Cocking a snook at the “deep state,” Donald Trump staged a triumphant return to power Monday, four years after he left Washington alone and sulking, unwilling to accept his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
“The golden age of America begins right now,” said Trump vowing to “put America first”, moments after taking the presidential oath at noon in the Capitol Rotunda, wresting back the reins of power from Biden.
“From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. We will be the envy of every nation, and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer,” he said.
Calling January 20, 2025, as “liberation day,” Trump said, “It is my hope that our recent presidential election will be remembered as the greatest and most consequential election in the history of our country.”
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“My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal, and all of these many betrayals that have taken place, and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and, indeed, their freedom. From this moment on, America’s decline is over.”
Trump said he is returning as the 47th president “confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success.”
“A tide of change is sweeping the country,” he said. “Sunlight is pouring over the entire world and America has the chance to seize this opportunity like never before.”
Reiterating his plan to change the name of Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America, Trump highlighted the several actions he will immediately take.
“America will reclaim its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on Earth — inspiring the awe and admiration of the entire world,” he said. “A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.”
Vowing to end the weaponization of the Justice Department, Trump said, “The scales of justice will be rebalanced. The vicious, violent and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and government will end.”
As former President Joe Biden sat steps away, Trump slammed the Biden administration for failing to “manage simple crisis at home.”
“We now have a government that cannot manage a simple crisis at home while at the same time stumble into a continuing catalog of catastrophic events abroad,” he said.
The president also touched on immigration, a major focus of his new administration, saying, the government “fails to protect our magnificent law-abiding citizens but proves sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals.”
“We have a government that has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders but refuses to defend American borders or, more importantly, its own people,” he said.
Country music star Carrie Underwood performed “America the Beautiful” following Trump’s inaugural address.
Moments before Trump, JD Vance was sworn in as vice president by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, surrounded by his family, Indian American wife Usha and children Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel.
Watching Trump’s second inauguration were former Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton with their spouses. Barack Obama walked in alone with Michelle Obama skipping the event.
Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, industrialist Mukesh Ambani with spouse Nita too joined the ceremonies with America’s most influential billionaires, tech titans like Elon Musk and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and celebrities.
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With an icy front moving toward the D.C. region, Trump had ordered the inauguration ceremonies moved inside as was done for Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1985.
Earlier, after a non-partisan service at the St. John’s Episcopal Church in downtown D.C. Donald and Melania Trump headed to the White House for tea with President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden. In keeping with tradition, Biden then escorted the incoming president to the Capitol in the presidential armoured limousine the “Beast.
Trump has already made clear his intention to start his second White House term with “Shock and awe,” through a flurry of executive orders and directives that leave no doubt a major transformation is underway.
Convinced he has an election “mandate” from American voters, Trump is planning to surpass the century mark in executive actions over his first few days of in office after Monday’s swearing in ‒ a moment he’s called a “liberation day for America.”
“There will be over 100 executive actions ‒ commands to the bureaucracies to change their ways,” Stephen Miller, Trump’s incoming deputy chief of staff for policy, told Fox News last week.”
Taking a victory lap on Sunday night, Trump told his supporters at a campaign-style rally that his first day in office will come with a flurry of executive actions to fulfill his 2024 campaign promises.
Trump previewed an aggressive push to implement executive actions on his first day in office, telling the crowd he’d rebuffed advisers who urged him to space out signing them over a period of weeks, rather than immediately after his inauguration.
“Somebody said yesterday, ‘Sir, don’t sign so many (executive actions) in one day; let’s do it over a period of weeks.’ I said, ‘Like hell we’re going to do it over weeks, we’re going to sign them at the beginning,’” Trump said. “We’ll have plenty to sign in the future, don’t worry about it. It’s not going to stop.”
“Every radical and foolish executive order of the Biden administration will be repealed within hours of when I take the oath of office,” Trump told the crowd at Capital One Arena. “You’re going to have a lot of fun watching television tomorrow.”
Trump did not explicitly say what he will do with his supporters who were convicted for their role in the January 6, 2021, attack at the US Capitol. But he implied — as he did many times on the campaign trail — that he will pardon many or most of those rioters. And, as he has in the past, Trump referred to them as “hostages.”
“Tomorrow everybody in this very large arena will be very happy with my decision on the J6 hostages,” Trump said.
On the immigration front, Trump has talked about a series of orders he would issue on “Day 1” to seal the U.S.-Mexico border, where illegal crossings have in recent weeks fallen to record lows.
One of Trump’s signatures campaign promises is to carry out “mass deportations” of immigrants who are in the country unlawfully. To carry out his sweeping plans, Trump has suggested he would expand the authority of immigration agents and use the U.S. military.
Trump has also promised to end birthright citizenship on Day 1 of his presidency ‒ and will do so through executive action “if we can” ‒ likely setting up a constitutional legal fight.
Trump has promised to restart construction of the border fence at the U.S.-Mexico border, an original staple of his first term policy agenda that the Biden administration halted. He has promised major new tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China on his first day in office.
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Trump, who campaigned on a mantra of “drill, baby, drill,” is expected to take multiple executive actions aimed at fulfilling his pro-oil agenda to boost the production of domestic energy, even as it’s already at an all-time high.
Trump has promised to swiftly overturn Biden’s recent action to ban offshore drilling on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. He also wants to reopen drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Trump has signaled he will take action to overturn Biden-era policies aimed at diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, in the federal government.