What Trump’s executive orders in his first 100 days were actually about

Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office.Getty Images

Though he used to criticize President Barack Obama for overusing his power when he was in office, President Donald Trump issued nearly as many executive orders in his first 100 days as Obama used to average in a year.

Many Trump supporters defend the president’s use of power by saying he was simply getting rid of Obama’s egregious actions.

While nearly all of Trump’s presidential actions have reversed Obama’s policies, very few of them actually canceled orders his predecessor signed.

Of the 13 executive orders or memoranda that Trump signed explicitly rescinding, revoking, or superseding previous presidential orders or memos, three of them he canceled were his own.

The first was writing an order in March to replace his controversial travel ban from January, the second was issuing an order in March to reorganize the order of succession in the Department of Justice after he changed it in February, and the third was penning a memo in April to remove chief strategist Steve Bannon from the National Security Council after public outrage when Trump added him in January.

Though they’re often all mistakenly called “executive orders,” there are technically three types of presidential actions — orders, memoranda, and proclamations. Each has different authority and effects, with executive orders holding the most prestige.

Here’s what the other 90 presidential actions Trump issued in his first 100 days were about: