Forget about waiting for Congress — Donald Trump can eviscerate Obamacare and cripple President Obama’s global warming framework all on his first few days in office by directing policy from the White House and ordering his Justice Department to drop lawsuits that the current administration is pursuing.
Lawyers said getting rid of the government’s mandate that schools allow transgender students to choose their bathrooms could be as simple as retracting an Education Department letter, then letting judges know that is no longer the administration’s position.
Mr. Obama’s 2014 deportation amnesty, which is also the subject of court challenges, could be nixed by revoking the Homeland Security memo that laid out the policy, then telling judges it’s gone. No memo, no case.
It was always the danger lurking in Mr. Obama’s penchant for going it alone and declining to work with Congress — a new president who disagrees with him can quickly reverse many of his big-ticket accomplishments.
“What Obama’s pen and phone giveth, Trump’s Sharpie and Twitter will taketh away,” said Josh Blackman, an associate professor at the South Texas College of Law.
While repealing Obamacare outright would take congressional action, several controversial provisions could quickly be halted. The administration’s ongoing fight with Catholic nuns and other religious charities, demanding that they play a role in opting out of paying for contraceptives, could end.
