The Sharpie and Phone Presidency: Executive Power Redux?
Back in 2014, President Obama drew criticism from opponents for his pen-and-phone strategy to pursue his agenda in the face of congressional deadlock. The “pen” part of his strategy signaled a renewed reliance on direct executive actions—like Executive Orders and memoranda—to secure policy outcomes that could not be achieved through legislation by a divided Congress. At the time, opponents of his plan decried the expansion of executive power and erosion of congressional oversight. True to his strategy, President Obama signed 138 Executive Orders and issued 128 memoranda during his second term.
As anyone who has lived inside the Beltway long enough will tell you, there are very few new ideas in D.C. More often it seems that ideas, strategies, and policies tend to simply be recycled over time—good and bad. One such idea, Obama’s pen-and-phone strategy seems to have taken hold in the Trump Administration. Perhaps though, President Trump’s approach should be rebranded as the Sharpie-and-phone strategy.
A regular reader of the Federal Register (yes, we exist!), I started noticing that the number of proposed rules and rules seemed lower than previous years, but the number of Executive Orders and memoranda seemed higher than usual. Below I compare the number certain executive actions taken in the first 180-days of each presidential term since President George W. Bush. I also explore the historical rates at which president’s have issued Executive Orders since President Franklin D. Roosevelt. To be clear, these raw numbers don’t capture the relative impact of any given executive action. For example, a single Executive Order, like President Truman’s order desegregating the military (EO 9981), may have more significant economic, social, or practical impact than any number of EOs combined. But that project is for another day. Even so, an interesting picture emerges that suggests that far from restoring the balance of powers and limiting government, the Trump Administration appears poised to further expand executive power as it pursues its policy objectives.
To date, President Trump has signed 406 Executive Orders at a pace of roughly 0.24 EOs per day in office. This places him in fourth in terms of total EOs issued behind Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt (2023 EOs), Truman (906 EOs), and Eisenhower (484 EOs). He his third in terms of the number of EOs signed per day in office behind Presidents FDR (0.46) and Truman (0.32). This term, President Trump is averaging just under 1 EO per day. President Trump’s tariff actions are a significant driver in his second term, accounting for about 17% of his EOs (you can read more about NCLA’s challenges to those here and here).
By the end of February 2025, President Trump had already surpassed Presidents G.W. Bush’s and Obama’s total number of EOs signed.
Considering just the number of Executive Orders issued in the first 180 days in office—often considered a milestone for setting the tone of the administration—President Trump’s second term in office has been marked by significant use of EOs in that period.[1] President Trump issued more than three times number of Executive Orders in the first 180-days of his second term as President Biden did, who previously held the title for most EOs by 21st century presidents at the 180-day mark.
Of note, some of President Trump’s earliest EOs revoked President Biden’s EOs, which in turn revoked some of Trump’s first-term EOs. For example, EO 14148 (issued by Trump on Jan. 20, 2025) revoked EO 13992 (issued by Biden on Jan. 20, 2021) which revoked a series of six regulatory reform EOs issued during Trump’s first term. Thus, some of the EO volume in Trump’s second term may be attributed to the President putting policies from his first term back in place.
The average number of Executive memoranda is 17 during the first 180 days, with Presidents Biden and G.W. Bush both issuing below average amounts.
What remains to be seen is how many of President Trump’s Executive Orders survive judicial scrutiny, or may be ultimately adopted by Congress through legislation. But for now, it does appear that Executive power (or at least claims on it ) are growing.
[1] For purposes of this post, the number of Executive Orders issued is based on the number of Executive Orders published in the Federal Register as of the 180-day mark. As such, the number of EOs may actually be slightly higher as there is a lag between signing and publishing.
August 14, 2025