Harris dodged questions about her Day 1 plans. Here’s how 5 presidents have spent their first days in office.

It was a softball first question: What would Kamala Harris do on her first day as president in the White House?

But in her interview Thursday with CNN’s Dana Bash , the vice president struggled to provide a clear answer.

She talked about supporting and strengthening the middle class through her economic plan and bashed Donald Trump for “dividing our nation.” But those plans — which include bringing down grocery costs, expanding the child tax credit and investing in affordable housing — would likely have to go through Congress, a potentially lengthy process that would almost certainly require Democratic control of both chambers.

Harris didn’t discuss signing executive orders, unilateral decrees the president can hand down to the federal government. In recent administrations, presidents have spent their first days in the Oval Office signing a slew of them — often reversing the policies of their opposite-party predecessors.

That would look different for Harris, who would inherit the White House in which she currently serves as vice president if she wins in November. Still, Harris’ campaign declined to comment on specific day-one executive orders she would issue.

Here’s how the last five presidents have spent their first days in office.

Joe Biden

Biden signed a record 17 executive orders on his first day in the Oval Office, a sweeping move to wipe away several Trump administration actions and implement expansive Covid-19 policies as the pandemic raged. He signed orders to require masks on federal property, froze student debt collection for most federal student loans and extended foreclosure and eviction moratoriums.

Overall, 12 of Biden’s first-day orders nixed Trump-era policies: He re-joined the World Health Organization and Paris climate accords, both of which Trump had pulled out of; halted the travel ban from several majority-Muslim countries and construction of the border wall, and strengthened legal protections for “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children.

The others, such as banning workplace discrimination against LGBT+ employees, set in motion the agenda on which he had campaigned.

Donald Trump

On his first day in the White House , Trump signed just one executive order: instructing federal agencies to slash Obamacare “to the maximum extent permitted by law” until it could be repealed. He also released a memo ordering a freeze on all pending regulation, the first step in a series of moves he would make to dismantle his predecessor’s regulatory agenda.

He went on to sign a dozen other executive orders in his first week, including one that instituted the so-called Muslim ban and set in motion the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Barack Obama

Obama didn’t sign any executive orders the day he was inaugurated. But on Day Two, his first official act was to revoke a Bush-era executive order that limited public access to presidential records — a step toward his major campaign promise of increased transparency .

Obama also signed an order that day that amended the ethics pledge for Ethics Executive Branch personnel to include a lobbying gift ban and revolving door ban on lobbying. Amending those pledges has since become standard practice for new presidents.

George W. Bush

Bush didn’t sign any executive orders in his first week, though he did reinstate the Reagan-era “Mexico City” policy that blocked foreign nongovernmental organizations that perform or promote abortions from receiving federal funds — which has since been blocked by every Democratic president and reinstated by every Republican.

Bush’s first executive order, nine days after he was sworn into office, was to establish an executive department to expand faith-based organizations nationwide.

Bill Clinton

Clinton’s only Day One executive order was an amendment to the executive branch appointees’ ethics pledge. Two days later, he issued memos — which are like executive orders but do not have an established process for how they are issued — to revoke the “Mexico City” policy and a rule that had banned abortion counseling in federally funded clinics across the country. He also reversed research bans on fetal tissue.