was done as a result that was an executive action that looked meaningful that connected well with president trump s base but ultimately fell flat. reporter: and what about the president s travel ban for which he issued two executive orders? the danger is clear. the law is clear. the need for my executive order is clear. reporter: both travel bans were block by federal judges so in the end neither executive order accomplished anything. also tied up in the court the president s executive action stripping federal funding from sanctuary citizens for refusing to turn overing undocumented immigrants. various cities have filed lawsuits. another that went nowhere, the presidential memorandum trump signed to freeze the hiring of federal workers. sure, that sounded good, but the action was nullified after being blamed for worsening backlogs at veterans hospitals and social security offices. still, optics matter.
obamacare. viewers got the message that donald trump was a man of action. but was it and the other executive actions just a photo op? donald trump assumed he would say do this and it gets done. in government, a president doesn t have that power. reporter: in fact, of the more than 70 executive actions president trump has signed since taking office january 20th, a cnn investigation shows only a handful of them have any teeth. take the affordable care act. the president s executive order in january was aimed at the individual mandate which requires americans to have insurance. but for this year, contracts were signed with insurance companies. while it looks good on paper, the executive order had little impact on the law itself. this was done sloppily. it was done as a result that was a an executive action that looked meaningful that connected well with president trump s base but ultimately fell flat. reporter: what about the president s travel ban for which he issued two execut
organization. jill, you actually attended the speech that carter page gave in moscow last year, the one that drew the attention of the fbi. what sense did you have then of who he was, why people in russia might have been interested in what he had to say? basically, he was there as i would call it an academic researcher. but everybody knew and he was mentioned as an adviser to president trump. the expectation in the hall there were a lot of students. these are graduate students, primarily in economics. they were all very, very interested in hearing about the trump campaign. then lo and behold, right at the beginning, carter page said, i m not going to talk about the campaign. there was a lot of sound of disappointment. then he went on with this lecture about oil and energy in central asia. i have to be honest. i was not impressed. it was very confusing kind of convoluted explanation.
nor has there been any change to regulations on wall street. president trump s executive order regarding that simply directs the treasury secretary to review regulations on the system and report back to the president in about four months. same goes for the order to shake up the executive branch. that, too, will undergo a 180-day review. then a plan will be proposed to eliminate redundant federal agencies. what we have seen with many of his executive actions is not really shock and awe policy making but slow, bureaucratic policy making. reporter: in a move to capitalize on his executive actions to continue building the keystone and dakota pipelines, and another action to buy american, trump recently announced this. i have also directed that new pipelines must be constructed with american steel. reporter: that may not be so easy.
escort. if it gets into u.s. airspace, it becomes more sporty. they may signal them. they may paint them with their radar. to let them know they are on a missile lock. it can get a little bit dangerous at times if they do get closer to u.s. airspace. are the pilots communicating with each other? are the american and canadian and russian pilots? they sometimes do. sometimes the opponent, the person in the other airplane just doesn t answer. they will communicate not only attempt to communicate over a commonly used frequency for international air, but they will also communicate with hand gestures and signals. they can they re close enough to see each other? sure. absolutely. there hasn t been much of a response from the state department or the white house. it s the kind of thing that a civilian you would think donald trump might have tweeted about but as president we have not seen him tweet. would you expect more public reaction? is this the kind of thing that the u.s. normal