In a forced-indoor ceremony in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda today, Donald Trump was sworn in as America’s 47th president. Two long speeches later, the transition of power was complete and Trump and team were already making some big changes. Here’s what happened as it happened along with commentary and analysis from the entire Intelligencer team.
The Associated Press reports:
Trump has issued pardons for people charged with participating in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Trump said he was pardoning about 1,500 defendants and issuing six commutations. The pardons fulfill Trump’s promise to release supporters who tried to help him overturn his election defeat four years ago. “These are the hostages,” he said while signing the paperwork in the Oval Office.
The commutations include insurrection leader and Proud Boys organizer Joseph Biggs, who was serving a 17-year sentence after being convicted of seditious conspiracy.
Melania stood by holding not one but a stack of two Bibles for him, but Trump kept his left hand at his side. And as the New York Times points out, it’s a tradition he followed in 2017, but it’s not a requirement.
According to Politico:
Musk, the tech tycoon and Donald Trump confidant, made it known that he wanted Ramaswamy out of DOGE in recent days, according to three people familiar with Musk’s preferences who, like others for this article, were granted anonymity to discuss them. An ill-received holiday rant on X by Ramaswamy about H-1B visas apparently hastened his demise. …
In late December, Ramaswamy criticized American culture, saying that tech companies hire foreign workers in part because of a mindset in the country that has “venerated mediocrity over excellence.”
One of the things he attacked was the 90’s TV show Saved the Bell, which he equated to laziness-celebrating cultural poison.
In his third speech of the day, Trump played the hits from the campaign trail in typical rambling fashion. He railed against wind turbines, knocked Biden for pardoning several of his family members and once again promised to help the January 6 Capitol rioters, calling them “hostages” while standing in front of the family members of the hostages taken by Hamas. Trump also complained about the number of investigations against him, comparing his plight to infamous gangster Al Capone.
At the beginning of his post-inaugural speech at the Capitol One Arena, the president wanted to share the glory before getting into the executive order signing and denigrating of the Democratic party. He thanked his daughter-in-law, referring to her as “Lara Trump, the wife of Eric.” He thanked Howard Lutnick, the incoming Commerce secretary he said would “bring in” more money “that any country could ever think of.” He also thanked his youngest son Barron Trump for tipping Trump to the male-centric podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience which he cited as key to his performance among young voters. “I have a very tall son named Barron,” Trump said. The crowd ate it up:
Not a huge surprise, based on how the embattled nominee’s confirmation hearing went:
The news follows reports that he and Musk didn’t see eye to eye and were not getting along. Per the Associated Press:
Vivek Ramaswamy is no longer part of the commission that President Donald Trump championed, officials confirmed hours after the Republican took office Monday, and that leaves billionaire Elon Musk to run the cost-cutting operation alone. …
“Vivek Ramaswamy played a critical role in helping us create DOGE,” Anna Kelly, a spokesperson for the commission, said in a statement. “He intends to run for elected office soon, which requires him to remain outside of DOGE, based on the structure that we announced today. We thank him immensely for his contributions over the last 2 months and expect him to play a vital role in making America great again.”
DOGE is also already facing at least three lawsuits, filed today, regarding the quasi-agency’s compliance with federal laws.
John Fetterman has increasingly played a trollish role within the Democratic Party while making outreach toward Republicans figures. He seemed to achieve both these feats at the inauguration, perhaps accidentally, when he posed with the Capitol rioter who posed with Nancy Pelosi’s lectern:
There may never be a better visual representation of how Trump views executive orders:
Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, a New Jersey man who was sentenced to 48 months in prison for breaching the U.S. Capitol on January 6, claimed on social media that he was invited to attend Trump’s inauguration.
“Happy to say there was less Antifa this Inauguration than the one in 2017,” he wrote, sharing a photo of a purported invitation. Hale-Cusanelli, whom prosecutors alleged is a Nazi sympathizer, had already been hosted at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey since being released from prison in 2023.
As expected:
Kash Patel, Trump’s controversial nominee for FBI director, came out to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” before giving a speech on how his story embodies the American dream.
