Outgoing President Joe Biden welcomed the new president Donald Trump on Monday on the north side of the White House with an enthusiastic “Welcome home!” The first families enjoyed tea together. And a few hours later, Donald Trump, a convicted felon who tried to overturn the results of a free and fair election four years ago, was sworn in as the 47th president at the Capitol. Which was violently attacked by his followers to keep him in power.
The 45th and now 47th President of the United States took the oath of office on a Bible held by Chief Justice John Roberts.
“America’s Golden Age Begins Now”
“America’s golden age begins now,” Trump said after taking the oath of office.
Trump’s inaugural speech was essentially a slightly cleaner version of his campaign speech. “My recent election is a mandate to fully and completely undo a terrible betrayal and all these many acts of treason that have taken place, and to give the people back their faith, their prosperity, their democracy and indeed their freedom. From this moment on, America’s decline is over,” Trump said as Biden and now-former Vice President Kamala Harris sat next to him.
“For American citizens, January 20, 2025 is Liberation Day,” he added.
“Drill, baby, drill.”
The president highlighted some of his more infamous campaign promises that he plans to fulfill through an executive order, including a promise to send military personnel to the southern border, deport millions of undocumented immigrants, increase oil production through “drill, baby, drill,” “tariffs and to raise taxes on foreign countries to enrich our citizens,” and to make it “official policy of the United States Government that there are only two genders, male and female.” Trump said he wanted to restore “common sense” to the United States before promising to send astronauts to Mars.
The President pointed out that his Inauguration on Martin Luther King Day and promised to “strive together to make his dream a reality.”
The ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda was relatively quiet after the outdoor festivities were moved indoors due to the freezing temperatures currently prevailing in Washington, DC. The president, who has been described by many of his former aides as an aspiring tyrant, has expressed his desire to do so on the first day of his presidency as a “dictator” to act, surround by not the people, but by celebrities, business leaders, politicians and Supreme Court justices who will help him remake America in the image of right-wing extremism.
Preemptive pardons for Anthony Fauci and Liz Cheney
Despite the oppressive normality of the proceedings, signs of the fears surrounding Trump’s return to power were unmistakable. On Monday morning, Biden issued one Series of preemptive pardonsintended to protect public figures whom Trump has openly targeted for political retaliation. These include former director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley and former Rep. Liz Cheney.
Michael Fanone, a retired Washington, D.C. police officer who was attacked by pro-Trump rioters on January 6, said the New York Times, that it is “crazy that we live in a country where the President of the United States feels the need to preemptively pardon American citizens who testified in an investigation into an insurrection incited by the new President because he promised to exact or exact revenge on these participants and the agency that investigated them.”
Protests in Washington, DC
There were numerous protests in the nation’s capital, but they were barely visible to the broader national audience due to tight security around the National Mall and the Capitol. Gathered on Saturday Thousands of protesters to the People’s March, formerly the Women’s March, at the Lincoln Memorial, braving freezing winds and temperatures to express their opposition to the new administration.
Trump notably refused to attend Biden’s 2020 ceremonies after falsely claiming that re-election had been fraudulently stolen from him, helping to fuel an attempt by his most ardent supporters to seize the election on January 6, 2021 tear. Trump has bragged that he will pardon the MAGA rioters who attacked the Capitol four years ago.