The first 100 days of any presidential administration are always closely studied, but the fervor with which the second administration of President Donald Trump has hit the Oval Office means you’re sure to have missed an announcement or two.
Like the news that English is now the language of the land. For the first time in the history of the United States, an official national language was declared by a sweep of Trump’s pen Saturday.
You may have missed that announcement over the weekend — maybe you were celebrating Mardi Gras, maybe you’re taking a break from CNN and social media for mental health reasons. Whatever the case may be, enshrining the English language in a country where nearly 80% of the population already speaks it fluently is what the bigwigs in D.C. are focusing on right now. Never mind the mounting threats to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or the disastrous handling of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s White House visit.
The English language, people: We’ve gotta have it.
No other president has started their administration by signing the number of executive orders Trump has (76 in the last 42 days), and while the declarations have succeeded in jump-starting his agenda, lingering questions about the legitimacy of some of these orders — like his attempt to curtail birthright citizenship despite constitutional precedent — remain.
It is declarations like Trump’s swing at birthright citizenship that have rightfully received the most media attention and scrutiny, but quite a few executive orders have skated by largely ignored. Of those are a few truly stupid executive actions.
We compiled the dumbest executive orders issued by Trump (so far) just so that you don’t have to go looking yourself.
You’re welcome.
The United States’ Birthday Squad
In 2026 the United States will celebrate 250 years as a nation. It’s an impressive milestone when you consider that the foundations of our government were put into place by a group of dudes whose average age was just 42, but pretty insignificant when you realize civilization in China dates back 5,000 years.
Nonetheless, July 4, 2026, is sure to be a star spangled affair thanks to the birthday party planning committee — er, task force — that Trump executive ordered into existence.
Naturally, he will be chairing the party planning committee alongside Vice President JD Vance, and while a number of appointees will be named to the group, a majority of Trump’s cabinet has secured spots as well. The totally true mission of this task force is to “plan, organize, and execute an extraordinary celebration of the 250th Anniversary of American Independence.”
The Office TV show did a great running bit about the cutthroat politics of party planning committees back in the day. We can see it now: Trump will be the committee’s Angela Martin, emphatic in his vision, resistant to feedback and murderous toward anyone who dares challenge him. But in these situations a challenger always emerges — Angela was dethroned by Dunder Mifflin’s Phyllis Vance.
Our bets are on bona fide party boy Pete Hegseth, who will be on the committee as Trump’s secretary of defense, staging a coup to take over the committee’s reigns. Of course, The Office also warned of the treacherous tensions that can boil over in these kinds of party planning situations. If Angela and Phyllis had had access to the type of weaponry that sits at Trump and Hegseth’s fingertips, they surely would have used them.
Forget Congress, these are the meetings we need C-SPAN’s cameras in on. The whole thing is sure to end in fireworks.
In Trump We Trust
We are one nation under Trump, very divisible, with liberty and justice for some.
Despite passing a blanket “Muslim ban,” his words, during his first term, and allying himself with Elon Musk, who may or may not have done a Nazi salute at the official inauguration ceremony less than two months ago, Trump is fighting religious persecution in the United States, so long as you are Christian. The executive order, signed into effect on Feb. 6, creates a task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias in the country whose national motto is “In God We Trust”.
“My Administration will not tolerate anti-Christian weaponization of government or unlawful conduct targeting Christians,” reads the order. “The law protects the freedom of Americans and groups of Americans to practice their faith in peace, and my Administration will enforce the law and protect these freedoms.”
The order cites a specific case from Tennessee, alleging peaceful pro-life protesters were unjustly prosecuted after praying and singing hymns outside of an abortion facility in Tennessee in 2021. In actuality, the protesters formed a blockade in front of the facility, preventing women from receiving preventative care before abortion became almost completely illegal in the state. It was, and still is, a federal crime to block someone from entering a reproductive health clinic, punishable by up to three years in prison. Trump issued a pardon to all of the protesters involved.
