WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump declared Monday that the “golden age of America begins right now” and vowed that the nation’s challenges would be “annihilated” by his MAGA movement in a bare-knuckled inaugural address that echoed the themes and grievances of his trademark rally speeches.
Trump, in a relatively sedate and focused style, spoke for nearly 40 minutes in the Capitol Rotunda after being sworn in as America’s 47th president. In a second set of free-style remarks in the Capitol’s Emancipation Hall, Trump attacked political adversaries, called the 2020 election “totally rigged,” and blamed former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for his supporters attacking the building on Jan. 6, 2021, in a futile effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump joined Grover Cleveland as the only men to lose the presidency and then reclaim it. He took the oath of office and delivered his inaugural address indoors because of sub-freezing temperatures in Washington.
Trump spoke from the perspective of a man on a mission of destiny after surviving a would-be assassin’s bullet this summer at a Pennsylvania rally.
“I was saved by God to make America great again,” Trump said, adding that he wants to be a “peacemaker and unifier.”
But he also spoke, in that second speech, from the perspective of a man still hung up on past grievances, from his election loss to the investigations into the Jan. 6 riot.
After four years in office, and four years seeking a comeback, his aides say Trump has a much better feel for the levers of power than he did when he was first inaugurated in 2017.
Paired with a sweeping set of executive orders he planned to issue Monday, the first remarks of Trump’s second presidency signaled that he intends to test the limits of presidential power in aggressively pursuing his agenda. But Trump also set a high bar in piling up promises that may be hard to fulfill.
“I will declare a national emergency at our southern border,” Trump said. “All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”
Trump used such emergency authority in his first term to try to use military funds to build a border wall — a move that was frozen by the federal courts.
Trump also said that he would declare Mexican drug cartels foreign terrorist organizations and rename the Gulf of Mexico.
He promised to temper inflation in part by declaring a national energy emergency, promoting drilling for fossil fuels and reversing Biden-era policies aimed at reducing climate change.
The small crowd inside the Rotunda, numbering about 500 people, included corporate leaders such as Elon Musk, the SpaceX founder who poured millions of dollars into helping elect Trump and who has become a key adviser to the president. And Trump nodded to his new counselor.
“We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars by launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars,” Trump said. Beaming and holding up two thumbs, Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, shouted, “Yeah!”
He also pledged to undertake territorial expansion closer to home, casting his eyes toward the Panama Canal.
“We didn’t give it to China,” he said. “We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”
Trump also spoke in front of the other four former living presidents — Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton — as well as all nine Supreme Court justices, members of his family and lawmakers.
Biden’s presence reinstated the tradition of the departing president attending his successor’s inauguration, after Trump skipped Biden’s swearing-in four years ago. Earlier in the day, Biden and outgoing first lady Jill Biden welcomed Trump and first lady Melania Trump to the White House for tea, reviving another ritual that was ignored four years ago. And in a sign of two-way comity, Trump family members applauded Biden and outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris when they entered the Rotunda Monday.
But the past presidents seldom applauded as Trump portrayed himself as the savior of a country in decline.
“In the United States of America, as we gather today, our government confronts a crisis of trust,” he said. “For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens, while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair.”
On the same day Biden issued pardons to several of his own family members, politicians and former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci, Trump reiterated his view that his four criminal indictments — and convictions on one set of the charges — resulted from persecution by the departing president rather than his own actions.
“The scales of justice will be rebalanced,” Trump said. “The vicious, violent and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end.”
In his second speech, Trump said that he would tackle topics that weren’t suited for an inaugural address. Departing sharply from the theme of “unity” articulated in the official address, he ripped into Pelosi, Biden, and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who served on the House Jan. 6 committee.
“I was going to talk about the J6 hostages,” Trump said, referring to people convicted of crimes related to the riot at the Capitol. “And I was going to talk about the things that Joe did today with the pardons of people that were very, very guilty of very bad crimes, like the unselect committee of political thugs.”
Trump reiterated his unsubstantiated claim that the 2020 election — which he lost — was “rigged.”
Monday’s official program ran a little late, and former Ohio Sen. JD Vance was sworn in as vice president by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at noon, the time appointed for the president to take the oath. Vance raised his right hand with his wife, Usha Vance, standing by his side and holding their young daughter — until the little girl decided it was time to return to the ground. One of their sons held the Bible on which Vance placed his left hand.
Chief Justice John Roberts then administered the oath to Trump, who was surrounded by his wife and children. When it was done, Trump smiled broadly, pointed at Roberts and promptly shook hands with Biden.
Before a luncheon in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall, Trump began his work, signing a handful of proclamations and political appointments.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
