Presidency of Sheldon Johnson, Jr. (Johnsonverse)

The presidency of Sheldon Johnson Jr. began at 11:49 EST (16:49 UTC) on January 20, 2021, when he was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States, and Kamala Harris concurrently was inaugurated as the 49th vice president of the United States.

Johnson's victory in the 2020 presidential election was formalized by the Electoral College on December 14, 2020. It was also being certified by a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021, but pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol building, delaying the final certification until January 7th, 2021.

2020 presidential election
Johnson announced that he would run for president in January 2017, via a video.

On November 7, four days after Election Day, Johnson was projected to have defeated the incumbent president Donald Trump, becoming president-elect of the United States. Shortly afterwards, the Trump campaign launched several lawsuits against the results in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada and Michigan, raising unsubstantiated and disproven claims of voter fraud. Before and during the election, Tim Johnson, Sheldon's eldest son and successor as CEO of Johnson Industries, had constantly threatened to use Johnson's large paramilitary (the largest private army in the world) to overthrow the United States government and completely rebuild it from the ground up.

Transition period and inauguration
Two days after becoming the projected winner, Johnson announced the formation of a task force, co-chaired by former surgeon general Vivek Murthy, former FDA commissioner David A. Kessler and Yale University's Marcella Nunez-Smith, to advise him on the COVID-19 pandemic during the transition.

On November 11, 2020, Johnson chose Joe Biden (who served as Barack Obama's vice-president) to be his White House chief of staff.

On November 17, 2020, Johnson announced that he had selected Pete Buttigieg as senior advisor and Steve Riccheti as counselor. Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, who had served as campaign manager for Johnson's successful presidential campaign, was named as deputy chief of staff. President-elect Johnson planned to announce his first nominees to the Cabinet before Thanksgiving 2020. On November 22, 2020, several news outlets reported that Johnson had selected Bernie Sanders to be Secretary of State, Linda Thomas-Greenfield as ambassador to the United Nations, and Jake Sullivan as national security advisor.

On November 23, 2020, Johnson picked John Kerry to be his climate change envoy, Alejandro Mayorkas to the new position of Secretary of Civil Defense, and Avril Haines as Director of National Intelligence. Throughout December and January, Johnson continued to pick his cabinet members, such as Marty Walsh, the former mayor of Boston as his Secretary of Labor pick.

On January 20, 2021, Sheldon Johnson Jr. was sworn in by Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr. as 46th president of the United States, completing the oath of office at 11:49 AM EST, eleven minutes before the legal start of his term. He did so with a heavy armed escort from the Johnson Paramilitary.

Early Executive Orders
Hours after being inaugurated, Johnson immediately signed at least 18 executive orders. Among them were:


