• Slug: Trump Inauguration. 770 words.
• Photos, captions below.

By Madeline Bates
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump returned to office with an ambitious agenda intended to reassert American leadership and undo four years of Democrat Joe Biden’s policies.

“The golden age of America begins right now,” Trump said in the Capitol Rotunda, at the first indoor inauguration since Ronald Reagan’s in 1985 when Washington was even more frigid than the mid-teens chill that hit Monday.

The 47th president promised a “thrilling new era of national success” during which challenges will be “annihilated” and the “radical and corrupt establishment” that sought to keep him out of the White House loses its clout.

Eight years earlier when he was sworn in as the 45th president, Trump described “American carnage” that had left cities infested with crime, unemployment and despair. He touched on a similar theme Monday as he promised to reverse a broad national “decline.”

“America will soon be greater, stronger and far more exceptional than ever before,” he said. “For American citizens, Jan. 20, 2025, is Liberation Day.”

The speech mixed lofty rhetoric with specifics, many of them eagerly awaited by conservatives and somewhat alarming to Trump’s critics.

He vowed a torrent of executive orders, including an emergency declaration on the U.S.-Mexico border and another for the nation’s energy sector to justify lifting restrictions on oil and gas production.

He promised an end to birthright citizenship – automatic citizenship for anyone born in the United States even if their parents aren’t American citizens.

He declared that going forward, the U.S. government will recognize only two genders: male and female.

He promised to quickly start to deport millions of people in the country illegally, send troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.

He promised to retake the Panama Canal, arguing that China has too much control over the critical shipping route. The United States gave up control to Panama at the end of 1999 under a treaty signed in 1977.

He pledged to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” discarding a name in use since the late 16th century.

He promised to roll back prices at the pump and grocery store, reversing the impacts of inflation over the last four years.

He proposed creation of an “External Revenue Service” to administer the tariffs he plans to impose on imports from Canada, Mexico, China and other trading partners – a play on the Internal Revenue Service.

He claimed a mandate from both voters and heaven, recalling his brush with death last July, when a gunman grazed his ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“I was saved by God to Make America Great Again,” he said.

He also alluded to the criminal charges he faced related to Jan. 6, handling of classified documents and hush money payments to an adult actress.

“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,” he said.

Trump’s speech included assurances to MAGA Republicans and other conservatives that he will ward off efforts to “socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.”

Trump noted that the inauguration fell on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and promised to honor the legacy of the civil rights icon.

Following the ceremony, Trump and Vice President JD Vance escorted Biden and wife Jill to the helicopter known as Marine One when a sitting president is aboard; for this flight to Joint Base Andrews, the call sign was Nighthawk 46.

After returning inside, Trump and Vance spoke to roughly 600 overflow guests in Emancipation Hall in the Capitol.

The second speech was unscripted and included tough criticism of Biden for a flurry of pardons in his final hours.

Some 250,000 tickets were issued for the outdoor ceremony that Trump scrapped three days ahead of the inauguration due to the cold snap. Some of the guests got tickets for a watch party at the 20,000-seat Capital One Arena. Following the speeches of Trump, speakers at the arena included Cabinet nominees; billionaire Elon Musk; Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel; and Charlie Kirk, leader of Turning Point USA, an Arizona-based conservative group that targets college students.

Trump’s formal speech included repeated insinuations that Biden had left the country weak.

Now, Trump said, “America will be respected again and admired again. … We will be proud, we will be strong and we will win like never before.”

“From this day on,” he said. “the United States of America will be a free, sovereign and independent nation.”

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