Patel said that his parents, who emigrated from India, waited “in line” before coming to the U.S., adding, “I’m standing here because of the American dream. I am not standing here because the color of my skin.”
During brief but off-the-wall remarks at the Capitol One arena where Trump himself will soo appear, Elon Musk offered an enthusiastic gesture that was reminiscent of a fascist salute:
And he’s trying to protect all future president-elects from the indignity of official mourning traditions:
His second inaugural speech seems even longer than his first one. And he once again falsely claimed that he won the 2020 election, just moments after speaking in the rotunda that was stormed and ransacked by his own political followers on January 6, 2021. “That election was totally rigged, but that’s okay. It was a rigged election,” he said.
During his impromptu Emancipation Hall remarks, Trump also returned to an old standard of his campaign speeches, suggesting that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi was to blame for the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. He claims that he offered military assistance, but that Pelosi ultimately rebuffed him.
“J6 wouldn’t have been J6. There would be no J6,” he said. “Maybe she wanted that to happen. But she’s guilty as hell.”
While Trump stayed largely on message during his prepared inaugural remarks, the newly sworn-in president sounded more like his free-wheeling self during some off-the-cuff comments to the crowd in Emancipation Hall. Trump’s comments were typically all over the place, promising action on the January 6 defendants and commenting on the amount of blood there was when House Majority Leader Steve Scalise was wounded in a mass shooting. (“You talk about getting shot,” he quipped.)
Trump also offered his first comments on Biden’s preemptive pardons for members of the January 6 committee and retired General Mark Milley. “Why are we trying to help a guy like Milley? Why are we helping Liz Cheney? Liz Cheney is a disaster. She’s a crying lunatic,” he said.
Trump is leaning heavily into executive orders for his second administration, and particularly right at the start. As he mentioned in his inaugural speech, many of these order will be symbolic gestures meant as red meat for the MAGA crowd — re-naming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America,” renaming Mt. Denali in Alaska as Mt. McKinley, and other reclamations of that nature.
Other orders could have more significant policy impact, such as an executive order to delay the federal ban on TikTok. In total, he plans to issue more than 200 on day one and has invited his supporters to watch him do it at the Capitol One Arena, where it looks like his team has set up a desk onstage so Trump’s singing spree can become a public spectacle:
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders reports:
President Donald Trump is preparing to issue a sweeping series of pardons for defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, including commuting the prison sentences of hundreds of his supporters who have been convicted of violent attacks against law enforcement, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
The planned commutations for those who attacked police goes well beyond what many of his allies anticipated he would be prepared to extend to the Jan. 6 defendants — and paves the way for potentially hundreds of supporters, some sentenced to years behind bars for vicious assaults on police — to be released in the coming days.
During his inaugural address, Trump announced his intentions to change the official name of Denali, the Alaskan mountain, back to Mt. McKinley after its 2015 change. However, both of Alaska’s Republican senators have already pushed back on Trump’s plans, preferring the mountain’s traditional name used by the region’s local Indigenous people for centuries.
“There is only one name worthy of North America’s tallest mountain: Denali — the Great One,” Senator Lisa Murkowski wrote on social media.
Now that it’s in the books, we can view the 47th president’s Inaugural Address as a characteristic Trump speech, albeit without the rambling improvisation of the “weave.” He began the speech with an array of graceless insults aimed at his immediate predecessors, accusing them of “betraying” the country and viciously persecuting him. He continued with an array of over-the-top boasts asserting his own greatness — a greatness God Almighty stretched out his hand to protect — and the unique accomplishments he would effortlessly achieve. And over and over and over Trump threatened anyone who would stand in his way. That most definitely included Panama, which he bluntly threatened with a war to reclaim the Canal freely given up by America in a treaty signed nearly a half-century ago.
Above all, the Inaugural Address lost whatever rhetorical lift it was designed to provide very quickly, thanks to Trump’s languid delivery; his undignified pledges to “drill baby drill;” and his detailed programmatic descriptions of the executive orders he intends to sign this week. It was in many respects a cleaned-up, teleprompted, and abbreviated version of one of his rally speeches. It remains to be seen if he can break free of the campaign trail when he’s firmly back in the White House.
