Trump vows ‘America’s decline is over’ in inauguration speech

Donald Trump was sworn in for a historic second term as US president on Monday, January 20, promising a blitz of immediate orders on immigration and the US culture wars. With one hand raised in the air and the other on a Bible given to him by his mother, the 47^th president of the United States solemnly took the oath of office beneath the huge Rotunda of the US Capitol.

In his first presidential speech, Trump said he believed he survived two assassination attempts for a reason: I was “saved by God to make America great again,” he said. “My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place, and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and indeed their freedom,” Trump said. “From this moment on, America’s decline is over.”

Republican Trump and outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden had earlier traveled by motorcade together to the Capitol, where the ceremony was being held indoors – and with a much smaller crowd – for the first time in decades due to frigid weather.

“Welcome home,” Biden said to Trump as he and First Lady Jill Biden greeted their successors at the front door of the presidential home.

Trump and his wife earlier attended a service at a church near the White House – the same church where he controversially posed with a Bible in 2020 just minutes after security forces forcefully ejected peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters.

The frigid weather has forced 78-year-old Trump’s inauguration indoors, missing out on the customary massive crowds along the National Mall. “As soon as President Trump places his hand on the Bible and swears the Oath to the United States Constitution, the Golden Age of America will begin,” spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on X.

The first hours of the most extraordinary comeback in US politics will be a blaze of activity. The Republican vowed to unleash a blitz of executive orders undoing outgoing president Joe Biden’s legacy, and to launch immediate deportations of undocumented migrants.

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos and Google CEO Sundar Pichai all had prime seats in the Capitol alongside Trump’s cabinet members.

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While Trump refused to attend Biden’s 2021 inauguration after falsely claiming electoral fraud by the Democrat, this time Biden has been keen to restore a sense of tradition. Biden was joining former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton at the Capitol. Former first ladies Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush were there but ex-first lady Michelle Obama stayed away.

Unusually for an inauguration where foreign leaders are normally not invited, Argentina’s hard-right president Javier Milei was attending, along with Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

At sunrise on Monday, the National Mall, where the inauguration was originally due to be held, was largely empty.

Trump will make history by replacing Biden as the oldest president to be sworn in. He is also just the second president in US history to return to power after being voted out, after Grover Cleveland in 1893.

In his final hours in office, Biden issued extraordinary pre-emptive pardons for former Covid-19 advisor Anthony Fauci and retired general Mark Milley to shield them from “politically motivated prosecutions” by Tump. Biden gave similar pardons to members, staff and witnesses of a US House committee probing the violent January 6, 2021 US Capitol attack by Trump’s supporters.

Biden said he had also restored the tradition of leaving a letter for his successor – though he said the contents were between him and Trump.

Behind the pomp and ceremony, the billionaire is kickstarting his nationalist, right-wing agenda with a barrage of around 100 executive orders undoing Biden’s legacy.