Why not? One thing is the campaign, another one is exercising his power. To quote a famous Argentinian President: "If I said what I would do, they wouldn't have voted for me".
I don't think your "quote" says what you think it says.
A more recent Argentinian president (Mauricio Macri) said a similar thing though: " If I had told them everything I was going to do, they would have voted to lock me up in an asylum" (Tl mine).
Original [2]: "Si les decía todo lo que iba a hacer, votaban por encerrarme en el manicomio"
[1]: https://www.infobae.com/sociedad/2023/11/12/si-decia-lo-que-...
[2] https://www.cronista.com/economia-politica/Macri-Si-les-deci...
Yet, that's what they did. Repeatedly. After he already demonstrated how much worse he would make things.
Oh yeah, he denied that he would execute the planes for how he would make things much, much, MUCH worse, that had been very openly stated by his close associates.
That's enough for it to "make sense" to you, I suppose.
In this case, they're trying to make universities more fair and to reduce government waste in universities by removing DEI programs. There's lots of logic to that.