Day I: Trump signs executive order against Obamacare

Within hours of taking the oath, new US President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at "minimising the economic burden" of Obamacare "pending repeal", to make good on one of his most impassioned campaign promises of dismantling his predecessor's healthcare law.

The one-page executive order was Trump's first since becoming the 45th president of the US. The order says "It is the policy of my administration to seek the prompt repeal" of the law.

Moving into the Oval Office soon after his inaugural parade concluded, Trump signed the order on Affordable Care Act directing "the departments and agencies to ease the burden of Obamacare as we transition to repeal and replace," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters here.

The order was titled "Minimising the economic burden of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act pending repeal". The White House did not provide details about which aspects of the law Trump wanted to target through this order.

The order asks federal departments and agencies to take actions consistent with law to minimise the unwarranted economic and regulatory burdens of the Act, and prepare to afford the states more flexibility and control to create a more free and open healthcare market.

Trump's move came a few hours after he drive to the White House from Capitol in a motorcade. With his signature on Day One, Trump has sent a powerful message that his priority would be dismantling the healthcare law that covers some 20 million Americans and was the signature healthcare program of his predecessor Barack Obama.

During his extremely gruelling election campaign, he had promised to take steps on his first day in office to repeal 'Obamacare', as the law is popularly known. The Republican controlled Congress has already take steps to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They last week signed bills to complete the first step to repeal the law.

Republicans view Obamacare as a costly drift toward socialised, European-style medical care. The Trump Administration is in process of its fast replacement.

In less than 12 hours after being inaugurated as the 45th President of the US, Donald Trump, an avid Twitter user, has as many as 14 million followers. In fact, his POTUS account was fast catching up with his personal Twitter handle @RealDonaldTrump where he has 20.9 million followers that he has earned in nearly eight years after he joined the microblogging site in March 2009. At one of the three inaugural balls, Trump asked

permission from his followers and supporters to continue to tweet. And all of them said yes. Trump said this would help him get around the "dishonest media," and this a way to get in touch with his supporters.

"Should I keep the Twitter going or not? I think so," he said. It is "a way of bypassing dishonest media," said the US President. Till early Saturday morning, the official Twitter account of the President of the US was handled by Barack Obama, who passed on the baton to Trump exactly at noon.

All the tweets of Obama in his capacity as the US President has now been archived under a new account @POTUS44. At the time on archiving, Obama's official Twitter account had 13.9 million followers. This is far less than the 80.9 million followers on his personal account. This account is run by Organising for Action staff. Tweets from the President are signed -bo.

By late in the night it jumped to 14.1 million followers. POTUS44 account is now being maintained by National Archives and Records Administration. On his personal account, he follows 42 accounts mostly those of his family members, Trump organisations, a few journalist and Republicans.