U.S. President Donald Trump takes the oath of office from U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts during inauguration ceremonies in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. on Jan. 20.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
A president like no other, speaking in a moment like no other, delivered an inaugural address like no other.
At the height of his powers, Donald Trump spoke of “a thrilling new era of national success” – and proceeded to outline an agenda that ranged as widely as his speech: deporting immigrants who entered the country illegally, ending the environmental measures Congress passed in 2022, returning the Panama Canal to American ownership, changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, dictating that the American government would recognize “there are only two genders.” Also, in an implicit threat to Canada (but without mentioning the country by name), he reiterated his promise to impose stiff tariffs.
He did not vow the “malice toward none” that Abraham Lincoln promised in his 1865 address. He did not speak of “a thousand points of light,” signifying Americans’ selflessness, which was part of George H.W. Bush’s 1989 speech. He did not thank his predecessor, as Jimmy Carter did in 1977 when he saluted Gerald Ford “for all he has done to heal our land.”
Nor did he reflect the “inner well of serenity” that the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin found in Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose 1933 inaugural address rallied a country beset by the ravages of the Great Depression. But his remarks were redolent of how FDR spoke in that address of “broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.”
Presidential inaugural addresses usually reflect American achievement and promise. Mr. Trump did hit those notes, and vowed that “America will soon be greater, stronger and far more exceptional than ever before.”
But these quadrennial rites usually show direction rather than specificity, and traditionally have been light on policy detail. Mr. Trump made references to declaring a “national emergency” at the country’s southern border (a vow that received a standing ovation in the Capitol rotunda, where the inauguration had been moved to avoid dangerously low temperatures), expanding American energy resources (“Drill, baby, drill!”) and an effort to “stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America” (a pledge with unclear implications).
The result was an inaugural address that had more specific policy references than perhaps any since that of William Howard Taft, who in the fourth paragraph of his 1909 remarks spoke of “a reorganization of the Department of Justice” – a goal Mr. Trump had in mind when he referred to “the vicious, violent and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department.” He has repeatedly used that phrase to characterize the legal actions brought against him since he left the White House in 2021.
”Presidential inaugural speeches are often like marriage ceremonies, with generalized promises followed by a honeymoon,” said Donald Critchlow, a historian who heads the Center for American Institutions at Arizona State University. “Unlike most inaugural speeches, President Trump’s was specific and aggressive.”
Mr. Trump, whose 2024 victory came in an election in which he neared but did not reach a majority, offered neither succour nor comfort to his critics, and his rhetoric was in the signature Trump style, which pleases his supporters and infuriates his opponents. “From this moment on, America’s decline is over,” he said. He pledged that “our nation’s glorious destiny will no longer be denied” and told Americans, “I have been tested and challenged more than any president,” adding, “My life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.”
Later, in a postinaugural speech that might have been a second verse, he claimed again that he had actually won the 2020 election.
But his set-piece inaugural remarks generally were forward-looking, revealing as much about the man as about the character of the country he is seeking to shape: unimpeded by precedent, unimpressed by the niceties of diplomacy, unconcerned about other nations’ interests and perhaps even their sovereignty. His speech foretold a presidency he appears to hope will be as muscular as that of Theodore Roosevelt, known for his maxim, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Roosevelt said of his unilateral 1903 action, “I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate.”
Mr. Trump is the only person aside from Grover Cleveland to serve non-consecutive presidential terms. In his 1889 inaugural address, Benjamin Harrison, whose administration came between the two Cleveland terms, spoke of the “mutual covenant” that is implicit in a presidential inauguration.
“The [president] covenants to serve the whole body of the people by a faithful execution of the laws,” Harrison said, “so that they may be the unfailing defence and security of those who respect and observe them, and that neither wealth, station, nor the power of combinations shall be able to evade their just penalties or to wrest them from a beneficent public purpose to serve the ends of cruelty or selfishness.”
In what might be regarded as an homage to that spirit, Monday’s ceremony began with an introduction by Senator Amy Klobuchar that reflected Democrats’ darkest fears about the second Trump administration – and that served as a promissory note of Democratic opposition to any excesses by the new administration.
The Minnesota lawmaker, herself a 2016 Democratic presidential candidate but now the chair of the bipartisan committee that has been planning the inauguration, offered what might be considered a pointed pre-emptive counter to Mr. Trump’s remarks, noting that the new President must “promise to be faithful” to the Constitution. She also spoke of “equal justice under law.”
In his reintroduction as President, Mr. Trump clearly hoped he would match Franklin Roosevelt in an important way – to deliver in 2025 what Roosevelt historian James MacGregor Burns called, in reference to the 32nd president’s first inaugural address, “a speech [that] was more than a speech – it was an act that loosened a tidal wave of support behind the new administration.”
The measure of that is days, weeks, maybe months ahead.