Yeah, that was it. That's what I thought when I heard it–"this is a signal." It was broadly worded, like the executive order, so that the media wouldn't notice it, but the people who needed to receive the signal would receive it.
He authorized the appropriate authorities in government to punish criminals or derelict public employees. I can't remember the wording, but it was in the section on the VA.
Also, I figured the repeated references to MS13 were also put in there to let the DNC or the clowns–or maybe us–know that judgment was at hand for the groups that had been using them to do their assassinations or whatever.