David Morgan, Gabriella Borter, Jeff Mason and Joseph Axe
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump vowed to save America from what he described as years of betrayal and decay in his inaugural address on Monday, prioritizing cracking down on illegal immigration and portraying himself as God’s chosen national savior.
“First I will declare a national emergency on our southern border,” he said. “All illegal entries will be stopped immediately and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places they came from.”
The speech echoed many of the themes he brought up at his first inauguration in 2017 when he spoke darkly of the “American carnage” of crime and job losses he said have ravaged the country.
Trump, 78, took the oath to “preserve, protect and defend” the US Constitution at 12:01 pm ET (1701 GMT) inside the US Capitol, presided over by Chief Justice John Roberts. His vice president, JD Vance, was sworn in just before him.
Trump will be the first criminal to occupy the White House after a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records to cover up secret money paid to a porn star.
Trump intends to sign a series of executive actions in his first hours as president, incoming White House officials said Monday, including 10 focused on border security and immigration, his top priority.
In addition to declaring a state of emergency, the president will send armed troops there and continue his policy of forcing asylum seekers to wait for U.S. court dates in Mexico, officials told reporters.
It will also seek to end so-called birthright citizenship for children born in the US whose parents do not have legal status, a move that some legal scholars have said would be unconstitutional.
The inauguration completes the triumphant return of a political disruptor who has survived two impeachment trials, a felony conviction, two attempted murders and an indictment for trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
“The road to getting our republic back was not easy, I can tell you that,” Trump said, before referring to an assassin’s bullet that grazed his ear in July. “God saved me to make America great again.”
The ceremony was moved to the Capitol because of the cold, four years after a crowd of Trump supporters stormed the building, a symbol of American democracy, in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Trump from losing to Democrat Joe Biden, 82.
Biden and outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump in November, were in attendance in the Capitol Rotunda, along with former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016, arrived with her husband Bill, but Obama’s wife Michelle decided not to attend.
A number of tech executives who have sought to curry favor with the incoming administration — including three of the world’s richest men, Tesla (NASDAQ: ) and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Amazon (NASDAQ: ) CEO Jeff Bezos and Met (NASDAQ: ) CEO Mark Zuckerberg – had prominent places on stage, next to cabinet candidates and members of the Trump family.
Trump, the first US president since the 19th century to win a second term after losing the White House, said he would pardon “on day one” many of the more than 1,500 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. He skipped Biden’s inauguration and continued to falsely claim that the 2020 election, which he lost to Biden, was rigged.
Biden, in one of his last official acts, pardoned several people Trump has targeted for retaliation, including former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci, former Republican U.S. Representative Liz Cheney and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley.
Trump will reinstate the federal death penalty, which Biden suspended, and require official U.S. documents, such as passports, to reflect citizens’ gender assigned at birth, new administration officials told reporters.
They said they would also sign an order ending diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the federal government on Monday, which is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a national holiday commemorating America’s best-known civil rights leader.
But Trump will not immediately impose new tariffs on Monday, instead ordering federal agencies to assess trade relations with Canada, China and Mexico, a Trump official said, an unexpected development that sent the U.S. dollar plunging sharply and global stock markets rallying on a day when American financial markets are closed.
Some of the executive orders are likely to face legal challenges.
Even as he prepared to take office again, Trump continued to expand his business ventures, garnering billions in market value with the launch of a crypto token “meme coin” over the weekend that raised ethical and regulatory questions.
Earlier, Trump and new first lady Melania Trump arrived at the White House, where they were greeted by handshakes from Biden and outgoing first lady Jill Biden.
“Welcome home,” Biden said.
A DISTURBING FORCE
As he did in 2017, Trump enters office as a chaotic and disruptive force, promising an overhaul of the federal government and expressing deep skepticism about the US-led alliances that have shaped global politics since World War II.
The former president returns to Washington emboldened after beating Harris by more than 2 million votes in the national election thanks to voter frustration with continued inflation, although he still fell short of a 50% majority.
In 2016, Trump won the electoral college—and the presidency—despite receiving nearly 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton.
Trump, who has surpassed Biden as the oldest president ever to take the oath of office, will enjoy Republican majorities in both houses of Congress that have been almost completely purged of all intra-party dissidents. His advisers floated plans to replace non-party bureaucrats with hand-picked loyalists.
Even before taking office, Trump established a rival power center in the weeks after his election victory, meeting with world leaders and causing consternation by publicly musing about seizing the Panama Canal, taking control of Denmark’s NATO ally Greenland and imposing tariffs on America’s largest trading partners.
His influence was already felt in last week’s announcement of a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas. Trump, whose envoy joined the talks in Qatar, warned of “hell to pay” if Hamas did not release its hostages before the inauguration.
Unlike in 2017, when he filled many top positions with institutionalists, Trump has prioritized loyalty over experience in appointing a series of controversial Cabinet nominees, some of whom are outspoken critics of the agencies they were chosen to lead.
The inauguration took place amid tight security after a campaign highlighted by a surge in political violence that included two assassination attempts on Trump, including one in which a bullet grazed his ear.
The traditional parade down Pennsylvania Avenue past the White House will now take place indoors Capital one (NYSE: ) Arena, where Trump held his victory rally on Sunday. Trump will also attend three inaugural balls in the evening.
Some die-hard Trump supporters slept on the street in freezing conditions to make sure they were in line for a seat in the arena.
A table and chair sat on the stage, where Trump was expected to sign some of his first executive orders in front of his supporters before heading to the White House.
