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You can watch all of Monday’s inauguration day events on our livestream here, check out the scheduled schedule of events, review President-elect Donald Trump’s sweeping promises, and find out what’s been replaced since he was sworn in eight years ago.
NEW YORK – President Donald Trump’s second inauguration looks a lot like his first, with a radical critique of the country he inherits and big promises to solve its problems.
Watch President Donald Trump’s swearing in and inaugural address in our player above.
Eight years ago, Trump described the “American carnage” and promised to end it soon. On Monday, he said the country’s “decline” would end soon, paving the way for “America’s golden age. “
WATCH: ‘America’s golden age begins now,’ Trump says
Trump added a long list of policies that sounded more at home in a State of the Union speech than an Inauguration Day address. But the broad themes were fundamentally Trumpian, setting himself up as a national savior.
Breaking with tradition, the Republican president delivered his speech from the Capitol rotunda due to the sour, bloodless exterior. He spoke to several hundred elected officials and pro-Trump figures, including generation titan Elon Musk.
Here are some takeaways from the speech.
From the beginning, Trump’s speech followed his electoral approach: grand promises of national good fortune through his leadership, with many sweeping accusations opposed to the prestige quo.
“America’s golden age begins now,” Trump said after greeting former presidents and other dignitaries. He added several more promises: the “beginning of an exciting new era. ” A country “bigger, more powerful and more exceptional than ever. “
“Our sovereignty will be recovered. Our security will be restored. The scales of justice will be rebalanced,” he continued. “Our most sensible priority will be to create a proud, immensely wealthy and relaxed nation. “
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The underlying presumption, of course, is that Trump is inheriting what he called throughout the 2024 campaign “a failed nation.”
WATCH: Saying he wants to be ‘peacemaker and unifier,’ Trump vows to rename ‘Gulf of America’
He promised to send troops to the U. S. -Mexico border, stimulate domestic oil production and impose price lists to “enrich our citizens. “
Trump has described U. S. leadership over the past four years as incompetent and corrupt, echoing the darker rhetoric he used on the campaign trail.
He did not mention 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 catalog of catastrophic events abroad,” Trump charged.
READ MORE: Biden, defending himself against imaginable Trump ‘revenge,’ pardons Fauci, Milley and members of the January 6 committee
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.”
“All of that is going to be replaced as of today, and it is going to be replaced very quickly,” he said.
As of Monday, Republicans are the three branches of the federal government.
Before Trump even began speaking, a political ally and devotee, the Rev. Franklin Graham, addressed one of the new president’s most common themes: how he persecuted anonymous evil forces.
Graham talked of Trump’s “enemies” and the “darkness” of the last four years for Trump personally.
When Trump spoke, he linked attempts to sue him to overturn his election loss to Biden to his accusations of “militarization” of the Justice Department, referencing allegations that the federal and state governments opposed him. Trump later linked those cases to the assassination attempt 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,” Trump said.
The shooter was a disturbed 20-year-old who had no documented ties to the Biden administration, the federal government, or any other conflicting parties criticized through Trump.
Trump then used surprising language about how he survived. “God saved me to make America great again,” Trump said to applause.
Trump’s laments about the state of the country included disbelief that the fires around Los Angeles burned “without a token defense. “
LIVE BLOG: Fact Check on Trump’s Inauguration
It’s true. Firefighters have been battling the fires since they broke out and have made significant progress. The Eaton fire is 87 percent contained and the Palisades fire is 59 percent contained, according to CalFire.
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,” Trump said.
Moments later, he vowed to take back the Panama Canal from Panama. “We’re going to get it back!” ” Trump declared, after refusing to rule out the use of military force.
He promised to pursue policies that “expand our territory” and send American astronauts to Mars, a promise certainly with Elon Musk, a core Trump supporter who has long pursued the same goal.
That cuts to the heart of one of the many contradictions in 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 Trump has also positioned himself as someone who’ll end conflicts and usher in peace.
In the Capitol rotunda were some of the country’s toughest tech titans, who have embraced Trump since his victory.
Joining Musk were Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Also in attendance were Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook. Trump’s youth and ahead of many of his cabinet candidates.
While business executives were allowed to bring their spouses, members of Congress were not. Thousands of his followers watched the swearing-in broadcast at Capitol One Arena.
The Rotunda crowd was heavily tilted in Trump’s favor, 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.
LOOK: Carrie Underwood plays ‘America the Beautiful’ at Trump’s inauguration
After Trump repeated his vow to take over the Panama Canal, complete with the false claim that China runs the intercontinental channel, 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 Trump in 2016, turned to her left, saying something in former President George W. Bush’s direction. Bush, who was famously reported to have joked that Trump’s first inaugural address was “weird,” was smirking.
Less than two weeks ago, Trump was largely ignored at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral. Trump spoke with former President Barack Obama, but the rest of the former presidents and their wives surrounded him without greeting him.
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 traveled great distance to witness history in person.
Not this one.
Trump delivered his speech to a crowd estimated at only about 600 people in the Capitol rotunda, made up only of members of Congress, cabinet candidates, Trump’s family, business leaders and political figures.
It’s worth noting that four years ago, violent Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol Rotunda as members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence feared for their lives. Pence spoke Monday, but not his wife, former second wife Karen Pence.
READ MORE: Trump’s inauguration will be the first in US history attended by foreign leaders
Speaking to supporters after seeing Biden outside the Capitol, Trump said he was convinced they moved the rite inside.
“We froze,” he told them. “You would have been very unhappy. “
The speech had some debatable moments, but Trump later said it could have been much more debatable.
Trump headed from the rotunda to the Capitol Visitor Center 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 was looking to speak out about his support for those arrested for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. It wasn’t, he said, just because first lady Melania Trump and Vice President JD Vance discouraged him from participating. idea.
“They said, ‘Please, sir, this is such a beautiful, unifying speech. Please, sir, don’t say those things,” Trump said. “I was not going to complicate this speech. I’ll make it lovely. I’m going to turn it into a unifying speech.
Still, Trump made it clear that he would help his supporters arrested for storming the Capitol (“hostages,” he called them) and said their movements would speak louder than any words.
More than 1,230 people have been charged with federal crimes in the riot, ranging from misdemeanors such as trespassing to felonies such as assault on police officers and seditious conspiracy.
Trump also criticized Biden’s decision to pardon his family members and members of the Jan. 6 congressional committee. He called out Republican members of that committee — former Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — by name.
Riccardi reported from Denver and Barrow from Atlanta.
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