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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Trump sworn in for second term as president, declaring start of ‘golden age of America’

President Donald Trump is sworn in by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts as his family looks on during his inauguration ceremony as the 47th president in the Rotunda at the Capitol on Monday morning in Washington, D.C.  (KENNY HOLSTON/New York Times)

WASHINGTON – Donald Trump became the 47th president of the United States on Monday as he took the oath of office surrounded by family members, lawmakers, former presidents and the world’s richest men under the Capitol dome on a frigid day in D.C.

While supporters who had hoped to witness the ceremonial transfer of power in its traditional location outside the Capitol instead watched from an arena across town due to cold weather, Trump delivered a speech that paired promises of unity and prosperity with the dire rhetoric that defined his campaign. Reactions from Northwest elected officials suggested there will be no such unity, even if opposition to Trump is more muted than when he took office eight years earlier.

“The golden age of America begins right now,” he said, before describing a status quo in which “the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair.” But the president promised that any challenges facing the American people would be “annihilated by this great momentum that the world is now witnessing.”

He issued a sharp rebuke of the federal government, decrying a “radical and corrupt establishment” that “has extracted power and wealth from our citizens.” He laid out the challenges he believes the country is facing, including a public health system that “cannot deliver in times of disaster,” and a public education system that teaches children to be ashamed of themselves and “hate our country.”

“From this moment on, America’s decline is over,” Trump said, and he repeated the idea that he survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania last summer by the grace of God, so that he might “make America great again.”

Northwest Republicans who attended the inauguration expressed excitement about Trump’s policy changes and the language in his prepared remarks. Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane, said the peaceful transfer of power with the outgoing president’s participation – something that didn’t happen after Biden’s victory in 2020 – “represents the best of what American democracy is about.”

“I thought it was a wonderful moment for our country and I feel optimistic and energized about the future of America,” Baumgartner said. “I thought he delivered a message very much in line with his campaign, and the American people clearly knew what they were voting for when they voted for President Trump. And we’re looking forward to a new day in American governance.”

Democrats were not moved by Trump’s appeals for unity. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said on the Senate floor on Monday night that the president “had an opportunity to lay out an agenda that could bring this country together,” but he didn’t do that.

“I was deeply disappointed to see President Trump air the same old partisan grievances we’ve heard about for years,” Murray said. “He won the election and yet he still couldn’t help but once again tick through a lengthy re-run of perceived wrongs. He made so many promises to help working people, but he sat several billionaires ahead of his own cabinet.”

Several of the world’s richest men – including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram – were given prime seats behind Trump during the inauguration, while cabinet nominees and other traditionally high-ranking guests jostled for space. Each of those billionaires made large donations to the inauguration and have publicly sought to win Trump’s favor.

Rep. Emily Randall, a freshman Democrat from Bremerton, said she was one of many Facebook users who logged in on Monday to find that their accounts had followed Trump without their knowledge. She shared a screenshot showing the unexpected change, which other users reported on Monday.

After addressing his supporters at Capital One Arena in downtown D.C. on Monday evening, Trump signed dozens of executive orders, including to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Accords; pardon or commute the sentences of some 1,600 of his supporters charged for their roles in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021; and redefine birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by the 14th amendment to the Constitution.

He also signed an order designed to save TikTok after Congress passed a bipartisan bill spearheaded by Baumgartner’s predecessor, former Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Spokane, that forces the viral video app’s Chinese parent company to divest or face a ban in the United States. At a pre-inauguration rally in D.C. on Sunday, Trump explained how he reversed his position after once supporting a ban because using TikTok helped him fare better among young voters, saying, “Can you believe what I’ll do to win an election?”

After his inaugural address in the Capitol Rotunda, where he seemingly avoided the off-script digressions that are the trademark of his rallies, Trump walked to Emancipation Hall in the nearby Capitol Visitor Center and delivered a more freewheeling speech to a room filled with Republican governors, foreign diplomats, lawmakers’ spouses and other VIPs.

After complimenting the crowd – which included Gov. Brad Little of Idaho along with YouTube celebrity brothers Logan and Jake Paul – as a “younger, far more beautiful audience than I just spoke to,” Trump ad-libbed comments that he said first lady Melania Trump and Vice President JD Vance had asked him to scrub from his earlier speech.

“I was going to talk about the J6 hostages,” Trump said, referring to his supporters who were convicted of crimes ranging from trespassing to assaulting police officers during the Capitol riot. “But you’ll be happy, because, you know, it’s actions, not words,” he added, before accusing former President Joe Biden of abusing his own powers to pardon.

In the waning hours of his presidency, Biden issued pre-emptive pardons to shield people targeted by Trump and his allies from potential prosecution, while emphasizing that the act shouldn’t be taken to mean that the pardon recipients had done anything wrong. Among them are the staff and members of the House select committee that investigated the riot – including former GOP Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois – as well as the police officers who testified before that panel.

Others pardoned by Biden include retired Gen. Mark Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who later criticized Trump, and several members of Biden’s family.

