US President Donald Trump’s second inaugural address featured similar themes to his first: a sweeping indictment of the country he inherits and grand promises to fix its problems.
Eight years ago, Mr Trump described “American carnage” and promised to end it immediately. On Monday, he declared that the country’s “decline” will end immediately, ushering in “the golden age of America”.
Mr Trump added a long list of policies that sounded more like a State of the Union speech than an Inauguration Day speech. But the broad themes were fundamentally Trumpian, setting himself up as a national saviour.
Breaking tradition, the Republican president delivered his remarks from inside the Capitol Rotunda due to the bitter cold outside. He spoke to several hundred elected officials and pro-Trump VIPs, tech titan Elon Musk among them.
Here are some takeaways from the speech:
– A promise of an American ‘golden age’
From the start, Mr Trump’s speech tracked his campaign rally approach: big promises of national success due to his leadership, with plenty of sweeping indictments of the status quo.
“The golden age of America begins right now,” Mr Trump said after ticking through the requisite nods to former presidents and other dignitaries. He added several more hyperbolic but nebulous promises: The “start of a thrilling new era”. A nation “greater, stronger and far more exceptional than ever before”.
“Our sovereignty will be reclaimed. Our safety will be restored. The scales of justice will be rebalanced,” he continued. “Our top priority will be to create a nation that is proud, prosperous and free.”
The underlying presumption, of course, is that Mr Trump is inheriting what he called throughout the 2024 campaign “a failed nation”.
He vowed to fulfil campaign promises to send troops to the US-Mexico border, boost domestic oil production and impose tariffs to “enrich our citizens”.
– Trump calls America’s past leadership corrupt
Mr Trump described America’s leadership over the last four years as incompetent and corrupt, echoing some of the darker rhetoric he promoted on a daily basis as a presidential candidate on the campaign trail.
He did not call out his predecessor, former president Joe Biden, or any other Democrats by name, but there was no question about whom he was talking.
“We now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home, while at the same time stumbling into a continuing catalogue of catastrophic events abroad,” Mr Trump claimed.
He said the current government protects dangerous immigrants instead of law-abiding citizens, protects foreign borders at the expense of American borders and “can no longer deliver basic services in times of emergency”.
And, as he often does, Mr Trump cast himself as uniquely positioned to fix it all.
“All of this will change starting today, and it will change very quickly,” he said.
As of Monday, Republicans control all three branches of the federal government.
– A perceived triumph over dark forces
Even before Mr Trump began to speak, a religious and political ally, the Rev Franklin Graham, touched on one of the new president’s most common themes – how he has been persecuted by unnamed evil forces.
Mr Graham talked of Mr Trump’s “enemies” and the “darkness” of the last four years for Mr Trump personally.
When Mr Trump spoke, he tied attempts to prosecute him for trying to overturn his election loss to Mr Biden into his allegations of “weaponisation” of the Justice Department. He then linked them to the attempt to assassinate him in Butler, Pennsylvania, last July.
“The journey to reclaim our republic has not been an easy one, that I can tell you. Those who wish to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom and, indeed, to take my life,” Mr Trump said.
The gunman was an apparently disturbed local 20-year-old man who had no documented ties to the Biden administration, the federal government or any other opponents Mr Trump has criticised.
Mr Trump then used striking language to explain how he survived. “I was saved by God to make America great again,” he said to applause.
– Lying about wildfires
Mr Trump’s lament about the state of the nation included disbelief that the fires around Los Angeles were still burning “without a token defence”.
That is false. Firefighters have been battling the blazes since they erupted and have made significant progress. The Eaton fire is 87% contained, and the Palisades fire 59% contained, according to CalFire.
– A peacemaker and a conqueror
Mr Trump has vowed to stop foreign wars and celebrated his role in helping implement a ceasefire in Gaza. “A peacemaker and a unifier, that’s what I want to be,” Mr Trump said.
