President Donald Trump marked his stunning return to power Monday with a pledge to usher in a new “Golden Age” of American prosperity through a series of sweeping executive orders and a commitment to undo the work of his Democratic predecessor.
Left largely unsaid in Trump’s inaugural address was the role that Congress would play in Trump’s vision for remaking government. Republicans hold a governing trifecta in Washington, but apart from acknowledging Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the 47th president didn’t mention Congress as he spoke inside the Capitol Rotunda in a ceremony that was moved indoors because of freezing temperatures.
“The Golden Age of America begins right now,” the newly sworn-in president said moments into his speech. “From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. … During every single day of the Trump administration, I will very simply put America first.”
Trump’s speech touched on all of his campaign themes: He pledged to address inflation by instituting tariffs, fix the nation’s immigration system, cut government waste and bolster the military while embracing peace. “My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That’s what I want to be,” he said.
Trump officials have already previewed a number of executive actions that the president intends to take in his first days in office, including in a memo the new administration sent out Monday. Those actions would target energy policies and border security and immigration measures consistent with the hard-line promises of his political campaign.
With former President Joe Biden seated nearby, Trump signaled that he intends to unwind virtually every aspect of the outgoing president’s policy agenda, from proposals to address climate change to efforts to diversify the federal workforce. He said he would reinstate a policy that requires some asylum-seekers at the southern border to remain in Mexico while awaiting a U.S. immigration hearing and “revoke the electric vehicle mandate.” He also declared that “the vicious, violent and unfair weaponization of our Justice Department will end.”
“I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will forge a society that is color-blind and merit-based.”
Large chunks of Trump’s speech were focused on his triumphant return to office, including surviving an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania last summer.
“My life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again,” he said.
He said the day of his second inauguration would be remembered as “Liberation Day” and that his victory showed that “the entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda with dramatic increases of support from virtually every element of our society.”
Trump notched a decisive Electoral College victory over then-Vice President Kamala Harris in November, buoyed by a sweep of seven battleground states — which he mentioned in his address — and increased support among minority voters.
He devoted time Monday to reaffirm his recent calls for the United States to reclaim the Panama Canal and for the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico and Denali, Alaska’s highest peak. And he laid out an ambitious vision of U.S. supremacy, which includes sending American astronauts to Mars.
“We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars,” Trump said to vigorous applause.
As Trump spoke, tech billionaires such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg watched from prominent seats with Trump family members and Cabinet nominees. Other prominent individuals, including artificial intelligence billionaires Sam Altman and Alexandr Wang and New York Mayor Eric Adams, watched from Emancipation Hall, the overflow viewing room in the Capitol Visitor Center.
Also relegated to the overflow viewing room were political VIPs such as Republican Govs. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, Brian Kemp of Georgia and Ron DeSantis of Florida, as well as Connecticut Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont and Arizona’s Kari Lake, the former gubernatorial and Senate nominee who is Trump’s pick to lead the Voice of America.
Congress reacts
Despite Trump offering scant details on the mechanics of how he would work with the Republican-controlled Congress to enact his agenda, House Republican leaders said Monday that they were ready to act on the president’s vision.
“House Republicans will work closely with President Trump to deliver the America First agenda,” Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emmer and Conference Chair Lisa McClain said in a joint statement. “As we begin this new chapter of our national story, we move forward with confidence and renewed hope that America’s best days are ahead.”
Other House Republicans expressed similar enthusiasm Monday.
“I think just maybe this could be the dream that Martin Luther King Jr. had,” Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert said before Trump’s speech on the annual holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader.
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she wasn’t too concerned that Trump hadn’t laid out the specifics of his strategy for working with Congress to achieve his goals.
“We’ve had quite a few meetings with him, even groups of us going down to Mar-a-Lago last week, and then there’s meetings planned starting tomorrow,” she told reporters.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan said Congress would help provide Trump the “resources to accomplish those executive orders he’s going to do today.”
“Part of our job in reconciliation, particularly the Judiciary Committee, is get him the resources to do the ‘Remain in Mexico,’ to change the parole authority, to have the detention space and beds you need for the repatriation, and all that,” he said of Trump’s early immigration actions.
Democrats, in contrast, found little to like in Trump’s remarks. California Rep. Pete Aguilar, the No. 3 Democrat in the House, called the speech “pretty dark” while criticizing the president over his decision to offer Musk, Bezos and the other tech executives a high-profile perch in the Rotunda.
“It’s pretty clear who President Trump wants to curry favor with,” Aguilar said. “And none of the executive orders he talks about today will lower prices for everyday Americans.”
‘A better speech’
After his inaugural address, Trump greeted supporters in Emancipation Hall and riffed on issues he said his wife, Melania Trump, and Vice President JD Vance had urged him to cut from his speech in the Rotunda.
Those included references to the “J6 hostages” — people arrested over the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021— and Biden’s early Monday pardon of members of the House select committee that investigated the attack. Trump referred to the Jan. 6 panel as the “unselect committee of political thugs” while also repeating false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
Trump praised Johnson — who joined him onstage alongside Vance, Scalise, Nebraska Republican Sen. Deb Fischer and their spouses — although the president acknowledged that the GOP’s slim margins in the House had been exacerbated by his poaching of a few Republicans in the chamber for roles in his administration. Trump also said that immigration, not inflation, had been the No. 1 issue in the election.
He touted his at-times rambling remarks before supporters in Emancipation Hall as an improvement over his earlier inaugural address.
“I think this was a better speech than the one I made upstairs,” Trump said. “I gave you the A-plus treatment.”
Caitlin Reilly, Mary Ellen McIntire, Justin Papp, Nina Heller, Jessica Wehrman and Chris Johnson contributed to this report.
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