“Why are we trying to help a guy like Milley?” Trump said. “Why are we helping Liz Cheney? Liz Cheney is a disaster, she’s a crying lunatic. And crying Adam Kinzinger.”

While some Democrats have criticized Biden’s use of the pardon power, especially for his own relatives, Republicans have avoided publicly challenging Trump’s insistence on freeing and absolving people who ransacked the Capitol and beat police officers while GOP lawmakers fled to hiding places four years ago.

Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, declined to comment on any potential pardons by Trump in an interview Monday afternoon, before the president issued the pardons and commutations.

Baumgartner said Biden’s spate of pardons “really risks eating away at the sense of rule of law in America,” but he didn’t extend that warning to the actions Trump had promised to take.

“It sets a terrible precedent,” the Spokane lawmaker said of Biden’s pardons. “I mean, it’s hard to claim you’re the guardian of democratic norms when you act like a banana republic gangster heading out the door.”

While Baumgartner called the Capitol riot “a sad moment in American history” and said he “would hope that those that committed violent offenses were not pardoned,” he added that some Trump supporters who were convicted of relatively minor offenses “seem to have been made political scapegoats to make a broader political point.”

“We’re a republic, not a monarchy, so the presidential pardons should be used with great prudence – and rarely – to serve a greater national purpose, similar to how presidents did after the wars and what I believe Ford did with Nixon,” he said. “It is a genie that I hope goes back in the bottle, so to speak.”

Later on Monday, Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of nearly all of the convicted rioters, including some who had been convicted of seditious conspiracy and for beating police officers with blunt weapons.

Trump repeated his disproven accusations that the 2020 election had been stolen and added that attempts to steal the 2024 election were foiled because his victory was “too big to rig.”

In his inaugural address, Trump promised to bring down gas prices and increase American energy exports, to use federal law enforcement agencies to dismantle foreign gangs and to overhaul trade. He declared he would create an “External Revenue Service” focused on tariffs and taxes on foreign imports and the “Department of Government Efficiency” to cut regulations.

He pledged to end policies that “social engineer” race and gender “into every aspect of public and private life,” to “forge a society that’s color-blind and merit based.” It would now be the policy of the United States that “there are only two genders, male and female,” he said to loud applause.

He reiterated that the U.S. would take back the Panama Canal from the nation of Panama and rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, arguing that America will regain its strength on the world stage.

“For American citizens, Jan. 20, 2025, is Liberation Day,” Trump said.

“This inauguration has a very, very different feel than his first one,” said Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, as he was walking to his seat in the Capitol before the ceremony. “And it isn’t just the inauguration. It’s just the general euphoria around this. He comes in much more experienced and obviously with a very substantial vote margin and very committed to getting things done. It’s just entirely different this time.”

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., sat next to Risch during the ceremony and issued a terse statement afterward.

“The 47th President was sworn in today,” Cantwell said. “I attended the inauguration to witness the peaceful transfer of power. While I didn’t agree with many of the statements he made in his inaugural address, I stand ready to work with him on policies that will promote the interests of the State of Washington, and challenge him when the policies don’t.”

After Trump took his seat, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, noted that the United States will soon celebrate its 250th birthday.

Warning of the “hot mess of division,” she called for “a generosity of spirit despite our differences.”

The inauguration was originally planned to take place on the West Front of the Capitol, overlooking the National Mall, but was moved indoors for the first time since 1985 in response to the frigid temperature in the nation’s capital, which was 27 degrees when the event began.

President William Henry Harrison famously fell ill and died after he delivered the longest inaugural address in U.S. presidential history, while refusing to wear an overcoat, on a chilly day in 1841. The 78-year-old Trump, the nation’s oldest president to be inaugurated with his own proclivity for long speeches, didn’t take that risk.

Most of the Trump supporters who planned to attend the inauguration outdoors instead watched from Capital One Arena, a sports venue a mile away, while a smaller number of VIP supporters – including the comedian and podcaster Theo Von and the Paul brothers, YouTube celebrities who have dabbled in boxing and professional wrestling – watched from Emancipation Hall, a large room in the Capitol visitor center.

Sitting in a room filled with governors, foreign diplomats and Medal of Honor recipients, Von – who famously talked about using cocaine when he interviewed Trump during the campaign – caused a stir when his folding chair collapsed under him during the ceremony. He got up and took a new seat between the Paul brothers, while Irish mixed martial artist and professional boxer Conor McGregor looked on from nearby.

Many more Trump supporters, tens of thousands of whom arrived in D.C. from across the country, watched the proceedings Monday from screens across the city, including hundreds who gathered at the Museum of the Bible.

Trump took the oath of office from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Just before, Vice President JD Vance was sworn in by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Spokane County GOP Chair Rob Linebarger issued a statement on Sunday listing five actions Trump should take on Day 1 of his presidency. At the top of the list is “The Unconditional Pardon of all of all the victims of J6 tyranny, the immediate release of all J6 political prisoners, and appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate, prosecute and incarcerate all responsible for the political persecution of thousands of innocent Americans.”

Linebarger also called for the U.S. to “Drill Baby Drill,” words Trump repeated verbatim on Monday.

Reporter Emry Dinman contributed to this report.