The president has linked himself to devout Christian beliefs since his first run for the White House. In 2024, the president started selling “Trump Bibles” as part of his campaign merch. The book, a partnership with patriotic shlock singer Lee Greenwood, pairs lessons from the Bible with pieces of texts from the foundation of the country. For $60 a pop, you can read the Ten Commandments and the first 10 amendments side-by-side.
While Trump protects the largest religious group in the United States, the highest-ranking Catholic, Pope Francis, is firing back at America's second-in-command. Vice President JD Vance has been vocal about his recent Catholic conversion, using his religious identity to appeal to voters. In defending his stringent immigration policy, the VP made broad references to a Catholic concept. The pope, however, ill with pneumonia in both lungs and enduring respiratory failure, personally issued a statement clarifying the Catholic church’s stance on immigration.
You got to admit, it’s almost impressive how Vance converted to Catholicism and just six years later found himself on the shit list of the supreme pontiff.
The Gulf Of Lame Names
The inaugural address is important. It’s the first promise a new president makes to his union. A sneak peek into what the next four years might hold and a beacon of hope for many. In his inaugural address, Trump promised a nation that is “proud, prosperous and free.” He promised actions over words. He promised to balance the scales of justice. Oh, and he also promised to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
On his first day in office, ignoring the gulf’s assigned name at birth, the president signed an executive order calling the large body of water on the south side of the United States, the Gulf of America.
“The area formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico has long been an integral asset to our once burgeoning Nation and has remained an indelible part of America… The Gulf will continue to play a pivotal role in shaping America’s future and the global economy, and in recognition of this flourishing economic resource and its critical importance to our Nation’s economy and its people, I am directing that it officially be renamed the Gulf of America,” reads the order.
The Gulf has had the surname “of Mexico” since the mid-16th century, according to Texas Monthly. But the president and his administration have doubled down on the name change.
“It is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a recent press conference. “It's very important to this administration that we get that right, not just for people here at home, but also for the rest of the world.”
The White House even went so far as to bar AP reporters from entering the Oval Office in retaliation for not adopting the new name in their political coverage. But many organizations have taken the new name in stride. Google Maps, an early adopter of the new name, was forced to turn off the reviews after the Gulf of America was spammed with one-stars.
In the same order, Trump also returned the name of the highest peak on American soil to Mount McKinley. The mountain was named "Denali" in 2015, following years of requests from Alaska's indigenous population for the name to reflect its heritage.
There could be more renaming in the future. Trump has floated around many potential future colonization efforts, including Canada, Greenland and Gaza. Hopefully, the marketing team in charge of naming things gets a little more creative before then.
Goodbye Paper Straws
If you say there isn’t some arbitrary nuisance that you would immediately outlaw if made president you’re lying. You’re a liar. Everyone has one, and Trump’s is evidently paper straws.
Is it dumb for a President to set his sights on eradicating biodegradable straws? Yes. Have we ourselves been thrown into fits of irrational anger on the occasion a $9 latte is ruined by a soggy disintegrating straw? Also yes. Both things can be true.
"These things don't work. I've had them many times, and on occasion they break, they explode," Trump said in a televised news conference while signing the executive order. "If something's hot they don't last very long, like a matter of minutes, sometimes a matter of seconds. It's a ridiculous situation."
It is a ridiculous situation, and while this certainly wasn’t what the founding fathers had in mind when they created the power of the executive branch, we can think of few better uses of an executive order. The declaration calls for federal agencies to stop purchasing paper straws immediately, and for a "National Strategy to End the Use of Paper Straws" to be produced within 45 days.
We are beside ourselves with glee, but we'll stop ourselves there lest PETA stages a protest outside of the Observer’s office over the admission that we don’t give a hoot about the turtles. All we want is that nice, single-use plastic. But we still think an executive order for such a purpose is dumb.