The weather ended up creating quite a scene this afternoon: with most of the VIPs crammed together much closer inside the Capitol than they usually are outdoors, it was possible throughout Trump’s speech to see a huge range of reactions from a truly eclectic group. At times the wide camera angle caught Barack Obama, Miriam Adelson, FIFA chief Gianni Infantino, Argentine president Javier Milei, Barron Trump, and multiple tech titans all looking on at the same time, some of them clearly calculating how to react. Throughout, Kamala Harris barely changed her serious expression, but by the end of Trump’s speech Joe Biden looked on in something like disbelief. Bill and Hillary Clinton, at times, looked like they were laughing.
Not a “Gulf of America” fan, it seems:
Knowing Trump’s affection for long speeches, listeners may be wondering if his Second Inaugural Address could be a record-setter. But there’s not much chance of that: William Henry Harrison spoke for two hours in 1841 (and soon died!). Unless Trump goes into The Weave at the end, he probably won’t exceed Harrison’s in length.
Just a moment after Trump said his proudest legacy would be as a peacemaker who avoided unnecessary war, Trump bluntly pledged to “take back” the Panama Canal, an aspiration no president since Jimmy Carter has even considered, and one inconceivable without military aggression.
We don’t need a body language expert to read the series of mixed emotions on now-former President Biden’s face as he listens to his successor’s speech. CNN notes that Biden visibly laughed when Trump promised to sign executive orders that would restore common sense. At the same time, the outgoing president also appeared upset at various points, as reported by Punchbowl News.
Typically inaugural addresses, including to some extent Trump’s in 2017, are lofty, hitting big broad themes. Trump’s speech has frequently and increasingly descended into particulars and inappropriate language, beginning with his boast about carrying “all seven swing states;” continuing with his promise to “drill baby drill,” and then outlining his planned executive orders in some detail. This is beginning to feel more like a State of the Union Address than an Inaugural Address.
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but President Donald Trump has a new name for it: “Liberation Day.” Trump wasn’t proposing that the government formally rename the holiday, but it’s certainly a choice for Trump, an open bigot, to speak of liberation during his inaugural speech today. He went on to announce a number of executive orders which are targeted at immigrants — and which would make America a whiter and more fearful place, a goal entirely at odds with King’s life and work.
Trump cited recent natural disasters like Hurricane Helene’s destruction in North Carolina and the Los Angeles fires as examples of Democratic failures in leadership. In Los Angeles, he noted that many of the most powerful and most wealthy people in the country. “They don’t have a home anymore, that’s interesting,” he said.
While Biden attended Trump’s inauguration as an ode to the peaceful transfer of power, that didn’t stop Trump from taking several passing shots at his administration. “We now have a government that cannot manage a single crisis at home,” Trump said. “All of this will change starting today, and it will change very quickly.”
Trump said in passing that he had been tested more than any president in U.S. history. More than George Washington? More than Abraham Lincoln? Trump’s self-regard know no end, as was indicated by his blunt assertion that God saved him from assassination to fulfill his political agenda. Perhaps he performed this speech indoors to avoid a winter lightning strike.
Donald Trump’s second inaugural speech was a significant departure from his first one. Eight years ago outside the Capitol, Trump railed with great energy about the end of “American carnage” before a crowd of his supporters. Inside the Capitol on Monday, Trump spoke at a much more tempered volume, though he touched on many of the same themes: immigration and the failures of Democratic leadership. “The golden age of America begins right now,” he said.
The contrast between Trump’s downbeat, almost-bored-sounding tone and the fiery content of his inaugural address, is striking. Perhaps he wore out his themes on the campaign trail.
In a slight monotone, Trump thanked the dignitaries assembled behind him on the dias and echoed the familiar grievances of his campaign.
“The golden age of America begins right now. From this day forward, our country will flourish and will be respected again all over the world,” he said. “We will be the envy of every nation and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer.”
He took the oath and then vowed a “revolution of common sense” — whatever that means.
