New Delhi:

Donald Trump took oath as the 47th President of the United States Monday, capping a remarkable turnaround in fortunes that nosedived after the riots in Washington, D.C. in January 2021 and hit rock bottom in May 2024, when he was convicted of felonies by a New York court.

Trump now becomes the first ex-President to be convicted of felony crimes – the jury found him guilty on all 34 charges, including those in a scheme to illegally influence the 2020 presidential election, the loss of which led to the riots – and the first convicted felon to be President.

Minutes after being administered the oath by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Trump – who survived assassination attempts – declared, “The ‘Golden Age of America’ begins now”.

Trump had vowed to sign a flurry of executive orders, including announcing stringent curbs on immigrant and mass deportation of illegal migrants, as well as banning transgender athletes from women’s sports, and undoing his predecessor’s directives on diversity and oil drilling.

The president will also declare a national emergency at the Mexico border, send armed troops there, and resume a policy forcing asylum seekers to wait there for court dates, officials said.

He will also seek to end so-called birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children whose parents lack legal status, a move some legal scholars have said would be unconstitutional.

Trump’s deputy, JD Vance, was sworn in as Vice President just before him.

President Joe Biden, center left, and first lady Jill Biden, left, speak with President-elect Donald Trump, center right, and Melania Trump, right, upon arriving at the White House, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington.
| Photo Credit: AP

Donald Trump, who overcame impeachments, criminal indictments and a pair of assassination attempts to win another term in the White House, will be sworn in as the 47th president Monday, taking charge as Republicans assume unified control of Washington and set out to reshape the country’s institutions.

Mr. Trump will act swiftly after the ceremony, with executive orders already prepared for his signature to clamp down on border crossings, increase fossil fuel development and end diversity and inclusion programs across the federal government.

He plans to declare the beginning of “a thrilling new era of national success” as “a tide of change is sweeping the country,” according to excerpts of his inaugural address.

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The executive orders are the first step in what Mr. Trump will call “the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense.”

Frigid weather is rewriting the pageantry of the day. Mr. Trump’s swearing-in was moved indoors to the Capitol Rotunda — the first time that has happened in 40 years — and the inaugural parade was replaced by an event at a downtown arena. Throngs of Trump supporters who descended on the city to watch the inaugural ceremony on the West Front of the Capitol from the National Mall will be left to find somewhere else to view the festivities.

“We needed a change. The country was going in the wrong direction in so many ways, economically, geopolitically, so many social issues at home,” said Joe Morse, 56, of New Jersey, who got in line with his sons at 11 p.m. Sunday and secured a spot on the main floor at Capitol One Arena to watch a livestream of the inauguration.

Mr. Trump began the day alongside much of his incoming Cabinet with a prayer service at St. John’s Episcopal Church. He and his wife, Melania, were later greeted at the North Portico of the executive mansion by outgoing President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden for the customary tea and coffee reception. It was a stark departure from four years ago, when Mr. Trump refused to acknowledge Mr. Biden’s victory or attend his inauguration.

“Welcome home,” Mr. Biden said to Mr. Trump after the President-elect stepped out of the car.

The two men and their spouses will head to the Capitol in a joint motorcade ahead of the swearing-in.

When Mr. Trump takes the oath of office at noon, he will realize a political comeback without precedent in American history. Four years ago, he was voted out of the White House during an economic collapse caused by the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. Mr. Trump denied his defeat and tried to cling to power. He directed his supporters to march on the Capitol while lawmakers were certifying the election results, sparking a riot that interrupted the country’s tradition of the peaceful transfer of power.

But Mr. Trump never lost his grip on the Republican Party and was undeterred by criminal cases and two assassination attempts as he steamrolled rivals and harnessed voters’ exasperation with inflation and illegal immigration.

“I am ready for a new United States,” said Cynde Bost, 63, from Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

Now Mr. Trump will be the first person convicted of a felony — for falsifying business records related to hush money payments — to serve as President. He will pledge to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution from the same spot that was overrun by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. He’s said that one of his first acts in office will be to pardon many of those who participated in the riot.

Eight years after he first entered the White House as a political newcomer, Mr. Trump is far more familiar with the operations of federal government and emboldened to bend it to his vision. Mr. Trump wants to bring quick change by curtailing immigration, enacting tariffs on imports and rolling back Democrats’ climate and social initiatives.

He has also promised retribution against his political opponents and critics, and placed personal loyalty as a prime qualification for appointments to his administration.

