By STEVE PEOPLES, NICHOLAS RICCARDI and BILL BARROW
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s second inaugural address featured similar themes to his first: a sweeping indictment of the country he inherits and grand promises to fix its problems.
Eight years ago, Trump described “American carnage” and promised to end it immediately. On Monday, he declared that the country’s “decline” will end immediately, ushering in “the golden age of America.”
Trump added a long list of policies that sounded more like a State of the Union speech than an Inauguration Day speech. But the broad themes were fundamentally Trumpian, setting himself up as a national savior.
Breaking tradition, the Republican president delivered his remarks from inside the Capitol Rotunda due to the bitter cold outside. He spoke to several hundred elected officials and pro-Trump VIPs, tech titan Elon Musk among them.
Here are some takeaways from the speech:
A promise of an American ‘golden age’
From the start, Trump’s speech tracked his campaign rally approach: big promises of national success due to his leadership, with plenty of sweeping indictments of the status quo.
“The golden age of America begins right now,” Trump said after ticking through the requisite nods to former presidents and other dignitaries. He added several more hyperbolic but nebulous promises: The ”start of a thrilling new era.” A nation “greater, stronger and far more exceptional than ever before.”
“Our sovereignty will be reclaimed. Our safety will be restored. The scales of justice will be rebalanced,” he continued. “Our top priority will be to create a nation that is proud, prosperous and free.”
The underlying presumption, of course, is that Trump is inheriting what he called throughout the 2024 campaign “a failed nation.”
He vowed to fulfill campaign promises to send troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, boost domestic oil production and impose tariffs to “enrich our citizens.”
Trump calls America’s past leadership corrupt
Trump described America’s leadership over the last four years as incompetent and corrupt, echoing some of the darker rhetoric he promoted on a daily basis as a presidential candidate on the campaign trail.
He did not call out his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, or any other Democrats by name, but there was no question about whom he was talking.
“We now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home, while at the same time stumbling into a continuing catalog of catastrophic events abroad,” Trump charged.
He said the current government protects dangerous immigrants instead of law-abiding citizens, protects foreign borders at the expense of American borders and “can no longer deliver basic services in times of emergency.”
And, as he often does, Trump cast him self as uniquely positioned to fix it all.
“All of this will change starting today, and it will change very quickly,” he said.
As of Monday, Republicans control all three branches of the federal government.
Recasting his assassination attempt
Trump mentioned the attempt to assassinate him in Butler, Pennsylvania, using striking language to describe how he survived.
“I was saved by God to make America great again,” Trump said to applause.
The shooter was an apparently disturbed 20-year-old local man. Trump baselessly implied the attack was part of a conspiracy to stop him from returning to office.
Lying about wildfires
Trump’s lament about the state of the nation included disbelief that the fires around Los Angeles were still burning “without a token defense.”
That’s false. Firefighters have been battling the blazes since they erupted and have made significant progress. The Eaton fire is 87% contained, and the Palisades fire 59% contained, according to CalFire.
A different scene indoors
Inaugural speeches are traditionally delivered on the National Mall in front of tens of thousands of cheering supporters, many of them average voters from across America, who traveled great distance to witness history in person.
Not this one.
Trump delivered his speech in front of a crowd estimated at only around 600 in the Capitol Rotunda, which was limited to members of Congress, Cabinet nominees, Trump’s family, business leaders and political VIPs. In fact, a collection of tech titans, led by Musk and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, were positioned in front of Cabinet members in some cases. And while the business leaders were allowed to bring their spouses, members of Congress were not. Thousands of his supporters watched a broadcast of the swearing-in at Capitol One Arena instead.
It’s noteworthy that four years ago, violent Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol Rotunda as members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence feared for their lives. Pence attended Monday, though his wife, former second lady Karen Pence, did not.
Riccardi reported from Denver, and Barrow reported from Atlanta.