Moments later he was vowing to regain the Panama Canal from Panama. “We’re taking it back!” Mr Trump declared, having previously declined to rule out using military force.
He pledged to pursue policy that “expands our territory” and to put US astronauts on Mars – a promise undoubtedly popular with Mr Musk, a major Trump supporter who has long pursued the same goal.
That cuts to the heart of one of the many contradictions in Mr Trump’s movement. The new president revels in a confrontational, macho approach that revved up his support among young men. His political career has been built on seeking conflict and tearing down rivals. Yet Mr Trump has also positioned himself as someone who will end conflicts and usher in peace.
– A line-up of tech titans
The audience in the Capitol Rotunda included some of the nation’s most powerful tech titans, who have moved to embrace Mr Trump since his victory.
Alongside Mr Musk were Google chief executive Sundar Pichai and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg and Apple chief executive Tim Cook were also in the audience. Mr Musk, tapped along with fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to head the Department of Government Efficiency, had prime seating behind Mr Trump’s children and in front of many of his cabinet nominees.
While the business leaders were allowed to bring their spouses, members of Congress were not. Thousands of Mr Trump’s supporters watched a broadcast of the swearing-in at Capitol One Arena instead.
– A range of reactions behind Trump
The Rotunda crowd was heavily tilted in Mr Trump’s favour, most of those in attendance clapping and even roaring during his speech. But one prominent seating section – former presidents, first ladies and vice presidents – was largely muted.
After Mr Trump repeated his vow to take over the Panama Canal, complete with the false claim that China runs the intercontinental channel, Mr Biden and former vice president Kamala Harris, among others, sat stone-faced, as did former president Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state who lost to Mr Trump in 2016, turned to her left, musing something in former president George W Bush’s direction. Mr Bush, who famously joked about the weirdness of Mr Trump’s first inaugural address, was smirking.
Less than two weeks ago, Mr Trump was largely ignored at former president Jimmy Carter’s funeral. Mr Trump chatted with former president Barack Obama, but the rest of the former presidents and their wives bypassed him without a greeting.
– A different scene indoors
Inaugural speeches are traditionally delivered on the National Mall in front of tens of thousands of cheering supporters, many of them average voters from across America, who travelled great distances to witness history in person.
Not this one.
Mr Trump delivered his speech in front of a crowd estimated at only around 600 in the Capitol Rotunda, which was limited to members of Congress, cabinet nominees, Mr Trump’s family, business leaders and political VIPs.
It is noteworthy that four years ago, violent Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol Rotunda as members of Congress and vice president Mike Pence feared for their lives. Mr Pence attended on Monday, though his wife, former second lady Karen Pence, did not.
Speaking to supporters after seeing off Mr Biden outside the Capitol, Mr Trump said he was glad they had moved the ceremony indoors.
“We were freezing,” he told them. “You would have been very unhappy.”
– The second second inaugural
The speech had controversial moments, but Mr Trump said afterwards that it could have been much more so.
Mr Trump headed from the Rotunda to the Capitol Visitor Centre to thank supporters who had watched his address on screens. Then he gave a speech that was longer than the inaugural and much more freewheeling.
The new president said he had wanted to talk about supporting the people arrested for storming the Capitol on January 6 2021. He did not go there, he said, only because first lady Melania Trump and vice president JD Vance talked him out of the idea.
“They said, ‘Please, sir, it’s such a beautiful, unifying speech. Please, sir, don’t say these things,’” Mr Trump said. “I decided I’m not going to make this speech complicated. I’m going to make it beautiful. I’m going to make it a unifying speech.”
Still, Mr Trump made clear that he is going to help supporters arrested for storming the Capitol – “hostages”, he called them – and said that his actions would speak louder than any words.
More than 1,230 people have been charged with federal crimes over the riot, ranging from misdemeanour offences such as trespassing to felonies such as assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy.
Mr Trump also criticised Mr Biden’s decision to pardon his family members and members of the January 6 congressional committee. He called out Republican members of that committee – former Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois – by name.
