Good morning. Donald Trump promised to begin his second term in a spirit of unity. In the event, he said in his first speech as president yesterday that he had a “mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place”, railed against “a radical and corrupt establishment” that had left the US “broken and seemingly in complete disrepair”, and said he had been saved by God to bring about “the four greatest years in American history”.
Later, he said that he had been dissuaded by his vice-president, JD Vance, from talking about his most radical proposals, like pardoning the January 6 rioters. “But you’ll be happy,” he told an audience of loyalists. “Because, you know, it’s actions, not words, that count.” A few hours later, he signed off on blanket “unconditional” pardons for about 1,500 people.
Remember this? Today’s newsletter is about the message Trump sent on his first day back in office. Here are the headlines.
Five big stories
UK news | Keir Starmer has ordered a public inquiry into the failings that allowed an “extremely violent” teenager to murder three young girls in Southport. The announcement came after Axel Rudakubana, 18, pleaded guilty and followed revelations in the Guardian that he had previously been referred to Prevent.
Israel-Gaza | After the first night in Gaza for more than a year without the sound of drones or bombing overhead following the successful implementation of a ceasefire, people have begun returning to destroyed homes and searching for missing loved ones.
Health | People with diabetes taking medications found in weight-loss jabs have a reduced risk of 42 conditions, research has found, paving the way for such drugs being used to treat a host of health problems.
Prisons | A women’s jail in England or Wales should be closed by diverting offenders to alternative forms of punishment, the prisons minister has said. Lord Timpson said hundreds of women could be tagged and sent to addiction centres instead.
UK weather | A “weather bomb” is forecast to hit parts of the UK, bringing strong winds, heavy rain and snow. The first half of the week will be “benign” with cloudy weather and outbreaks of rain for much of the country before the arrival of more unsettled conditions, the Met Office said.
In depth: Rambling rhetoric, billionaire backers … and horrid hats
In place of the usual grandeur of an outdoor ceremony, Trump’s inauguration took place in front of an invited audience of 600 in the US Capitol Building. Donald Trump travelled there from the White House with Joe Biden; meanwhile, in the space of five hours, the old president’s furniture and personal effects were removed from the living quarters – and the kitchens were restocked with Trump’s favourite foods.
The White House website was updated with a landing page featuring a triumphant picture of Trump and the message “America is back”. By the middle of the afternoon, with the former president leaving the Capitol by helicopter, the new Trump era had begun.
Here are some of the key details of the day.
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The speech | ‘A rightwing call to arms’
The closest to an “American carnage” style soundbite this time around was the much more anodyne promise that 20 January would be remembered as “liberation day”. And Trump read out some poor speechwriter’s attempt at soaring rhetoric in the same tone he might use to repeat a particularly complex delivery order.
Still, if you listened to the detail, the same nihilistic picture, of a nation in a state of catastrophic decay, emerged among the attempts at nationalist fervour. As Margaret Sullivan notes in this panel of reaction from Guardian US columnists:
“Donald Trump spoke of love, of God and of a new golden age for the United States of America. But just beneath that gilded surface, his inaugural speech sent a different message entirely.
That message: America has been invaded by “millions of criminal aliens” who would be sent home, while a state of emergency would be declared to allow the deployment of the military at the southern border with Mexico. The government would recognise “only two genders, male and female”. Support for electric cars would be reversed, and a “national energy emergency” declared to allow the suspension of environmental regulations and more drilling for oil and natural gas.
There were also promises to “stop all wars” and “rapidly bring down costs and prices”. Léonie Chao-Fong has a useful factcheck on some of the claims Trump made.
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The guests | Tech overlords and a Hamburglar hat
Though many fewer guests were able to attend the indoor event, there was still space for a roster of tech leaders who Joe Biden recently warned constitute “an oligarchy … of extreme wealth, power and influence”. Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Elon Musk of Tesla and X were all there; so too were the CEOs of Apple and Google, Tim Cook and Sunder Pichai. Later, in front of the crowd at the Capital One arena, Musk twice made a gesture that looked very like a fascist salute.
Boris Johnson was also there, along with podcaster Joe Rogan and News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch. And fellow travellers on the populist right from Italy and Argentina, Giorgia Meloni and Javier Milei, were in pride of place.
Along with the Clintons, Barack Obama and George W Bush, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris sat directly behind Trump as he spoke, a small island of passivity as the rest of the crowd applauded frequently throughout the speech. Melania Trump – who incidentally launched a cryptocurrency yesterday – was wearing a baffling hat that made her look quite like the Hamburglar. Jess Cartner-Morley called it “a startlingly sombre fashion choice on what might have been expected to be a day of joy”.
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The crowds | Enthusiasm despite the weather
In bitterly cold weather outside, thousands of Trump supporters joined long queues to get into the Capital One Arena, a 20,000 capacity venue where the inauguration was screened.
Joseph Gedeon went along, and found a mood of unalloyed enthusiasm: “I became political because I felt like for the first time in my life there was a president willing to fight for the common person,” said Jennifer Meredith, who travelled from North Carolina with her daughter. “This is obviously his last election, so we wanted to be here for it.”
On the streets of Washington, meanwhile, about 80 members of the far-right Proud Boys organisation, several of whom have been jailed for their part in the January 6 riot, marched with a Trump banner – and another that read “Proud Boys did nothing wrong”. They said that they were “proud to be back”. There was no sign of a significant anti-Trump presence on the streets.
