WASHINGTON – Donald J. Trump took the oath of office as the 47th president of the United States on Monday, vowing to reverse what he described as the nation’s decline and vowing to usher in a fresh “American golden age.”
In the gilded atrium of the Capitol Rotunda, Trump called Monday “liberation day,” laying out a series of immediate policy changes that he said would transform the country.
“Our sovereignty will be regained. Our safety will be restored. The scale of justice will be balanced,” he said.
On a frosty day that moved the swearing-in ceremony indoors for the first time since 1985, Trump stood before VIPs in several coveted seats inside: his family, business executives and members of Congress, including Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) and Dave McCormick (R., Pa.).
Looking on were former presidents and vice presidents, including outgoing President Joe Biden, who just hours earlier had issued a series of pardons intended to protect government officials, members of Congress and his own family from feared politically motivated persecution by his successor.
Thousands of others watched the live feed on screens and in spaces throughout Washington, including the Capitol’s Emancipation Hall and Capital One Arena. Many others whose tickets were canceled due to space constraints hunkered down in hotel bars or chose to stay home.
The moment capped an unprecedented return to power for Trump, a Republican who was impeached twice during his first term and became the first president to begin a non-consecutive second term since Grover Cleveland in 1893. Trump took the oath of office on Monday in the same year the building where a crowd of his supporters gathered, under the influence of false claims that he won the 2020 elections, attacked just four years ago, on January 6, 2021.
During the campaign, Trump was convicted of a crime and survived the July attack in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“Just a few months ago, in a beautiful field in Pennsylvania, an assassin’s bullet pierced my ear,” Trump said during his remarks. “But I felt then, and I believe even more now, that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.”
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Trump won the November election over outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris, winning Pennsylvania and every swing state on a vow to upend a system that many working-class Americans say has left them behind. That message has resonated with Republicans’ enlarged base, which now includes more black, Latino and non-college-educated voters than ever before.
A few hours after taking the oath, Trump signed several executive orders from a desk set up on the Capital One Arena stage. These actions included requiring federal executive branch employees to return to five days of in-person work, rescinding 78 of Biden’s executive actions, imposing a federal hiring freeze on most positions, and withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement. With characteristic Trumpian flair, he threw the Sharpies he used to sign orders into the cheering crowd.
The president was expected to sign as many as 100 agreements from day one in response to his sweeping promises to lower prices, increase energy production and improve border security. These executive orders supposedly would include a nationwide suspension of refugee resettlements, a declaration of a national emergency that would allow him to deploy troops on the southern border, and an attempt to end the constitutionally protected right to citizenship of all people born in the country.
Trump also said he would try to keep social media giant TikTok accessible despite the deadline to ban the Chinese app in the US. He also vowed to end Biden-era efforts to improve diversity in the federal government and protect transgender Americans.
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The administration will also reportedly conduct immigration raids in major cities in its early days to fulfill a campaign promise to deport millions of illegal immigrants. And hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants — including some who planned to travel to Washington for the inauguration — could have received a pardon or commutation for their actions during the Capitol riot.
In the ornate Capitol Rotunda, Trump delivered his 30-minute speech under the neoclassical dome, often called the “physical heart of the Capitol,” and said he was returning to the presidency “confident and bullish.”
Though he promised to be a “peacemaker and a unifier,” Trump spent much of his speech describing a bleak version of the nation, echoing his first inaugural address in 2017 when he said he would end “this American carnage.”
Trump criticized the outgoing Biden administration – saying it “can’t deal with even a plain crisis” – and described the Washington he enters as suffering from a “crisis of confidence” with the American people.
“For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has stripped our people of their power and wealth,” he said, “while the pillars of our society are broken and seemingly in complete ruin.”
He also promised to expand America’s reach literally and figuratively, saying his administration would seek to regain control of the Panama Canal, rename the Gulf of Mexico the “American Gulf” and pursue a new version of “manifest destiny” by planting an American flag plant on Mars.
