Taking office for the second time, President Donald Trump described his view of how to bring about a safer and richer nation and vowed to forcefully enforce a conservative view on gender and race where public policies will not consider racial disparities and will not acknowledge transgender or nonbinary individuals. 

Trump delivered the address inside the Capitol Rotunda, where the ceremony was moved to due to bitterly cold temperatures in Washington. Trump’s 28-minute address, much longer than his 2017 speech, detailed an expansive agenda and immediate executive orders that he says will bring the nation to its “Golden Age.” 

Trump made clear that he believes he has  a strong mandate from American voters and God: “I was saved by God to make America great again,” Trump said, referencing the July assassination attempt against him. Trump laid out his second-term plans in great detail, leading with his anti-immigration agenda and quickly launching into a broadside against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in public and private life.

“This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based,” Trump said. “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.” 

Trump narrowly won the popular vote — unlike his 2016 victory — riding rising support across the country to win every single swing state. Trump managed to win without a majority of women voters or a majority of voters of color, highlighting divisions in the electorate. The executive orders he outlined in his inaugural address align with what he promised during his campaign, one built around anti-immigrant and anti-trans rhetoric.

The nation’s 47th president launched his second term much like he did his first — with a speech anchored in a dark view of the country. “The pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair,” Trump said. The incoming president criticized the departing administration without mentioning ex-President Joe Biden by name, saying that the nation’s government “can’t manage a simple crisis,” and pointed to the floods in North Carolina and fires in Southern California.

“My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and indeed, their freedom,” Trumps said. “From this moment on, America’s decline is over.”

“For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair,” Trump said. “We now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home while at the same time stumbling into a continuing catalog of catastrophic events abroad.”

Amid Monday’s ceremonies, the Trump administration is planning to trigger a slew of executive orders that will quickly reshape the nation. Trump outlined that agenda on Monday, including several orders on immigration, racial equity, transgender rights, energy production and federal regulations and staffing.

Early in his speech, Trump reiterated his scorn for the U.S. justice system, which he has decried as broken and corrupt after he faced several investigations and legal cases. In one case, the president was convicted of 34 felonies related to an effort to hide from voters hush-money payments made to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. The convictions made Trump the first president with a felony conviction. 

“The scales of justice will be rebalanced. The vicious, violent and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end,” Trump said. 

Trump thanked the “Black and Hispanic communities” for their support of his 2024 campaign and acknowledged his inauguration date falling on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. “In his honor, we will strive together to make his dream a reality. We will make his dream come true,” he said. 

John Roberts, the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, administered the oath of office to Trump, and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh administered the oath to Vice President JD Vance, flanked by his young children.   

While Trump and other prominent figures gathered inside the Capitol Rotunda, Trump supporters gathered at the Capital One Arena blocks away in a less formal gathering. In the arena, attendees could be heard cheering for the 47th president and loudly booing figures including former Vice President Mike Pence and former President Barack Obama. 

Attendees in the Rotunda included former presidents and first ladies, members of Trump’s family, Cabinet nominees and several tech and business executives, including Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chairman of Amazon; Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the owner of X; Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg; and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. 

Other members of Congress, governors and political leaders watched the ceremony from an overflow room. Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost her presidential bid to Trump and would have become the nation’s first woman president, looked on, as did Hillary Clinton, the former first lady who lost to Trump in 2016. Notably, former First Lady Michelle Obama and former Second Lady Karen Pence were absent from Monday’s ceremonies.

Trump previewed key themes of his inaugural address in a rally held Sunday at Capitol One Arena in Washington. 

“Tomorrow at noon, the curtain closes on four long years of American decline, and we begin a brand new day of American strength and prosperity, dignity, and pride,” Trump said. 

“Once and for all we’re going to end the reign of a failed and corrupt political establishment in Washington, a failed administration,” he said Sunday.

Earlier speakers at the inauguration ceremony spoke about the strength of democracy and the peaceful transfer of power — the usual fodder of inauguration ceremonies that have historically tended to be focused on unity and nonpartisanship. 

“Our great American experiment, grounded in the rule of law, has endured. So as we inaugurate a new president, let us remember that the power of those in this room comes from the people,” said Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, chair of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. 

“Our democracy promised the American people the power to change, to chart their own destiny,” said Republican Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska. “That’s the beauty. That is the importance of democracy. It allows endurance, the permanence of a nation.”

Trump took the oath of office inside the building that his supporters ransacked and rioted four years ago to block Congress from affirming Trump’s defeat to Biden. Trump spent the subsequent years sowing distrust in the nation’s election system, and mounting what at times looked like an unlikely third bid for the Republican nomination to the presidency. 

Trump himself acknowledged the dramatic turn of events that led him to the White House a second time. “Many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political combat. I stand before you now as proof that you should never believe that something is impossible to do in America,” Trump said during his inaugural address. “The impossible is what we do best.”