Hours before the inauguration, Mr. Biden issued preemptive pardons to current and former government officials who have been the target of Mr. Trump’s anger, shielding them from the possibility of prosecution. Mr. Biden said in a statement that “these are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing.”

Mr. Trump has pledged to go further and move faster in enacting his agenda than during his first term, and already the country’s political, business and technology leaders have realigned themselves to accommodate Mr. Trump. Democrats who once formed a “resistance” are now divided over whether to work with Mr. Trump or defy him. Billionaires have lined up to meet with Mr. Trump as they acknowledge his unrivaled power in Washington and ability to wield the levers of government to help or hurt their interests.

Long skeptical of American alliances, Mr. Trump’s “America First” foreign policy is being watched warily at home and abroad as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will soon enter its third year and a fragile ceasefire appears to be holding in Gaza after more than 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas.

At the Capitol, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance will be sworn in first, taking the oath read by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on a bible given to him by his great-grandmother. Mr. Trump will follow, using both a family bible and the one used by President Abraham Lincoln at his 1861 inauguration as Chief Justice John Roberts administers his oath.

The inaugural festivities began Saturday, when Mr. Trump arrived in Washington on a government jet and viewed fireworks at his private golf club in suburban Virginia. On Sunday, he laid a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery and rallied his supporters at Washington’s downtown Capital One Arena.

A cadre of billionaires and tech titans who have sought to curry favour with Mr. Trump and have donated handsomely to his inaugural festivities, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, will be in attendance.

Also present will be the head of TikTok, the popular Chinese-owned social media app deemed a national security risk by the U.S. Mr. Trump has promised to lift an effective ban on TikTok through one of many executive orders expected to be issued on Monday as the new president attempts to show quick progress.

Mr. Trump is planning to swiftly reinstitute his 2020 playbook to crackdown on the southern border — again declaring a national emergency, limiting the number of refugees entering the U.S. and deploying the military. He’s expected to take additional actions — including constitutionally questionable ones — such as attempting to end birthright citizenship automatically bestowed on people born in the U.S.

Mr. Trump will also sign an executive order aimed at ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the federal government. The order will direct federal agencies to coordinate with the White House on identifying and terminating DEI programs. Conservatives have long criticized programs that give preference based on race, gender and sexual orientation, arguing they violate the Constitution.

Others orders are expected to allow more oil and gas drilling by rolling back Biden-era policies on domestic energy production and rescind Biden’s recent directive on artificial intelligence.

More changes are planned for the federal workforce. Mr. Trump wants to unwind diversity, equity and inclusion programs known as DEI, require employees to come back to the office and lay the groundwork to reduce staff.

“Expect shock and awe,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

“What I’ve been urging the president, and my colleagues, to do is stay laser-focused on delivering on our promises,” Mr. Cruz said. “And that’s what I expect that we’re going to do.”

With control of Congress, Republicans are also working alongside the incoming Trump administration on legislation that will further roll back Biden administration policies and institute their own priorities.

“The President is going to come in with a flurry of executive orders,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. “And we are going to be working alongside the administration and in tandem.”

FILE – Former President Donald Trump speaks at the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women Lilac Luncheon, June 27, 2023, in Concord, N.H. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
| Photo Credit:
Steven Senne

Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States (U.S.) on Monday (January 20, 2025) at 12 p.m. EST (1700 GMT). The oath-taking will be administrated by the Chief Justice of the U.S. John Roberts.

Also Read: Donald Trump’s inauguration: Schedule and other key details

Incoming Vice President J.D. Vance will also be sworn in with Mr. Trump.

The outgoing President, Democrat Joe Biden, has said he plans to attend the ceremony to witness the transfer of power, a courtesy that Mr. Trump, as the then outgoing President, did not afford him four years earlier.

Also read: Trump meets with GOP senators as supporters cheer his return on eve of inauguration

All living former presidents — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — will attend the function, as will their wives, except for Michelle Obama.

Argentina’s President, Javier Milei, a strong supporter of Trump, has said he will attend, according to reports. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said she hopes to attend. Chinese President Xi Jinping is not attending, despite an invitation, but is sending a senior envoy.

Trump adviser Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Jeff Bezos, executive chairman of Amazon and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, are also attending.

Also read: Mukesh Ambani, wife Nita meet U.S. President-elect Trump ahead of inauguration

During a rally on Sunday (January 20, 2025), Mr. Trump said he would sign several executive actions on Monday (January 21, 2025) covering a range of issues, from ending government programs aimed at ensuring gender and racial diversity in the workplace to securing the southern border with Mexico.