There’s a rich symbolism in the identity of the Protestant minister who followed Cardinal Dolan in invoking God’s blessings on the second Trump presidency, Franklin Graham. His father, the great evangelist Billy Graham, was famous for counseling presidents of both parties, and prided himself from keeping his ministry apolitical. Franklin is a cat of a different color: a hard-core Christian nationalist who fits perfectly into the universe of MAGA holy warriors.
I’m collecting them in another post. For instance, did you know that Dan Quayle is there? Now you do.
As he is sworn in, J.D. Vance completes another step in an amazing rise to stardom. Just over two years ago he was an under-performing red-state U.S. Senate candidate surviving on subsidies from his tech bro patron Peter Thiel and mainly known for a memoir that was turned into a streaming service movie. He was dragged across the finish line by Trump, who then lifted him to his current prominence. After a meh performance on the campaign trail, he is now arguably poised to be Trump’s successor as leader of the Republican Party and the MAGA movement. But arguably his ambitions could be the victim of the deep unpopularity of much of what Trump seems determined to do in his second term. The future may be now for the 47th president, who probably doesn’t care what happens to his party or his supporters once he’s gone. But J.D. Vance’s future is very much unclear.
In his final minutes as president, Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons for his brother James, sister Valerie, and their spouses, as well as his brother Francis. It was part of a slew of pardons given during his final day in office to prevent Donald Trump from prosecuting members of what the president-elect has called the “Biden crime family.”
The indigenous activist, who was serving a life sentence after being convicted in the killings of two FBI agents during a bloody 1975 standoff on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, will be able to serve the rest of his sentence in home confinement.
Following the wishes of President-elect Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson vowed to raise his chamber’s American flags to full staff despite the usual 30-day mourning period in place for former president Jimmy Carter. However, there was a slight problem with this plan when the cold weather gripping Washington, DC (it’s currently 27 degrees there) caused the House flag’s cords to freeze. The issue was later resolved, and Old Glory is in full salute for that embodiment of its virtues, Donald J. Trump.
Shifting the inauguration ceremony indoors due to the frigid temperatures in Washington, D.C. means that many attendees found their seats to be a little further from the day’s festivities than initially anticipated. According to the official pool report, many state leaders including Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will be watching Trump’s swearing-in ceremony from an overflow room in Emancipation Hall. There, they’re joined by New York City Mayor Eric Adams, UFC star Conor McGregor, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
As former presidents and Supreme Court justices made their way into the Capitol rotunda for president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, the proceedings looked normal. Observers could almost forget about Karen Pence, who did not accompany her husband, former vice president Mike Pence, to Monday’s spectacle, or Michelle Obama, who also stayed away. Their absences did not dim the pageantry; the band played on. And why shouldn’t it? This is how politics works in America. The Democrats — our opposition party, for better or worse — have complained for years that Trump represents something abnormal, perhaps even something fascistic, but there was no trace of that sentiment on Monday. Today’s event should put to rest the idea that Trump, and his MAGA movement, are in any way unusual. Impunity is one of our more resilient norms, and it is on display as Washington prepares to welcome Trump back into power.
J.D. Vance’s swearing-in by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh will be a low-key moment in the high drama of Trump’s inauguration. But on at least one occasion a veep threatened to upstage the boss. In 1864 Vice President-elect Andrew Johnson, suffering from ill health, secured a bottle of whiskey from his predecessor Hannibal Hamlin to fortify himself for the inauguration and proceeded to get very inebriated. After a long, drunken tirade in the Senate chamber in which the new veep kept stressing his plebian origins, he was finally sworn in, and Abraham Lincoln, en route to his famous Second Inaugural Address on the East Portico of the Capitol, said to his entourage: “Don’t let Johnson speak outside.”
