Bernie’s Executive Orders List Shows He Means Business

Presidential decrees are no panacea. But a Bernie Sanders administration could use executive orders to pursue three objectives: changing lives, winning hearts and minds, and stymieing enemies. The good news is, Team Bernie already has a roster in the works.

Democratic Presidential Candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders Campaigns Across Iowa

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during a campaign event at Ingersoll Tap February 2, 2020 in Des Moines, Iowa.Alex Wong / Getty


Last week, news broke that Bernie Sanders’s team has been compiling a long list of executive orders for Sanders to potentially enact if he becomes president. A document reviewed by the Washington Post “shows how the Sanders campaign has already begun extensive planning for how the senator would lead the country in his first days as president if he won the Democratic nomination and defeated Trump in November.”

The list was compiled for Sanders by his campaign manager Faiz Shakir, senior adviser Warren Gunnels, and policy director Josh Orton. “We cannot accept delays from Congress on some of the most pressing issues,” it reads, “especially those like immigration where Trump has governed with racism and for his own corrupt benefit.”

According to Post reporters Jeff Stein and Sean Sullivan, who reviewed the document, it contains dozens of recommendations. They include more than a dozen reversals of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, as well as:

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