by AUSTIN DENEAN | The National News DeskMon, January 20th 2025 at 6:18 AM
Updated Thu, January 23rd 2025 at 5:46 PM
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President Donald Trump, center, takes part in a signing ceremony in the President’s Room after the 60th Presidential Inauguration, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Surrounding the president are, from left, Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.; Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb.; Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Vice President JD Vance; first lady Melania Trump; House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.; House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La.; and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post via AP, Pool)WASHINGTON (TNND) — Donald Trump was sworn into office as the 47th president of the United States on Monday with a renewed grip over the Republican Party and big ambitions for a second term with a sharply different political dynamic compared to eight years ago.
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His return to Washington caps a remarkable turnaround in just four years after leaving the White House in the wake of a riot at the Capitol during the throes of the coronavirus pandemic. After leaving office as the most unpopular president in U.S. history, he will return for another four-year term with a popular and Electoral College victories propelling him.
“The golden age of America begins right now,” Trump said after taking the oath of office. “My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all these many betrayals that have taken place and give people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and indeed their freedom. From this moment on, America’s decline is over.”
Trump is taking office with major plans to remake the United States in his image and Republican majorities in the House and Senate that are hoping to fast-track some of his biggest priorities. Republican congressional leadership has been meeting for weeks to plot their path forward once Trump retook the Oval Office to figure out how to pass massive tax cut legislation and an immigration bill.
Trump is also signing dozens of executive orders upon taking office touching on issues from immigration to energy production and renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The newly inaugurated president went through a laundry list of orders he is planning to carry out, many of which will reverse Biden-era policies, as the outgoing president sat just feet away watching a speech assailing his administration’s leadership.
Trump is declaring a national emergency at the southern border, sending U.S. troops to help support immigration agents and restarting his “wait in Mexico policy,” which forces asylum seekers to wait outside of the U.S. while their claim is processed. He is also signing orders to remove regulations on oil and natural gas production.
Trump was sworn into office at noon Eastern, though festivities began earlier in the morning with a service at St. John’s Church in Washington. He and his wife Melania Trump attended the service with several of his Cabinet picks and billionaire Elon Musk filling the pews before the Trumps went to the White House for coffee and tea with the Bidens. Outgoing President Joe Biden and Trump traveled together to the Capitol for his swearing-in ceremony.
“Welcome home,” Biden said to Trump as he stepped out of the car in his motorcade at the White House.
In lieu of the traditional parade on Inauguration Day, Trump hosted his presidential parade inside Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. due to the freezing temperatures outside.
Trump celebrated with his supporters, giving a speech as well as starting to sign his first executive orders in front of the crowd.
President Donald Trump, center, takes part in a signing ceremony in the President’s Room after the 60th Presidential Inauguration, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post via AP, Pool)
Trump also has a new first-day priority of preventing the ban of popular video-sharing app TikTok from going into effect after the Supreme Court upheld the law forcing it to divest from its China-based owner or stop U.S. operations. He originally tried to ban the app during his first term but has flipped his stance after amassing a large following on the platform.
TikTok briefly went dark Saturday evening until Sunday afternoon after Trump said he would sign an executive order delaying the ban. Trump said he would seek to facilitate at least a partial sale to a U.S. buyer, though it’s unclear whether ByteDance — TikTok’s parent company — would reverse its adamant position that it would not sell.
Trump’s return to office caps a political comeback unprecedented in American history — getting voted out of office in a dark time in U.S. history that included a riot at the Capitol as Congress met to certify Biden’s win. He cruised through the Republican primary and into a popular vote win despite multiple criminal cases against him and two attempts on his life.
“Just a few months ago in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear, but I felt then and believed even more so now that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again,” Trump said.
Even Democratic governors and members of Congress have changed their attitudes toward Trump, with many preaching of finding ways to work with the incoming administration instead of mounting a fierce resistance.auto640x360, 1041kbps854x480, 1241kbps1280x720, 3511kbps0.25×0.5xnormal1.5x2x
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(Video: The National News Desk)
Inauguration Day was filled with a return to traditional norms surrounding the peaceful transfer of power, with the outgoing president welcoming the incoming president to the White House and attending the swearing-in ceremony. The senators that led the event’s planning for the last four years made speeches prior to Trump being sworn into office alluding to the lasting power of America’s democracy.
“Our great American experiment, grounded in the rule of law, has endured. So as we inaugurate a new president and vice president, let us remember that the power of those in this room comes from the people,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said in a speech.
Sen. Deb Fischer, the top Republican on the planning committee, offered similar praise.
“Our democracy promises the American people the power to change, to chart their own destiny,” Fischer said. “That’s the beauty, that is the importance of democracy. It allows endurance, the permanence of a nation and never change.”auto640x360, 1041kbps854x480, 1241kbps1280x720, 3511kbps0.25×0.5xnormal1.5x2x
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Part of the sweeping executive actions President Donald Trump could take after being sworn in includes another jab at the intelligence community Trump has long been at odds with. (TNND)
Biden is leaving the White House after a single term with a complicated legacy that will take time to sort out, handing over power to a man who he described as a threat to American democracy and values for months before dropping his reelection effort.
Biden signed multiple major pieces of bipartisan legislation into law, oversaw consistent growth of the economy and stock market but also had pitfalls with a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, record levels of illegal immigration and 40-year highs in inflation that hampered his approval ratings throughout his time in the Oval Office.auto640x360, 1163kbps854x480, 1713kbps1280x720, 3363kbps0.25×0.5xnormal1.5x2x
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The National News Desk interviews former White House Economic Advisor Steve Moore on President-elect Donald Trump’s Second Term plans. (TNND)
Trump spent his final day before taking office with events scattered around Washington, meeting with Republican senators in the morning before hosting a rally with supporters later on.
Business leaders have also made efforts to extend an olive branch to Trump prior to his inauguration. Multiple technology moguls went to visit Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and business leaders have spent seven-figure sums to help fund his inauguration ceremonies. Many of them were present inside the limited space of the Capitol Rotunda with front-row seats to watch the ceremony, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
Much of Washington is locked down with tight security, tall fencing and road closures, though officials are not expecting massive protests like the first time he was sworn into office. Most of the crowd that has descended on the nation’s capital is instead there to celebrate Trump’s return to power.
Most of the festivities have been moved indoors due to sub-freezing temperatures and brisk winds. Trump took the oath of office inside the Capitol Rotunda instead of outside where thousands of people were expected to line the National Mall.
