Will the next president overturn all the things drumf changed
Executive summary
A returning President Trump is positioned to roll back many Biden-era policies and to reinstate or expand actions from his first term, but he cannot simply "overturn all the things" by fiat; the practical reach of reversals will be shaped by statutory limits, finalized rulemaking, litigation and congressional dynamics [1] [2]. Analysts, trade-law firms and trackers expect a brisk program of executive orders, regulatory rescissions, and discretionary agency shifts—guided in part by Project 2025—but legal and institutional constraints mean some rules will survive or take years to undo [3] [4] [5].
1. How easily can a president erase a predecessor’s actions?
Presidents have powerful tools—executive orders, agency guidance, litigation strategy, moratoria and the Congressional Review Act (CRA)—that allow rapid reversals, and recent history shows this oscillation is routine: Biden rescinded dozens of Trump EOs in his opening weeks and incoming presidents routinely rescind prior EOs [1] [2]. Regulatory rollbacks are more complicated; finalized rules often require a new notice-and-comment process to change and agencies can use withdrawals or suspensions and strategic litigation approaches to blunt a prior administration’s regulations [2] [6].
2. What has already been reversed in practice, and what’s a model for future action?
The Biden administration used executive action and agency discretion to unwind Trump-era immigration policies such as changes to the Migrant Protection Protocols and the Central American Minors program—illustrating how executive directives and programmatic discretion can effect quick policy change without Congress [6]. Conversely, the CRA window and completed rulemakings limit immediate reversals, showing why some changes take months or years and sometimes litigation determines the outcome [2].
3. Where Trump is most likely to focus his rollback effort
Commentators and law-firm briefings identify environmental rules, vehicle-emissions standards, labor and NLRB precedents, immigration controls, and regulatory approaches to airlines and aviation as prime targets—areas where Trump has signaled policy reversal and where Project 2025 lays out sweeping ambitions to roll back Biden’s agenda [5] [7] [3]. Trackers from Brookings and watchdogs are already cataloging rule changes and executive actions across EPA, labor, health and other agencies, underlining that major shifts are both intended and already underway in some sectors [4] [8].
4. Limits and friction points that will prevent wholesale erasure
Not everything can be undone by an executive pen: statutes passed by Congress, binding international agreements, some federal contracts and court-enforced settlements constrain unilateral reversal [2]. Courts are an especially potent brake—legal challenges can keep rules in place or block new rollbacks, and agencies must often justify reversals under administrative law, a process that creates delays and creates vulnerability in litigation [2] [4].
5. Politics, institutions and the wild card of precedent
A second Trump presidency benefits from both political appetite among many Republicans to reverse Biden policies (Pew polling reflects partisan backing for change) and from blueprints like Project 2025 that seek broad institutional realignment, including personnel shifts to entrench policy preferences [9] [3]. At the same time, each successful executive maneuver sets precedents that future presidents—of either party—can exploit, meaning the expansion of executive methods can make reversals more cyclical and durable in practice even as they remain contested in courts and Congress [10].
Bottom line
The next president can and almost certainly will reverse many Trump-era changes and Biden-era actions where statutory gaps, agency discretion, or executive orders permit it—and some reversals are already occurring or planned [5] [7] [4]. However, "all" is infeasible: statutory protections, finalized rulemaking, litigation, international commitments and the messy realities of governance mean a subset of policies will survive, be litigated into oblivion, or take years to dismantle [2] [4]. Where speed matters, executive action and agency discretion will be used extensively; where permanence matters, expect legal fights and incrementalism.