Back at the White House, on the evening of his second inauguration, President Trump did something on the first day that his predecessor never bothered to do in four years: He sat and took questions in the Oval Office as reporters peppered him with questions.

It was the newest set piece in the second season of Trump, and in that moment, as the president signed executive order after executive order, an obscure staffer was catapulted to unlikely stardom. Will Scharf, the new White House staff secretary, stood by the president’s side and before the cameras, announcing the actions just before Trump put his black Sharpie to paper.

Asked Trump, “What’s this one?” Replied the staffer handing him paperwork bound in a black portfolio, “Withdrawing from the World Health Organization.” Said the president, “Oh, that’s a big one.” In this way, Scharf served as impromptu master of ceremonies for the first step in the attempted erasure of former President Biden’s legacy.

Trump declared a national emergency, deploying the military to the southern border and designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations. He stripped the security clearances of 51 former intelligence officials who erroneously claimed that the now-infamous Hunter Biden laptop was “Russian disinformation.” He signed an order to cancel federal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion requirements. He ended, by his pen, the so-called electric vehicle mandate, U.S. participation in the Paris Climate Accords, as well as the practice of federal employees teleworking from home.

It was a fast and furious flurry of action. Trump signed nearly 100 executive actions by the end of the day. “And he is just getting started,” the new administration crowed in a press release that highlighted a sampling of his moves. Mick Mulvaney, who served as Trump’s White House chief of staff, said the blizzard of decrees reflected a more confident, aggressive president.

“When you take this, plus the directness, and not backing down, shown by the cabinet nominees during their hearings, you can expect that Trump 2.0 will be a lot more direct and assertive administration this time around,” Mulvaney told RealClearPolitics.

A bold administration invites controversy and fights in the courts. The order ending birthright citizenship, a right heretofore believed to be enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, is the most obvious Trump edict that will be subjected to judicial challenge. There will be others. And the pardon or commutation of prison sentences for more than 1,000 people charged with crimes related to the Jan. 6 riots immediately triggered condemnation from Democrats.

One thing not expected: The starring role of the new staff secretary.

The behind-the-scenes job normally goes unnoticed, even though staff secretaries are referred to by bureaucrats and politicos in the know as “the nerve center of the White House.” Going forward, Scharf, a former federal prosecutor, will serve as a sort of traffic cop determining which staff gets an audience with the president and what issues make it to his desk.

The incoming White House hires were still getting to know their jobs. Some didn’t know the name of the secretary. One baffled staffer drawing a blank quipped that Scharf must be the recipient of a Make-a-Wish Foundation placement. But all agreed Scharf was thrust into a very public role with little notice. “You never know how these things will go down,” explained another White House official shortly after the press corps was dismissed from the Oval Office.

“Want to call it out?” Trump asked Scharf earlier in the day as he began his first tranche of executive actions. The president was seated at a desk placed on stage inside the Capital One Arena for a rally moved indoors due to the polar vortex. “Why don’t you say what I’m signing?” the president suggested, deputizing the secretary into a forward-facing role.

The ensuring moment in history was “surreal,” said syndicated columnist and lawyer, Josh Hammer, who called Scharf one of Trump’s “very best under-the-radar picks.”

Hammer, senior editor at large of Newsweek, and Scharf founded the conservative grassroots organization “Jews Against Soros” two years ago to counter the advocacy of the leftist billionaire. Hammer told RCP that Scharf, a graduate of Harvard Law who later served on the president’s personal legal team, was “transparently brilliant,” praising “his steady hand” on the first day of Trump’s “slew of executive orders.”

A stack of those orders, each bound in black leather portfolios, had grown into a small mountain on the Resolute Desk by the end of the evening, each a step toward achieving what the president promised would be a “golden age of America.”

And in that moment, Scharf was the unexpected emcee. Soon the lawyer will recuse his speaking role and likely recede from public view. His influence within the White House, however, will not.