Trump Inaugurated 47th US President, Says America ‘Must Drill Baby Drill’

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•Vows swift border crackdown  

•Insists under him America will recognise only two genders  

•Unleashes slew of new executive orders

•Biden, Obama, Bush, Kamala Harris attend event 

•Tech billionaires Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, others flood ceremony

•Ex-president Biden issues preemptive pardon for family, Fauci, others  

•Putin, Trudeau, other world leaders greet Trump

CHIGOZIE AMADI

Donald Trump was yesterday sworn in as the 47th President of the United States, completing what has been described as one of the  most remarkable political comebacks in American history.

He declared that America “must drill baby drill”  referring  to his desire to expand America’s oil production capacity. He vowed to cut regulation and ensure America remains the dominant oil producing nation in the world. By cutting regulations, and lifting ban on new drilling, Trump hopes to boost America’s quest for energy self sufficiency and stabilise prices.

Trump is entering office as a disruptive force, vowing to remake the federal government and expressing deep skepticism about the US-led alliances that have shaped post-World War Two global politics.

Trump, who pledged to save America from decline, announced a range of policies in his inaugural address – some of them bound to cause controversy, proclaiming that a “golden age begins right now” for the world’s most powerful country. He has already announced the withdrawal of the US from the Paris Climate Treaty and an end to US Electric Cars Mandate.

He reiterated that he would rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and take back the Panama Canal, even though he promised to be a ‘peacemaker and unifier’.

Trump, a Republican, said he would declare a national emergency at the southern border with Mexico as well as declare a national energy emergency.

The new American president’s inauguration was attended by many tech billionaires, as well as former American leaders and their wives. However former President Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle was conspicuously absent.

Trump said he would “bring law and order back to our cities” and bring in “a society that is colourblind and merit-based”, adding “there are only two genders – male and female”. He also promised to raise tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich American citizens.

Among others, he promised to reinstate any armed services members who were expelled for objecting to the COVID vaccine mandate – on full back pay as well as  build the strongest military the world has ever seen.

Touching on the assassination attempt in which he was shot during his campaign, Trump stated that”I was saved by God to make America great again,” receiving wild applause from supporters.

Ex-US leaders who attended the event included: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama,  and Joe Biden. In attendance at the inauguration were also former first ladies Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, and Jill Biden.

It was also an event attended by billionaires and world’s wealthiest persons, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (worth $239.4 billion); Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg ($211.8 billion); Tesla Chief Executive and presidential confidante, Elon Musk ($433.9 billion) as well as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman ($1.1 billion).

Also at the inauguration ceremony was Apple CEO, Tim Cook, ($2.2 billion);  billionaire backer Miriam Adelson ($31.9 billion) and former Fox News Chairman Rupert Murdoch ($22.2 billion).

Besides, Bernard Arnault ($179.6 billion), the head of the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton luxury empire and the richest person in France, was at the inauguration with his son, Alexandre.  Trump’s friend Phil Ruffin, a Las Vegas casino executive worth $4.7 billion, was also spotted at the Capitol. TikTok CEO, Shou Zi Chew  also attended. A host of foreign politicians were also in the room to watch the transfer of power.

The ceremony is usually held outside but was brought inside the Capitol Rotunda because of the weather  as  it was expected to be the coldest inauguration day in 40 years.

In his speech, Trump talked about America being in chaos, being broken, being lawless, being leaderless, being corrupt, explaining that it was his job to fix it.

In his second coming, the new American president said he would sign an executive order to bring back common sense, drill more crude oil, and designate cartels in Mexico as foreign terrorist organisations.

Trump pledged to rescue America from what he described as years of betrayal and decline , prioritising a crackdown on illegal immigration and portraying himself as a national savior chosen by God.

“For American citizens, January 20, 2025, is Liberation Day,” Trump, 78, said inside the Rotunda of the US Capitol, the symbol of US democracy that was invaded on January 6, 2021, by a mob of Trump supporters intent on reversing his 2020 election defeat to  Biden.

The half-hour speech echoed some of the themes he sounded at his first inauguration in 2017, when he spoke of the “American carnage” of crime and job loss that he said had ravaged the country.

