes. Trump can end Obama’s Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which has given temporary protection from
deportation to hundreds of thousands of people who arrived in the United States
as children.
Time frame:
Targeting and deporting about half of the nation’s estimated 11 million
undocumented immigrants would take years.
Syrian refugees
Trump has promised “an extreme and total ban” on Muslim
refugees entering the United States from Syria. More recently, he changed that
vow, instead calling for an entry exam to determine “if hate is in their
hearts.”
This would be an unprecedented step. The Trump
administration’s first action would be a directive to the Department of
Homeland Security to somehow design a test that certifies whether a refugee or
asylum seeker from a majority-Muslim country is a threat. The agency would have
to identify which citizens from which countries would be subject to such an
exam, and he would have to persuade Congress to go along with it.
Time frame:
This could take two years of drafting, analysis and hearings before final
approval.
Iran nuclear deal
Another Trump pledge has been to renegotiate the deal aimed
at curbing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions by imposing limits on some nuclear
programs in return for lifting sanctions.
To pull it off, he would have to get all the parties that
agreed on the deal, including the U.N. Security Council and Iran, back to the
table to renegotiate some of the key tenets. If Iran deemed that to be a
violation of the agreement, Tehran would be able to walk away from it
altogether. Trump has said in the past that he has issues with some of the
deal’s “sunset” provisions, specifically those that pertain to Iran’s
enrichment of uranium. Under the deal it will be 15 years before Iran is
allowed to make uranium that is weapons grade.
Time frame:
However long it could take to get the U.N. Security Council and Iran, as well
as Germany, back to a place where they would all want to renegotiate a hard-won
deal.
Military
A signature Trump promise is to rebuild the military and
cooperate with Russia in Syria.
To “rebuild” the military, Trump would have to persuadee
congressional Republicans to roll back the defense budget sequester that
affected force size and readiness levels. The sequester went into effect in
2013 but was a part of the Budget Control Act of 2011. According to the
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, this would cost $450 billion
through 2026. Trump would have to find a way to offset these costs and has
proposed cutting the federal workforce to help do so. Trump has also pledged to
cooperate more with Russia in Syria. This effort could be modeled by creating —
much like the U.S. forces have done in Iraq — a joint intelligence cell in a
neighboring country where the two countries could coordinate.
Time frame:
Rebuilding the military could take years. But Trump could direct the Pentagon
to start talking to Russia immediately if generals and intelligence briefings
don’t change his mind.
Federal workforce
Shrinking the size of the federal government through
attrition and a hiring freeze is another Trump vow. Military, public safety and
health employees would be exempt.
This doesn’t require congressional action. Presidents Jimmy
Carter and Ronald Reagan imposed hiring freezes by issuing executive orders.
Reagan issued such an order on his first day in office and made it retroactive
to Election Day. These days, agencies have installed hiring freezes to avoid
layoffs. Unlike in previous calls for a freeze, Trump’s goal isn’t to save
money; it’s to clean up what he calls corruption and special interests in
Washington.
Time frame:
As Carter and Reagan showed, this can start in a snap. Meaningful results,
however, will take years.
Oil and gas
Trump has promised to expand drilling for oil and gas and
lift regulations on companies that dig for coal.
This responsibility would fall to the Interior Department.
Trump’s interior secretary would have to instruct staffers to draft a new
policy on energy excavation on federal land to replace the muscular regulations
that restrict the practice. That would take a year of drafts and public
hearings before approval. It would be complicated by a sour energy market. Even
with regulations, the industry managed to excavate so much of the resources
that they flooded the market. With too much supply, global prices fell, the
industry suffered losses and jobs are still being cut.
How long:
About 150 days, allowing for many court challenges from environmentalists.
Climate change
The Paris climate agreement reached late last year will be
canceled, Trump has said.
Trump doesn’t have to do much to achieve this. He could
simply shrug at the nation’s obligations under the accord. By failing to live
up to the commitments promised by Obama under the agreement, Trump could throw
the process into turmoil. If the United States doesn’t honor its vow to lower
greenhouse-gas emissions, why should China, Brazil or India, which is racing to
supply its vast and growing population with electric energy using coal? Experts
say such a move would leave U.S. international credibility in shreds, but Trump
has called global warming “a hoax” and has given little indication that his
mind has changed.
Time frame:
Ignoring an agreement takes no time at all. It might be a year or two before
the international accord unravels.
Trade deals
Here’s what Trump said in June: “I am going to withdraw the
United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.” He also vowed to
“immediately renegotiate” the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.
Trump can withdraw from the TPP literally by doing nothing.
The agreement doesn’t take effect until it is ratified by all of its 12
signatories, and under federal law, Congress can’t ratify the deal until the
president submits it. Renegotiating NAFTA is more complicated. Trump can
propose changes to his counterparts in Mexico and Canada, but they are under no
obligation to negotiate. Any NAFTA signatory can withdraw with six months’
written notice. But he could make trade a lot harder. Presidents have wide
powers to impose tariffs or other trade restrictions without Congress’s
approval.
Time frame: Immediately.
Leaders in Congress say TPP is dead unless Trump revives it.
Amy Goldstein, Mike DeBonis, Jerry Markon, Lisa Rein and
Eric Yoder contributed to this report.
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