Donald Trump entered the White House on Monday as the 47th president and immediately made good on his promise to issue a deluge of executive orders on everything from immigration to climate as he fired the starting pistol on his belated second administration.
In his inaugural address in the Capitol rotunda immediately after being sworn-in as commander-in-chief, Trump promised a “revolution of common sense”, lashing out at Joe Biden’s outgoing administration, outlining his policy priorities and specifically signalling an attack on so-called woke culture in the country’s public institutions.
The president has since been busy signing off on his orders with his signature Sharpie while his staff have been redecorating the White House and revamping its website in accordance with his values.
However, the changes introduced to the latter so far appear to mean that visitors searching for pages that once provided information on reproductive rights or offering Spanish language content will only get “Error 404” messages for their trouble.
Instead of the vital resources American citizens might have hoped to find on the federal government’s website, the navy blue pages instead display only a line illustration of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and a “Go Home” button, which perhaps reads as more dystopian and ominous in the circumstances than might otherwise have been intended.
The loss of the Spanish language service is particularly odd that Trump explicitly thanked America’s Latino and Black communities during his speech for their support in last year’s election and pledged not to forget them.
Trump’s team were otherwise quick to flip WhiteHouse.gov to reflect the new administration’s messaging on Monday, immediately directing users to a new landing page that features a 30-second-long video montage of Trump during his first term and on the campaign trail last year.
Clips of Trump stepping off Marine Force One, greeting a crowd of supporters, giving the camera his signature thumbs up, saluting military members and signing legislation are cut between patriotic imagery of a bald eagle flying, a Trump rally and the White House itself set to stirring inspirational music.
“The White House. President Donald J Trump,” a tagline for the website reads once the montage ends.
Users are then taken to the new homepage that features a large cutout image of Trump pointing and the message: “America is back.”
The website now features three main pages – news, administration and issues – and also drops a Biden-era contact form that asked users for their pronouns.
The “administration” page currently features only Trump, Vice President JD Vance, First Lady Melania Trump and Second Lady Usha Vance but more cabinet members are likely to be added once they are confirmed by the Senate.
Under “issues”, the website says Trump’s main priorities are to end inflation, enact tax cuts, secure America’s borders, increase US energy production and tackle crime – all pillars of Trump’s presidential campaign.
