THE NEW YORK TIMES: For Donald Trump, a vindication for the man and his movement

Donald John Trump completed an extraordinary return to power Monday as he was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States and opened an immediate blitz of actions to begin drastically changing the course of the country and usher in a new “golden age of America.”

In a triumph of the man and his movement, Trump took the oath of office during a ceremony in the Capitol four years after he was evicted by voters, reinvigorated for another term aimed at remaking America in his vision. He wasted no time outlining an ambitious program of often divisive policies to “reclaim our Republic” and purge its enemies and his own.

“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,” Trump said during a 29-minute inaugural address as former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris looked on. “From this moment on, America’s decline is over.”

Feeling vindicated by voters after impeachments, indictments and conviction on 34 felony counts, Trump claimed a personal mandate as well as a political one. “Many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political comeback,” he said. “But as you see today, here I am. The American people have spoken.”

Trump was inaugurated in the same building where a mob of his supporters rampaged four years ago in a failed effort to reverse the results of an election that he lost, culminating one of the most astonishing comebacks in U.S. history. In a stark sign of the changing power dynamics in America, Trump in the evening pardoned nearly all 1,600 rioters for their roles in the attack and commuted the sentences of another 14.

Trump moved quickly beyond Inauguration Day ceremonies to put his stamp back on the government as he signed the first of as many as 100 orders and actions.

He signed orders in the early evening rescinding 78 of Biden’s executive actions, blocking new regulations, freezing federal hiring, pulling the United States out of the Paris climate accord again and directing agencies to end “government censorship” and the “weaponisation” of the Justice Department.

He signed a directive denying citizenship to children of immigrants without legal status born in the United States, in defiance of the long-standing interpretation of the 14th Amendment, an issue likely to spark a legal fight to the Supreme Court.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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