However, the inauguration completed a triumphant return for a political disruptor who was impeached twice, survived two assassination attempts, was convicted in a criminal trial and faced charges for attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Yesterday, during his speech,he re-echoed this occurrence: “I was saved by God to make America great again,” Trump said, referring to the assassin’s bullet that grazed his ear in July.

Trump is the first felon to occupy the White House after a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records to cover up hush money paid to a porn star.

“Many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political comeback,” he added later. “I stand before you now as proof that you should never believe that something is impossible to do in America. The impossible is what we do best.”

But while Trump sought to portray himself as a peacemaker and unifier, his speech was often sharply partisan, in contrast to those of past presidents. With Biden seated nearby, affecting a polite smile, Trump issued a stinging indictment of Biden’s policies from immigration to foreign affairs.

Trump took the oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend” the U.S. Constitution at 12:01 p.m.,  administered by Chief Justice John Roberts. His vice president, JD Vance, was sworn in just before him.

Trump, the first US president since the 19th century to win a second term after losing the White House, has also said he would pardon many of the more than 1,500 people charged in connection with the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

Meanwhile, Biden, in one of his last official acts, pardoned several people whom Trump had threatened with retaliation, including former White House Chief Medical Adviser, Anthony Fauci, former Republican US Representative, Liz Cheney and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley. He also pardoned five family members just minutes before leaving office, citing fears that Trump would target them.

Trump, last night, was expected to sign an order requiring that official US documents such as passports reflect citizens’ gender as assigned at birth.

“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 said.

Trump is returning to Washington, thanks to a groundswell of voter frustration over persistent inflation, though he still fell just short of a 50 per cent majority. Trump, who surpassed Biden as the oldest president ever to be sworn in.

As of last night, among those that had congratulated Trump included: Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau; India’s PM Narendra Modi; Italian PM Giorgia Meloni; Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky; Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin; UK’s PM Keir Starmer, among others.

While Trump refused to attend Biden’s 2021 inauguration, the departing president was keen to restore tradition by showing his face. But while sitting at the event, Trump tore into his record, denouncing what the new Republican president said had been a “betrayal” of Americans by a “radical and corrupt establishment.”

Also, Trump was signing roughly 200 executive actions, memoranda and proclamations on his first day in office, undoing Biden administration mandates and implementing his “America first” policies.

He signed his first documents at the Capitol soon after he was inaugurated, establishing Cabinet and subcabinet appointments, acting leaders of departments and agencies and a proclamation that flags are to be flown at full staff on inauguration days. Flags had been flying at half staff after the death of President Jimmy Carter earlier this month.

Once he arrived at the Oval Office, the first executive order he signed at the White House was a “full pardon” for about 1,500 people involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol assault. A handful of Jan. 6 cases won’t receive a full pardon, at least for now, pending review, Trump said.

Thereafter, Trump signed more orders before a packed Capitol One Arena, in Washington, D.C. Among them, a requirement that federal workers return to full-time work in person immediately, a freeze on all federal hiring, except by the military and some other excluded categories.

He signed a directive to every department and agency in the federal government to address inflation.

Trump also signed an executive action withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Treaty, calling it “unfair” and “one-sided.”

Another federal directive ordered the federal government to restore freedom of speech and prevent government censorship of free speech going forward.

At Capitol One, another directive was to the federal government ending the so-called weaponisation of government by the Biden administration against the political adversaries of the previous administration, that is, his first administration.

Trump’s plans include executive orders “unleashing American energy,” including actions to undo Biden’s electric vehicle mandate, declare a “national energy emergency,” and encourage the excavation of America’s natural resources.

And he plans to take action on getting “wokeness” out of the military, and to direct the military to begin construction of an Iron Dome-type missile defense shield.

He is expected to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion policies put in place by the Biden administration.

Trump also plans to make public the remaining records relating to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother, Robert Kennedy, as well as Martin Luther King Jr., and other topics of high public interest.

He plans to invoke presidential powers to begin a sweeping crackdown on immigration after his inauguration, tasking the military with border enforcement, designating cartels and gangs as terrorist groups, shutting down asylum and refugee admissions and attempting to terminate birthright citizenship.

The president will be declaring a national emergency at the southern border and will order the Defense Department to more heavily involve military resources there, tasking officials to deploy additional troops to the border.