The president concluded his remarks on a hopeful note that mirrored his campaign, saying that “we stand on the cusp of the four greatest years in American history.”
“With your help, we will restore the American promise and rebuild the nation we love,” Trump said. “We are one people, one family, and one glorious nation under God. So to every parent who dreams of their child and to every child who dreams of their future, I am with you, I will fight for you and I will win for you.”
Trump says: “Jan. 6 hostages” in later speeches
Later that day, the president delivered two speeches whose tone was markedly different from his inaugural address.
Moments after leaving the Rotunda, Trump entered the Capitol’s Liberation Room to deliver unscripted remarks in his trademark casual style and tell the crowd gathered there that he had cut several controversial topics from his earlier speech.
He referred to “Jan. 6 hostages” – falsely claimed that his 2020 loss was the result of a “rigged election.” at one point he suggested he could have won the deep blue California last year. He added another jab at Biden, saying, “I was going to talk about what Joe did today, which was to pardon people who were very, very guilty.”
“I think it’s a better speech than the one I gave on the mountain,” Trump said.
While top campaign donors and billionaire tech CEOs dotted the crowd during his inaugural speech, his second speech of the day featured mayors, spouses of members of Congress and other invited guests including YouTube stars and podcasters.
They also included Trump campaign staffers and volunteers like Greg Sulc, a Washington County commercial inspector.
“People are ready for change, but we’ve been through a lot,” Sulc said. “We have been through a lot of lies and deceit and we deserve better.”
As night fell in Washington on Monday, Trump’s inaugural parade rolled through the Capital One Arena, where about 20,000 supporters gathered throughout the day.
Attendees included Butler first responders who led the indoor parade. Crowds at the arena paid tribute to firefighter Corey Comperatore, who was fatally shot during last year’s attack in the western Pennsylvania city, with a moment of silence.
Before signing the orders at the arena, Trump called the Biden administration the “worst” in history and again criticized the former president for pardons, then teased the Jan. 6 pardons for defendants.
“We’re going to sign pardons for a lot of people,” Trump told the arena audience.
Later that evening, he issued commuted sentences for 14 people convicted of crimes related to the Capitol riot, including Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, and granted “unconditional pardons to all other persons convicted of crimes related to events that occurred in the United States or in near them.” United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,” which Trump told reporters would constitute a pardon for about 1,500 people.
Trump assumes the presidency at a moment when divisions are deep, but the opposition is less vocal than when he took office eight years ago. Republicans have rallied around Trump, and an increasing number of Democrats are adopting a bipartisan tone.
“Donald Trump will take the oath of office today because the status quo is simply not working for most people,” New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim, a Democrat who was sworn in last year, said in a statement. “The mandate for change does not belong to him alone, but to everyone who takes the oath of public service.”
In Philadelphia, protesters staged a rally outside City Hall on Saturday to preemptively condemn Trump’s expected actions on immigration. In Washington, D.C. — which was packed with anti-Trump activists in 2017 — most spectators who made their way to the Capitol in 20-degree heat expressed support.
At 78, Trump is the oldest American president to begin this term – he is several months older than Biden was when he took office in 2021.
Trump, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and a New York developer who became famed for building luxury hotels and casinos, has become a working-class hero and has accelerated a rightward turn in rural areas, the Rust Belt and even some urban areas across the country over the past decade.
Voters, many of whom cited his uncompromising rhetoric, said they wanted change in the face of post-pandemic inflation that has hit grocery bills and housing prices despite degenerating unemployment and large-scale infrastructure programs launched by Biden.
At the launch event at the Newtown Athletic Club in Bucks County, Sarah Lipsius, 64, of Yardley, wore a button that read “Trump chick” on one side of a red vest and a “women for Trump” button on the other. She said there is “hope” now that Trump is president, saying he will secure the border, support Israel and reduce crime.
“Trump represents almost everything I would like to see happen in the future,” Lipsius said, “and we are fortunate that he won, considering all the obstacles he faced.”
Authors Aliya Schneider, Fallon Roth and Rob Tornoe contributed to this article.
