> What problem, other than judicial review, does it solve for the executive branch?

It’s fairly obvious on its face the concern of the EO is not judicial review but about agencies that nominally are past of the branch the President heads determining interpretations of law contrary to what the head of the executive desires.

And, it does genuinely seem weird to have an executive branch where the head of that branch doesn’t actually control things.

The negative reaction is entirely because of the current executive head, but no one would bat an eye if this were Barack Obama reigning in some executive agency interpreting, say, immigration law in opposition to DACA.

> Why is this EO being issued? What problem, other than judicial review, does it solve for the executive branch?

It is saying that for all matters where a law is not explicit and prescriptive, the WH shall provide the interpretation for the agency to follow.

The WH is correct that (aside from judicial review, which is not at issue here) they have final authority over how to implement open-ended laws, and not the agencies that function under the WH.

> Why is this EO being issued?

It explains itself in Section 1; pretty much all the above the fold material is on exactly that topic. Trump & friends are taking the interpretation that the US presidential election is a vote on how the executive government is to be run.

As an extension of that, they're pulling power away from the unelected bureaucracy back towards the office of president - because a vote can't change the direction of the executive if parts of it are on autopilot independently of the president.

> What problem, other than judicial review, does it solve for the executive branch?

It doesn't change anything about judicial review. The thing they're targeting is parts of the executive acting independently of the president; which given the behaviour of the intelligence services is probably targeted at them but might be aimed at any of the bureaucrats.

Whether it is a good idea long term is a complex question though. This looks like an area where the separation of powers gets to murky territory. It is hard to have separation of powers given how much of it has been given to the president over the last century - the small-government strategy was a better approach than what the US has set up here.

>Naive interpretations like this one, of bad faith actions is how we get there.

Instead of just dismissing things out of hand like this, maybe you could provide a "less naive" interpretation? Your statement is not helpful either.