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The executive orders | More than 100 measures – and a photo opportunity
Trump has made great play of his determination to start with a sweeping set of executive orders that he said would “begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense”. And in a carefully choreographed photo opportunity, he started the process at a desk set up in the centre of the Capital One Arena.
This piece has a useful summary of some of the first steps Trump took, ranging from his border emergency declaration to rescinding 78 Biden-era steps supporting racial equity and combating discrimination against gay and transgender people. And he acted straight away to pardon about 1,500 people involved in the January 6 riots.
He also signed an order withdrawing the US from the Paris climate accord, as he did in his first term in power, and signed another attempting to end birthright citizenship – although that is a constitutional right, and therefore outside his powers.
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Biden’s legacy | Genuine accomplishments overshadowed by a disastrous failure
As Joe Biden leaves office, there is little doubt that he has major policy achievements to his name; but many progressives view his foreign policy agenda as catastrophic, and most analysts consider that any successes have been overwhelmed by his failure to prevent a Trump second term.
In this piece, Katrina vanden Heuvel argues Biden was a “remarkably consequential one-term president” who orchestrated a major economic recovery.
On the other hand, she notes, many of his achievements are likely to be rolled back by Trump, while “his backing of Israel in its genocidal assault on Gaza violated US laws and gave lie to all the US prating about a ‘rules-based order’”.
Mehdi Hasan is withering about Biden’s failure at the task he defined himself as the central goal of his presidency: ending the threat that Donald Trump posed to American democracy.
Where he once argued that Biden was “the most impressive president of my lifetime”, he now considers him the worst other than Trump because of what his choices unleashed: “As Trump vanquished his Republican rivals in the primaries and ascended in the polls, the octogenarian president refused to quit the race and allow a better, younger, more popular, more mentally competent Democratic presidential candidate to run in his place … until it was too late.”
What else we’ve been reading
It’s appeared on Japanese bank notes, printed on hoodies and umbrellas, in Lego sets and miniaturised on the emoji keyboard – The Great Wave off Kanagawa (above) is inescapable. Paula Cocozza has a great piece about why Katsushika Hokusai’s 19th-century woodblock print remains so ubiquitous: “It’s a freeze-frame of a difficult moment, but the composition tells us everything will be OK.” Archie
Catching a whiff of a certain perfume, an old jumper or even just salty sea air can trigger a flood of emotions and memories. Jonas Olofsson argues that smell can and does shape our thoughts, feelings and moods so we should pay more attention to it. Nimo
Kemi Badenoch does not appear to have succeeded in putting the Conservatives’ “era of rapid-onset buyer’s remorse” about their leaders behind them, writes Henry Hill. The problem, he argues, is that in seeking their next Thatcher, the Tories have lost sight of her central insight: “Her will to radically overhaul the party and confront the deep structural problems afflicting Britain.” Archie
Climate scientists have dubbed the extreme swings from ferocious rains to long, dry droughts as “hydroclimate whiplash”, a phenomenon that is on the rise worldwide, Elizabeth Kolbert explains in the New Yorker (£). Nimo
I loved Oliver Wainwright’s short piece celebrating the Chinese city of Chongqing: “a vertically sprawling city that can only be understood in three dimensions … a place where neighbourhoods cling to cliffs, connected by elevated roads 20 storeys up in the air.” Archie
Sport
Football | Second half goals from Marc Cucurella and Noni Madueke saw Chelsea beat Wolves 3-1 and overcome a first-half howler from goalkeeper Robert Sánchez.
Tennis | Paula Badosa became the first woman into the 2025 Australian Open semi-finals after stunning third seed Coco Gauff in straight sets at Melbourne Park. The 7-5, 6-4 victory propelled the Spanish 11th seed into the first grand slam semi-final of her career.
Football | After Ruben Amorim said that his side was the worst Manchester United team of all time, John Brewin runs the rule over some of the previous dud lineups in the club’s history. There’s no definitive answer, of course, but the side that famously got relegated in 1974 is a stinker too, and in 1930/31 they conceded 115 goals.
The front pages
“Trump: ‘I was saved by God to make America great again’” is how the Guardian headlines the past day’s proceedings while the i says simply “Unleashed”. “Trump’s back” – that’s the Metro while the Financial Times has “‘Golden age of America begins now’” and similarly the Times goes with “‘The golden age starts now’”.
Trump is on the front pages everywhere but not always the lead story. “Southport killer plotted massacre at his old school” says the Daily Mail while the Express asks “Why wasn’t dance class killer stopped?” and the Sun says “Why did no one stop him?”. The Telegraph has “Starmer accused over Southport”. The Daily Mirror’s verdict is that the Southport victims were “Failed by the state”.
Today in Focus
The financial time bomb facing special educational needs
Richard Adams reports on the Send funding cliff edge affecting children and their development
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Growing up as a Black child in white foster care in Yorkshire, Tina Shingler struggled with her hair. It was treated as something to get rid of and discard. However, Shingler gradually embraced her natural hair, recognising it as a source of strength rather than shame.
Now 71, she’s relayed her experiences in a “hairmoir”, using her story to inspire others and address identity, racial justice and self-acceptance. In her book she chronicles her journey from having her hair “shorn” in her foster parents’ sitting room to celebrating it as her “force field”. “Yes, it’s hair. But to me, and to many women like me, it means so much,” she says.
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.
