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On Friday, Donald Trump proclaimed that he was invalidating most of Joe Biden’s executive actions – a move that would have sweeping consequences. Entire laws would be invalidated, judges who had been appointed and confirmed would be forced to vacate their benches, pardons would be revoked, and national treaties might be declared null and void. 

“Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the Autopen, which was approximately 92% of them, is hereby terminated, and of no further force or effect,” Trump stated in a Truth Social post.

“I am hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally.” 

We would be remiss not to point out that social media posts carry no legal weight, which means that, unless the president puts this in writing with his signature, it is worth as much as a hand-drawn $579 bill.

Now, if a sane president had made such an announcement, it would have been a seismic news event. However, since everybody knows that Trump is not sane, nobody was even talking about this anymore on Saturday.

This highlights a real conundrum for lawmakers and journalists alike.

It is so easy to dismiss much of what Trump says or does as the actions of a raving lunatic. However, the problem is that this particular lunatic wields the vast authority of an American president and has proven this year that he is willing to push his powers to the borders of the Constitution and way beyond. 

As a result, there is no telling how this is going to play out. 

In an effort to increase the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court, he could claim that the appointment of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is invalid and direct US marshals to prevent her from entering her offices.

Or, in order to rewrite the history of January 6, he could indict and arrest the members and staffers who worked on the congressional committee that investigated the insurrection and whom Biden had preemptively pardoned on his last day in office because he knew that they would likely be targets of his vindictive successor.

All of that is completely bonkers. But with Trump controlling the executive, the GOP-led Congress having abdicated its oversight role, and the Supreme Court siding with the president even if that means ignoring the Constitution and precedent, who knows what is going to happen?

That means that many of Trump’s ramblings and rants cannot be ignored. Some, of course, can. 

For example, in his Truth Social missive making this announcement, the president claimed that he would bring up Biden “on charges of perjury,” which makes no sense because his predecessor never testified under oath about any of this (and also enjoys sweeping immunity thanks to a Supreme Court ruling originally meant to protect Trump from criminal prosecutions). 

Here is another real-life example of something Trump wrote in a social medial post on Saturday that has to be taken seriously: 

To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY.

Of course, Trump has no authority to close the airspace of another country. However, with the US having amassed significant forces in the region, airlines would be foolish not to operate under the assumption that the US president might attack the regime of Nicolás Maduro.

And getting it wrong could have life-or-death consequences. 

Unfortunately, with Trump’s approval ratings slipping and the president seemingly becoming more unhinged and drunk on power by the day, it seems likely that world leaders, elected officials in the US, business executives, journalists, and regular Americans will have to increasingly figure out whether they have to take the things he says seriously or can dismiss them as lunacy.