Fiery Trump offers nationalist vision to end ‘this American carnage’
In his first words as the nation’s 45th president, Donald John Trump presented a protectionist, isolationist vision of America during a polished 16-minute speech that evoked his unapologetic campaign and served both as an ode to the “forgotten” people who elected him and a rebuke of both political parties.
“Today, we’re not transferring power from one administration to another, or from one party to another, but we’re transferring power from Washington D.C. and giving it back to you, the people,” Trump told an excited crowd gathered under damp skies for his inauguration. “For too long a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.... That all changes starting right here and right now. Because this moment is your moment. It belongs to you.”
Vowing to restore the nation’s schools, industry, military, and to “never let you down,” Trump, the only president never to have previously held public or military office, said he will end the slide of a nation that has been too deferential to other countries. He promised to secure the nation’s borders, expand airports and railways, and to focus inward.
“We have spent trillions and trillions of dollars overseas while America's infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay. We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon. One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores without even a thought about the millions and millions of workers who were left behind,” he said.
“We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, every foreign capital and every hall of power. From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first. America first.”
Trump’s speech, in which he promised to snuff out “radical Islamic terrorism” and spoke of Americans as “God’s people,” began just after he was sworn in, at exactly 12:00 p.m. Friday. He placed his left hand on two Bibles — one used by Abraham Lincoln when he became president in 1861 and the other given to Trump by his mother in 1955 — raised his right hand and, repeating after Chief Justice John Roberts, swore the most solemn words in American democracy’s vaunted peaceful transfer of power: to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
From artillery on the west front of the U.S. Capitol reverberated a 21-gun salute. From hundreds of thousands of people huddled as far as the eye could see under damp gray skies along the National Mall came a roar of unfiltered joy. They had witnessed the inauguration of an unprecedented president, a brash New York celebrity developer who channeled deeply felt dissatisfaction with a rapidly changing global order into an astonishingly successful, unorthodox campaign of populist nationalism.
A version of his inaugural speech, which lasted just under 17 minutes, is said to have been drafted at his Palm Beach estate of Mar-a-Lago, his winter White House. It was at times conciliatory — he praised Barack Obama and spoke about unifying a divided country through patriotism — but the bulk of his speech was defiant and reminiscent of his polarizing campaign.
And the crowd loved it. They ended his speech with him by chanting “Make America Great Again.” One man in the audience yelled, to no one apparently, “This is crazy. Craaaazy! Woohoo!”
As Trump walked away from the lectern and shook Obama’s hand, the now-former president mouthed the words “Good job.”
The momentous day felt surreal even to the people who had devoted months to electing Trump and poured triumphantly into the nation’s capital, sporting unmistakeable “Make America Great Again” baseball caps and bright red, white and blue winter beanies that read, simply, “TRUMP.”
“My gosh, we have a new president, and we helped it happen,” said Juan Fiol, a 44-year-old Trump campaign volunteer from Kendale Lakes who made the trip Tuesday to D.C. and watched the inauguration from the steps of the Capitol.
As the 70-year-old Trump took the 35-word presidential oath, his wife, Melania, and their 10-year-old son, Barron, looked on behind him. A few steps away were his four adult children — Donald Jr., Ivanka, Eric and Tiffany. Also on hand: President Barack Obama, who along with his wife, Michelle, will jet off one last time Friday on the executive 747 airplane — no longer designated Air Force One for an ex-president — to Palm Springs, California, for a desert vacation.
An ailing former President George H.W. Bush was absent (“My doctor says if I sit outside in January, it will likely put me six feet under,” he wrote Trump, excusing himself), but all other living ex-presidents — Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush — were present. So was Trump’s rival, Hillary Clinton, who seemed relaxed and, on occasion, smiled.
Minutes before Trump took his oath, Vice President Mike Pence was sworn in by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas.
An anxious, excited crowd, filled with no shortage of red Make America Great Again hats, at times chanted “USA!” and “Trump!” as they waited for the president-elect to shed the hyphen. But the morning was also marked by protestors, who according to the Washington Post and USA Today attempted to block attendees from entering the mall at several locations and clashed with police after smashing ATMs and throwing rocks.
John and Heather Paulson, a Jacksonville couple that two years ago moved to Virginia, were among the inaugural attendees who had trouble finding entry into the lawn due to Black Lives Matter protestors who were blocking their way near Judicial Square.
“We didn’t really want to get in the middle of all that,” Heather, 35, said, gesturing toward the chanting protesters who had linked arms to block the way.
The nation’s 58th inauguration comprised three days of revelry in Washington, which bustled — at least in the areas around the celebration — with overjoyed crowds of Trump supporters who had traveled in from across the country. Official crowd estimates were not immediately available for the inauguration, but overhead shots suggested the number was smaller than the 2 million who turned out to the 2009 inaugural of the first black president.
In intensely blue Washington, neighborhoods away from the Capitol, Mall and White House seemed almost deserted, with glum residents reluctant to bid farewell to the Obamas and welcome the Trumps. In addition to hawking Trump gear, some street peddlers offered “Good-bye, Obama” memorabilia.
Trump enters office with the lowest incoming-president approval in modern times, following a starkly polarizing election in which he lost the popular vote and a tumultuous, 72-day transition in which the then-president-elect made few overt attempts at conciliation. Trump appointed no Hispanics — and no Democrats, as is tradition — to his Cabinet. Six days before his swearing-in, he was feuding with a civil-rights icon and congressman on Twitter, prompting at least 67 Democratic lawmakers — including three from Florida — to skip the inauguration.
But the political math favors Trump: Republicans control both chambers of Congress (and a majority of governorships and state legislatures) and could empower the new president to enact a sweeping agenda — assuming conservative lawmakers find agreement with a president of unfixed ideology sometimes at odds with their own.
As is tradition after the swearing-in, Trump was scheduled to have lunch in the Capitol with members of Congress before embarking on the inaugural parade up Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. He’s expected to speak — and dance — in the evening at three inaugural balls, including the Armed Services ball.
The Trumps and Pences began their day with a religious service at St. John’s Episcopal Church, also in keeping with past inaugural protocol. Trump and his wife then shared a morning tea and coffee breakfast with the Obamas at the White House — one final, private meeting before one administration ended, and another began.
Miami Herald staff writer Joey Flechas and freelancers Emily Cochrane and Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.
This story was originally published January 20, 2017 at 1:35 PM with the headline "Fiery Trump offers nationalist vision to end ‘this American carnage’."