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President Donald Trump used his second inaugural address on Monday to paint a grim picture of the country he now leads. And then he upped the ante by marching over to supporters nearby to give the speech he said his aides wouldn’t let him deliver: a rambling series of grievances, gimmicks, and gloating.
“I think this was a better speech than the one I made upstairs,” Trump said as he circled for a much overdue closing. “I gave you the A-plus treatment.”
Only an hour into his second term as President, Trump used his unscripted appearances to renew his claims about having won the 2016 election, his denials about what actually unfolded on Jan. 6, 2021, and his barbs against political foes Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Liz Cheney, and Adam Kinzinger, whom he branded “a super-cryer. I never saw the guy not crying.”
Everything old is new again in Trump’s Washington, but that doesn’t mean it stands to be any less acrid. If anything, all signs point to a darker, more aggressive agenda.
When Trump arrived in Washington eight years ago, he shocked the establishment with a speech now short-handed as “American Carnage.” This sequel was similar in its angry, bleak tone but amped up with little of the polish that some in Washington had hoped would signal Trump’s second term might be less spiteful than the first go-around. The caustic posture made it clear that the second Trump term would not be constrained in any meaningful way.
“From this moment on, America’s decline is over,” Trump said in the vetted speech as his predecessor looked on.
Even so, Trump said Vice President J.D. Vance and First Lady Melania Trump convinced him to tone down the main event. But after he took the oath and saw President Joe Biden leave the Capitol for one last flight on Marine One, Trump made his way to the Capitol Visitors Center to give the uncensored rough cut that sounded even more like the disjointed vamp he delivered a night earlier in a sports arena.
“They said, ‘Please don’t bring that up right now. You can bring it up tomorrow.’ I said, ‘How ’bout now?’” Trump said during his do-over inaugural, mentioning looming pardons for those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
It was a fitting end to a campaign season that included four indictments, one conviction, and two assassination attempts.
The hype machine around Trump is hitting its high-water mark. In coordinated comments in recent weeks, those close to Trump have made clear anything resembling business as usual was too much to hope for after Monday at noon.
“It’s goodbye, Joe Biden. Goodbye, Kamala Harris. Goodbye, Democrats. And hello to the golden age of America,” Trump deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said Sunday evening at that campaign rally.
Read More: ‘He’s at the Apex of Power Now’: A Preview of Trump’s Second Term
Elsewhere in the event, former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly used her turn at the podium to mock Jennifer Lopez, Meryl Streep, and Oprah Winfrey.
“In America, we have the right to free speech, we have the right to offend, to provoke, to annoy, and to stand up for what we believe in even if you find it controversial,” she said. “We have the right not to use the words you try to force on us, like your preferred pronouns, or words like anti-racist or chest-beating.”
That hostile default is one that pervaded all of the welcome-home events for Trump. As the crowds around Washington gathered, it was clear that much of the empowered political movement was ready for its time in control. It was a fighting spirit that stands to upend Washington in ways that are still unknown.
Trump rode back to office with promises of cutting taxes, ending inflation, slashing prices, raising wages, and reopening domestic factories. Abroad, he pledged to end the war in Ukraine, tumult in the Middle East, and act as a stronger check on China. While he has since walked back some of those promises, they proved sufficient to mobilize voters to side with him over Kamala Harris, who sat in the front row Monday and watched her rival claim the prize she sought as he pledged to plant a U.S. flag on the surface of Mars.
“This is what victory feels like,” the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, told a crowd Monday afternoon at a rally that followed the formal transfer of power. “I’m so excited for the future.”
The promises of retribution were at the fore, too, including for former health czar Anthony Fauci, who received a preemptive pardon from Biden in his final hours.
“I never met anybody in prison who did as bad stuff as those people,” former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro said, referring to Fauci and others. “Time for a little accountability perhaps.”
That muscular threat started from the top with Trump pumping himself—and his supporters—up. “Here I am. The American people have spoken,” Trump said in the Capitol Rotunda on Monday.
Now, Americans are standing by to hear the reply.
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