The Republican is the second US leader ever to be elected for non-consecutive terms
President-elect Donald Trump and his wife Melania after a service at St. John’s Episcopal Church across from the White House, January 20, 2025. © AP Photo/Matt Rourke
Donald Trump is scheduled to take the oath of office as the 47th president of the United States at the US Capitol on Monday.
The event has been moved indoors on account of sub-zero temperatures in Washington, DC. There have also been security concerns, given that Trump barely survived an assassination attempt last July on the campaign trail.
Just a week later, President Joe Biden bowed out of the race in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump proceeded to win the Electoral College, the popular vote, and all seven swing states in the November 5 election.
Trump is only the second US president ever to be sworn in for non-consecutive terms. Grover Cleveland was the 22nd (1885-1889) and the 24th president (1893-1897).
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20 January 2025
17:58 GMT
“I stand before you now as proof that you should never believe that something is impossible to do. In America, impossible is what we do best,” Trump said, referring to his political comeback and near-miraculous survival. “We are Americans. The future is ours. And our Golden Age has just begun.”
Donald J. Trump Sworn In as the 47th President of the United StatesAmerica is BACK. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/Fi7k78Gnp1
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 20, 2025
- 17:58 GMT
The US will change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and restore the name of Mount McKinley in Alaska, Trump said. Washington also has designs on the Panama Canal, he added, because “we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama – and we’re taking it back.”
- 17:56 GMT
“We will forge a society that is color-blind and merit-based,” Trump announced, establishing as US government policy that “there are only two genders: male and female.”
All members of the military fired over Biden’s vaccination mandates will be reinstated with full back pay and all “indoctrination” – presumably referring to critical race theory or “equity” policies of the former administration – will end.
- 17:56 GMT
“The Golden Age of America begins right now,” Trump said in his inaugural speech. In the 30-minute address, he announced that “America will soon be greater, stronger, and far more exceptional than ever before.”
Trump vowed to secure the US-Mexico border, declare drug cartels as terrorist organizations, stop censorship and political prosecutions, drill for oil and gas, and make the US a manufacturing country once again.
- 17:22 GMT
In his inauguration speech, Trump said his election is a mandate to “completely and totally reverse” the “many betrayals that have taken place,” in the last four years. Referring to his attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania last year, Trump said he believed he was “saved by God to make America great again.”
🚨 TRUMP: "Those who wish to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom, and indeed, take my life.""An assassin's bullet ripped through my ear, but I felt then, and now, that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again." pic.twitter.com/rbQKbRhS42
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 20, 2025
- 17:03 GMT
Donald J. Trump has taken his oath of office as the 47th president of the United States, administered by Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court John Roberts.
- 17:03 GMT
J.D. Vance has taken the oath of office as US vice-president, administered by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
- 16:43 GMT
As Biden walked into the Capitol Rotunda, the White House published his blanket pardons for his brothers James and Francis, sister Valerie, and their spouses, for all crimes they may have committed from January 1, 2014 to this day.
- 16:40 GMT
Biden and Harris have arrived at the Capitol Rotunda to the tune of the presidential fanfare ‘Hail to the Chief’ for one last time. They were followed in by Trump and Vance.
- 16:24 GMT
Senator John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, has caused a minor scandal by arriving at the inauguration ceremony wearing shorts and a hooded sweatshirt. Every other member of the Senate and the House of Representatives attending the event came in appropriate formalwear.
JUST IN: Senator John Fetterman arrives at the inauguration in gym shortspic.twitter.com/EvaDs14PzR
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 20, 2025
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