Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump said Wednesday he would undo President Barack Obama's executive orders on his first day in office.
"The good thing about an executive order -- I walk in, sign, I don’t have to go through Congress," Trump said at a large rally in Mesa, Arizona.
“I mean, Obama does it," he added, garnering cheers and applause from the audience.
Conservatives have pilloried the president for signing repeated executive actions on immigration, health care and the environment. They argue the moves have violated the Constitution by usurping the Congress' power to create laws. Most vehemently, Republicans object to Obama's executive actions providing deportation relief to undocumented immigrants. Trump would undo those with an executive order as well.
During the 2012 presidential campaign, GOP nominee Mitt Romney said he, too, would use executive orders, noting he would grant all 50 states Obamacare waivers because "an outright repeal would take time."
Last week, Trump promised to issue an executive order requiring those who kill police officers to get the death penalty -- a legally dubious move. Two days later, at a rally in Aiken, South Carolina, the businessman blasted the president for issuing executive orders and not working with Congress.
"Usually you had to get Congress, you had to talk the senators into it, you had to talk your congressman into it, you had to deal with all the people," he said, according to The Washington Post. "You have your three branches, and you talk to them, and you get something passed -- and there's compromise, and sometimes we don't like to compromise."
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