Donald Trump has been sworn in as the 47th president of the United States.
The Republican returns to power after serving his first term as US President between 2017 and 2021.
Mr Trump has promised to ‘end America’s decline’ and lead the country to a new ‘golden age’, four years after Joe Biden kicked him out of the White House in the 2020 election. He has already lined up dozens of executive orders, which he claims will “begin the complete restoration of America”.
The new president, along with his vice president JD Vance, was sworn in at a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda, after the cold weather forced officials to move the event inside for the first time in decades. Mr Biden’s term ended at exactly noon, moments before Mr Trump took the oath of office.
Mr Vance was 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 followed moments after, using both a family bible and the one used by President Abraham Lincoln at his 1861 inauguration as Chief Justice John Roberts administered his oath.
WATCH: The moment Donald Trump is sworn in as US President
Billionaires and tech titans – including Tesla and Space X’s Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple’s Tim Cook – were among the invited guests. They were given prominent positions in the Capitol Rotunda and were seen mingling with Mr Trump’s team before the ceremony began.
In his inauguration address, Mr Trump said he would be signing executive orders immediately. He declared a “national emergency” on the US border with Mexico and declared that “all illegal entry will immediately be halted”.
He said he also planned to send troops to the border to “repel the disastrous invasion of our country”. He said his administration would “begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”
Mr Trump also declared a national energy emergency, telling the crowd: “We will drill, baby, drill.” He explained: “America will be a manufacturing nation once again and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have – the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth – and we are going to use it.”
(Image: Getty)
On the auto industry, he said the Electric Vehicle Mandate would be revoked so that Americans will be able “to buy the car of your choice”. And on tax, Mr Trump stated: “Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.”
Inaugural speeches are traditionally delivered on the National Mall in front of tens of thousands of supporters, many of them average voters from across America. However, today, the speech was delivered to a crowd of only around 600 people.
The audience was limited to members of Congress, cabinet nominees, Mr Trump’s family, business leaders and political VIPs.
Speaking to supporters after seeing off Mr Biden outside the Capitol, Mr Trump said he was glad they had moved the ceremony indoors. “We were freezing,” he told them. “You would have been very unhappy.”
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