"Welcome home." This is how President Joe Biden told president-elect Donald Trump as he welcomed him to the White House on Monday, January 20, for a preinaugural tea, restoring traditions around a peaceful transfer of power. They will travel all together to the Capitol.
Donald Trump will be sworn in for a historic second term as US president on Monday, January 20, promising a new "golden age" for America as the world braces for the return of his unpredictable leadership. Freezing weather has forced the 78-year-old's inauguration ceremony in Washington indoors, but the first hours of the most extraordinary comeback in US politics will be a blaze of activity.
The Republican vowed to unleash a blitz of executive orders undoing outgoing president Joe Biden's legacy, and to launch immediate deportations of undocumented migrants.
If Trump painted a dystopian picture of "American carnage" at his first inauguration in 2017, this time around he is offering a more upbeat promise of a "brand new day" for the United States. "I will act with historic speed and strength and fix every single crisis facing our country," Trump told an inauguration eve rally where he danced with the Village People band.
Due to the intense cold, Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance will take the oath inside the domed Rotunda of the Capitol – as Ronald Reagan did in 1985 – rather than in front of a huge crowd on the National Mall. "As soon as President Trump places his hand on the Bible and swears the Oath to the United States Constitution, the Golden Age of America will begin," spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on X.