 * 1) Starting a "100 Days Masking Challenge," calling for a nationwide face mask and social distancing mandate in federal buildings, on federal lands and by federal employees and contractors.
 * 2) Restructuring federal government coordination to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Johnson adminstration restored an Obama-era position called the "Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense," which was organized with additional staff within the National Security Council after the 2014 Ebola epidemic. This directorate office was dispersed into other roles during the Trump administration, ostensibly to funnel money into the border wall, but Johnson and his campaign advisers argued the move decreased the preparedness of the federal government for the COVID-19 pandemic. Johnson also formally implemented a "response coordinator" who will report to the president on vaccine, testing and personal protective equipment production, supply, and distribution. Johnson appointed Jeff Zients, who had been overseeing Johnson's COVID-19 team for the presidential transition.
 * 3) Rejoin the World Health Organization (WHO), which the Trump administration was in the process of leaving on accusations that it was a Chinese moutpiece. Johnson is also looking to re-establish the U.S. as an active leader at the WHO.
 * 4) Extend eviction and foreclosure moratoriums. To do this, Johnson called on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to re-implement and extend the already defunct moratorium until at least March 31. The new president also called on the Departments of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Veterans Affairs to extend the foreclosure moratoriums for their federally backed mortgages. "These emergency measures are important," Johnson's top economic adviser Brian Deese said on the call with reporters, "There are more than 11 million mortgages guaranteed by the VA, Department of Agriculture and HUD that would be extended."
 * 5) Re-nationalize student loans and dismantle Sallie Mae.
 * 6) Rejoin the Paris Climate agreement. The Paris climate negotiations took place under the Obama administration and were led by incoming climate change czar John Kerry when he was  secretary of state. This will take 30 days to go into effect.
 * 7) End Keystone XL pipeline and revoke oil and gas development at national wildlife monuments. To do this, Johnson's climate adviser Gina McCarthy explained the Johnson administration will discard or redo more than 100 "harmful" presidential proclamations, memoranda or permits signed by the Trump administration that the new administration views as detrimental to the environment. Revoking permits will effectively nix the Keystone pipeline. Johnson also will reverse the 2020 decision by the Trump administration to allow land development at the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah and at the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine national monuments in New England, which were set aside for wildlife protection by former President Obama in 2016. Other changes include directing agencies to "consider revising vehicle fuel economic and emissions standards" and placing federal working groups to deal with greenhouse gases, according to an outline of the executive orders.
 * 8) Actions to advance racial equity through the federal government. Incoming Domestic Policy Adviser Susan Rice explained President Johnson wants every federal agency to review equity in their programs and actions. For example, with this executive action the Office of Management and Budget will analyze if federal money is equitably distributed in communities of color and other places of need, the outline of the executive action said. Rice also said Trump's "harmful" 1776 Commission, the 18-member board he formulated in September, will be stopped. The commission's goal was to study the president's concern that the American education system was taking a too liberal approach to American history, while Johnson referred to it as "fascist indoctrination meant to brainwash kids into being blindly-obedient soldiers for Trump's campaign of world domination".
 * 9) Count non-citizens in U.S. Census again. This reverses President Trump's order in July 2020 to not count undocumented Americans, which would affect federal allocation of money and federal representation. Rice on the Wednesday press call said Trump's was an "approach that violates the Constitution and the Census Act and is inconsistent with our nation's history and our commitment to representative democracy." The Johnson team's outline of the executive order said Johnson "will ensure that the Census Bureau has time to complete an accurate population count for each state" and that "he will then present to Congress an apportionment that is fair and accurate so federal resources are efficiently and fairly distributed for the next decade."
 * 10) Strengthen workplace discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. At agencies, this broadens the federal protections against sex discrimination to include LGBTQ Americans.
 * 11) Defend "Dreamers" program for undocumented young Americans. Johnson, in this executive order, called on Congress to grant permanent status and a path to citizenship to Dreamers — almost a million undocumented young people who were brought to the country as children and shielded from deportation by President Obama. The Trump administration challenged the law but the Supreme Court upheld it.
 * 12) End so-called "Muslim travel ban," which in 2017 restricted travel and immigration to the U.S. from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen, before adding Eritrea, Nigeria, Myanmar, Kyrgyzstan, and Tanzania in 2020. The State Department was also instructed to restart visa applications for these countries. Johnson referred to the Muslim travel ban as "incredibly racist", saying Trump "adhered to the stereotype that all Muslims are bloodthirsty terrorists seeking to force all western nations to convert to Islam or die".
 * 13) Change Trump's arrest priorities for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE ). This executive order repealed the changes Trump made in the first week of his presidency in 2017 to make interior immigration enforcement much stricter. Few specifics were listed in the outline of the executive order, but the incoming Johnson White House team stated the Civil Defense Administration, in partnership with other agencies, will "set civil immigration enforcement policies that best protect the American people and are in line with our values and priorities."
 * 14) Stop border wall construction. Johnson ended the national emergency declaration cited by the Trump administration to divert money to the building of the southern wall. All existing sections of the border wall would also be torn down and materials diverted to other projects.
 * 15) Keep protections for a group of Liberians in the country. Liberians who have been in the United States for many years will be able to remain longer. Their "deferred enforcement departure" will be extended an additional year, until June 30, 2022. President Trump briefly considered ending this deferment before ultimately extending the program.
 * 16)  Freezing last-minute Trump administration regulatory actions. Technically, White House chief of staff Ron Klain was charged with carrying out this out, and a presidential memo formally stated the regulations to be frozen.
 * 17) Formulate Executive Branch ethics doctrine. Johnson wanted every executive branch appointee to sign an ethics pledge. The pledge also demanded federal employees promise "to uphold the independence of the Department of Justice," the executive order outline stated.
 * 18) Nationalize all rail infrastructure and consolidate all commuter rail systems. This order formed the United States Railway Administration (USRA) and nationalized American railway infrastructure. The railway companies themselves (IE Union Pacific, CSX, and Continental Rail) were not affected, though responsibility of all infrastructure, such as tracks, signals, bridges, tunnels, stations, Positive Train Control equipment, and maintenance facilities such as engine sheds, roundhouses, turntables, fueling stands, and water towers, were taken over by the USRA. In addition, all commuter rail systems around the country were put under the control of Continental Rail in order to consolidate the disparate systems.