A source familiar with the planning said Trump is preparing to sign more than 200 executive actions on Day One.

(With inputs from Reuters)

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Washington:

Donald Trump touted his ability to “get away with it” as a defining theme of his life story when he first ran for president in 2016 — boasting that he could shoot someone on New York’s Fifth Avenue without losing a single vote.

Fast-forward eight years and America’s incoming 47th president looks like Nostradamus, winning the keys to the White House on Wednesday despite incredible odds.

He is the most controversial man in the country, narrowly avoided being killed in an assassination attempt, and at 78 will become the oldest person to take the Oval Office in US history.

And that’s before throwing in the fact that he’s out on bail in three criminal jurisdictions and fighting gigantic civil penalties for sexual assault and fraud. Despite victory, he faces sentencing in just a few weeks on nearly three-dozen felonies related to his 2016 presidential campaign.

Yet in defeating Democrat Kamala Harris, Trump has once more shown he can defy all political and legal gravity.

Many thought this time he wouldn’t manage.

He’d closed out November of last year with a 47.4 percent average in opinion polls — a number that only shifted by one point upward in the intervening year.

Far from moving to the center, he continued to publicly praise foreign dictators, while threatening fellow Americans with military reprisals. He re-upped his once unprecedented, now trademark, claims that Democrats were trying to rig the election against him.

Trump’s longest-serving chief-of-staff called him a “fascist.”

For most candidates, any of these controversies, let alone the legal issues, would have been career-ending.

Yet for Trump, controversy is all part of the show.

Even an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally that left him bloodied could not keep down the man whose self-branded persona as the ultimate deal-maker has embedded itself in the American psyche.

Now, Trump is about to be reinstalled as the commander in chief of the most powerful military in history, despite a criminal record that would bar him from serving as a private in the army.

And his legal troubles could disappear as the new president — emboldened by presidential immunity from prosecution — issues pardons, fires federal prosecutors and gets backing from a Supreme Court dominated by his allies.

‘Enemy from within’

Born wealthy and growing up as a playboy real estate entrepreneur, Trump astonished the world by winning the presidency on a hard-right platform in 2016 against Democratic heavyweight Hillary Clinton.

The Republican’s first term began with a dark inaugural address evoking “American carnage.”

It ended in mayhem when he refused to accept his defeat by Joe Biden, then rallied supporters before they rushed into Congress on January 6, 2021.

In office, Trump upended every tradition, ranging from the trivial (what got planted in the Rose Garden) to the fundamental (relations with NATO).

Journalists became the “enemy of the people” — a phrase he would later tweak to the “enemy from within” as he called for reprisals against all political opponents.

On the world stage, Trump turned US alliances into transactions as friendly partners like South Korea and Germany were accused of trying to “rip us off.”

By contrast, he repeatedly praised — and continues to praise — the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

Throughout, he increasingly dominated the Republican Party, which dropped all opposition and ended up winning him acquittal in two impeachment proceedings.

That loyalty to Trump only deepened after he left the White House, with senior Republicans regularly trooping to see him at his palatial Florida residence and in the dingy Manhattan courthouse where he was tried for fraud this year.

Autocratic drift

Before he rode down the golden escalator of Trump Tower in New York to announce his 2016 White House bid, Trump was best known as a TV personality.

He was famous mostly for the ruthless character he played on reality show “The Apprentice,” as well as for developing luxury buildings and golf resorts, and for his wife Melania, a former fashion model.

The political rise was meteoric. But academics have noted parallels between his evolution and those of autocrats in countries where democratic institutions exist only as facades, allowing populist strongmen to take power.

Millions were thrilled by his attacks on politics, his coarse language, his promises to expel illegal immigrants, and the gaudy glamour that he brought to blue-collar Americans beaten down by globalization and deindustrialization.

At the same time, more than half the country agrees with Trump’s top White House aide John Kelly that the tycoon is a fascist, according to a recent ABC poll.

In office, he relished the daily controversy, joking about changing the US Constitution to stay in power indefinitely. As he campaigned to return to power in 2024, he again called for termination of the founding document.

Trump’s allies dismiss such talk as mere rhetoric.

But Trump broke all precedent when he refused to concede his 2020 loss, ultimately unleashing a mob on the US Capitol, while his vice president, Mike Pence, went into hiding.

Unprecedented — but forgiven by just enough US voters to allow the showman to get away with it again.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)