Did Trump issue an executive order nullifying Biden's orders and when was it signed?
Executive summary
Donald Trump announced he was “terminating” or “canceling” all executive orders he says were signed by Joe Biden using an autopen — claiming about 92% of Biden’s orders were affected — and posted the declaration on his social platform in late November 2025 (reports date the announcement to Nov. 28–29, 2025) [1] [2]. Multiple outlets recorded Trump’s statement and the White House executive‑order pages show Trump continuing to issue and publish his own orders that week [3] [4].
1. What Trump said and where it appeared — sweeping language, social post, public remarks
News organizations quote Trump saying in social posts and public remarks that “Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the Autopen… is hereby terminated” and that he was canceling all executive orders and “anything else” not personally signed by Biden, asserting roughly 92% of Biden’s orders were autopen‑signed [2] [5] [1]. U.S. coverage (The Guardian, The Hill, Newsweek, Al Jazeera) records the claim and his public posture that such orders are “terminated” or “hereby terminated” [6] [7] [2] [1].
2. Timing and published record — late November 2025, contemporaneous reporting
Mainstream reports place Trump’s announcement on Nov. 28, 2025, with some outlets and aggregations noting related copy or follow‑up into Nov. 29, 2025 [6] [8] [9]. The White House’s own presidential actions page confirms the Trump administration was posting its own executive orders in the same period (examples dated Nov. 24 and Nov. 25, 2025), showing parallel rulemaking activity rather than a single formal “nullification” entry on the Federal Register visible in the provided snippets [3] [4].
3. Did Trump issue an executive order that formally nullified Biden’s orders? — reporting vs. formal record
Reports quote Trump’s social posts and White House statements saying he has “terminated” autopen‑signed Biden orders [2] [5]. However, the available official federal records in the search results — the White House presidential actions pages and the Federal Register EO index — show the Trump administration publishing its own executive orders but do not, in the provided snippets, display a single Federal Register executive order text explicitly titled as a blanket nullification of all autopen‑signed Biden orders [3] [4] [10]. Available sources do not mention the exact Federal Register EO number or full text of a single comprehensive revocation in the documents returned here.
4. Legal and expert reaction — analysts flagged doubts and complexity
Legal commentators told outlets terminating a broad swath of predecessor orders on the ground of autopen use raises immediate legal questions; analysts say autopen usage has precedent and that unilateral, blanket nullifications would prompt litigation and complex separation‑of‑powers and statutory issues [2] [11]. The Guardian and Newsweek cite legal observers questioning how a president could void pardons or entrenched executive actions simply by declaring them void on an autopen theory [6] [2].
5. Political context and messaging — delegitimisation and partisan framing
Coverage frames Trump’s move as part policy, part delegitimisation: he repeatedly accused Biden of lacking control of the office and used the autopen narrative to question the legitimacy of Biden’s actions, while allied groups amplified the claim [11] [1]. Conservative outlets and some lower‑profile pages reported the nullification as factual or celebratory; mainstream outlets presented the claim alongside legal doubts [8] [6] [5].
6. What is clear and what remains uncertain
What is clear: Trump publicly declared he was terminating executive actions he said were autopen‑signed and communicated that across his platform and to reporters in late Nov. 2025; multiple outlets recorded the statement and his claimed 92% statistic [2] [1]. What is uncertain in the provided reporting: whether a single, formally numbered executive order published in the Federal Register explicitly and legally revokes “all” autopen‑signed Biden executive orders — the federal EO listings in the search results show many Trump EOs but the specific revocation EO text/number is not found in these snippets [3] [4] [10]. Available sources do not mention the exact legal mechanism or Federal Register citation for a blanket nullification.
7. Why this matters — policy, precedent, and likely court fights
If carried out via formal executive order or action, undoing broad prior executive measures could reshape policy quickly and invite immediate legal challenges over procedural and constitutional grounds; analysts cited in Newsweek and The Guardian anticipate court battles and complex questions about pardons and final agency actions [2] [6]. That makes the difference between a political declaration and a legally effective, defensible revocation central — and that difference is not fully documented in the search results provided [2] [3].
Bottom line: Trump publicly declared a nullification of Biden executive orders he said were signed by autopen in late November 2025 (reported Nov. 28–29), but the provided sources do not supply the formal Federal Register EO text or number that would definitively show a single, definitive legal nullification [1] [2] [3].