Notably, top tech CEOs like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg received preferential seating compared to prospective Cabinet members like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Pete Hegseth. Though they’re all positioned behind where Trump will stand on the dais, Trump’s appointees have been relegated to the furthest rows in the back while the businessmen are seated just behind the incoming president’s family. Also:
Only once before in U.S. history has a president held office, been defeated, and then successfully returned to office. Trump’s predecessor in that respect is the 22d and 24th president, Grover Cleveland. The two comeback kings differ in many respects — Cleveland most prized his reputation for honesty and integrity; Trump, not so much; and Cleveland’s road back to the White House did not include two impeachments and an intended insurrection. But the two men also represent two ends of the spectrum on a key element of economic policy. Trump has said that “the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff,” and he plans to make high tariffs central to his plans for intimidating America’s allies and adversaries and paying for his tax cut and defense spending schemes. In his second inaugural address in 1893, Cleveland called protectionism “the unwholesome progeny of paternalism” and claimed “[i]t perverts the patriotic sentiments of our countrymen…stifles the spirit of true Americanism and stupefies every ennobling trait of American citizenship.”
As I write in my new post, the soon-to-be first lady’s inauguration look is giving “Carmen Sandiego found at a funeral.”
Much has been made of all the former presidents, vice presidents, and first families attending today, including Mike Pence (but not including former first lady Michelle Obama). To state the obvious, their mood is markedly different this time than it was four years ago. Then, the Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas met up in a holding room in the Capitol before stepping outside, and they quietly and briefly — and privately — celebrated what seemed to be the end of the Trump era. As I reported when I first recounted this scene in a book about two years later, one of the windows in the room was still broken from the January 6 insurrection. The Republicans running the show today have gone to great lengths to make that feel like ancient history. Trump has hinted repeatedly that pardoning some convicted rioters is high on priorities list, possibly even for just a few hours from now.
Reports the Washington Post:
A lawsuit claiming billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” violates federal transparency rules will be filed within minutes of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration Monday, kicking off a legal battle over a key aspect of the incoming administration’s agenda. In a 30-page complaint obtained by The Washington Post ahead of its filing, the public interest law firm National Security Counselors says that the nongovernmental DOGE panel is breaking a 1972 law that requires advisory committees to the executive branch to follow certain rules on disclosure, hiring and other practices.
Chilling out in shorts:
He’s had a busy morning.
Probably no one is anticipating Trump’s expected blizzard of Day One executive orders more than progressive lawyers, who wherever possible can be expected to file federal lawsuits challenging, delaying or otherwise messing with the 47th president’s aggressive exercise of executive powers. In 2017, CNN reported 41 federal lawsuits naming Trump as a defendant in the 11 days between his Inauguration and February 1, as compared to just 11 in the equivalent first days of Barack Obama’s presidency. There’s little question that Trump’s first term record will fall quickly.
Inauguration Day began with President-elect Donald Trump and incoming First Lady Melania Trump attending a service at St. John’s Episcopal Church joined by Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and their families and other dignitaries. The Trumps then headed to the White House for tea with President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden.
At around 11:30 a.m. Vance will be sworn in as vice president by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. Following that, Trump will receive the oath of office from Chief Justice John Roberts. By law, Trump officially becomes the 47th President of the United States at noon.
After the ceremony, the Bidens will depart Washington, D.C. on Marine One, as is typical for outgoing presidents.
Trump will take part in a signing ceremony following his swearing-in which will be followed by an inaugural luncheon that will take place in Statuary Hall.
The traditional presidential parade that typically takes place down Pennsylvania Avenue has been moved to the Capitol One arena due to the frigid temperatures in Washington.
And it sounds like he dropped everything to go, very early this morning:
The schedule City Hall initially sent out showed events he was slated to do today in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but the schedule was then updated to say he’s just headed to D.C. instead.
Biden starts Inauguration Day off with a bang, issues preemptive pardons to prevent Trump retaliations
As one of his last official acts, the outgoing president moved to shield numerous people who faced potential retaliation by Trump. In his announcement of the preemptive pardons, Biden stressed that his pardons didn’t mean they had done anything wrong, but were more a reward for public service:
I am exercising my authority under the Constitution to pardon General Mark A. Milley, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Members of Congress and staff who served on the Select Committee, and the U.S. Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan police officers who testified before the Select Committee. The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense. Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country.
This post has been updated.
More on the inauguration
- The Cultural Ascendancy of the New Young Right
- All That Glitters
- Ivanka Trump’s Inauguration ‘Prayer’: Dad Will Become Different Person
