Trump Declares a ‘Golden Age’ for America

0:05Please raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear. I, Donald John Trump. Today, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution of the United States. So help me God. So help me God. Congratulations, Mr. Trump.

0:33In his inauguration speech, Trump made big promises about the next four years. The golden age of America begins right now.

0:51From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. In the room were members of Congress, former presidents, special guests, and reporters like our colleague Natalie Andrews. All there to witness Trump's first moments as the next president. The speech was decisive. It was not unifying. And it made promises across the gamut, from drilling more oil to ending illegal immigration to going to Mars. Donald Trump's vision is about releasing a new golden age of America. It's not immediately clear what the golden age means, but I think his voters hope that it makes them all a little more prosperous.

1:39Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Kate Leinbaugh. It's Monday, January 20th.

1:52Coming up on the show. President Trump. Term 2. Day 1.

2:07Nach der Krise beginnt nicht die Ruhe, sondern die Veränderung. Es läuft wieder, aber anders als früher. Wer scheitert und wieder aufsteht, führt anders. Das zeigen uns Betroffene, Berater und Experten. In Folge 5 von Endstation Insolvenz geht es darum, wie aus einer beinahe Pleite echte Stärke entstehen kann. Jetzt reinhören. Im Podcast-Kanal Gute Geschäfte von Kreditreform. Überall, wo es Podcasts gibt.

2:44U.S. Capitol building due to freezing temperatures in Washington, D.C. The Capitol Rotunda, where the inauguration happened, is one of the most beautiful places in Washington, D.C. It's stunning. You walk in and it's a circular room and there's murals all around you and on the ceiling and natural light streaming through. And what was the vibe like? It was a party. People were very excited to see each other. They were very excited to see Donald Trump. They were cheering. The vibe overall was a celebratory one. And who was up there on stage with him? So it was an interesting dynamic to, if you're looking at Donald Trump giving a speech, to the right of him was the President's Club, Barack Obama, Joe Biden.

3:33You know, the President's Club made it seem like an old guard. And then on the left of Donald Trump, you had the Trump family right in front. You had tech CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg. You had Elon Musk. It was quite interesting. You had the TikTok CEO. He was on the very end of the crowd and kind of looked on for most of the time. Is it unusual to have tech CEOs and business leaders up there? It seems so in this quantity. And to note, a lot of these folks had been very friendly with Democrats as well. It's just been interesting to watch how quickly they have not only just kind of been at the inauguration, but also been down to Mar-a-Lago taking pictures with Trump, really become chummy in the last few weeks since Donald Trump was elected.

4:26After J.D. Vance took the oath of office as VP, Chief Justice John Roberts swore in Trump as president. He took oath. People cheered loudly. Every person sitting on the chair had a little sheet that said the etiquette for the inauguration, and it said not to take pictures during the oath of office. And oh, my gosh, so many members of Congress ignored that. They were all standing. How would you describe Trump's speech? This was not a speech about unifying America. This was a speech about Donald Trump taking the promises he'd made on the campaign trail and showing that he had a plan and that he's planning to do a lot of executive actions.

5:11I think he joked at one point on the campaign trail, and it seemed like a joke that he was going to be a dictator on day one only. And this is him saying, I have presidential powers, and I'm going to do them in part because he does feel like he has a mandate. 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. He feels like he was elected overwhelmingly and it's time for him to show how he's going to get that done.

5:54He's very much put a timestamp and urgency on a lot of things, and he didn't hold back. As we gather today, our government confronts a crisis of trust. 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. He was quite critical of the Biden administration when it was that you had Joe Biden and Kamala Harris sitting right there on the front row watching. There was no qualms about that. And then he talked a lot about God. Just a few months ago in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin's bullet ripped through my ear.

6:42But I felt then and believe even more so now that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again. It's something that a lot of, since the assassination attempt in July and then the subsequent one, You have seen a lot of Trump devotees be very adamant that Trump was saved to restore America, and that language continued from him today. Then he laid out his policy visions and the actions he's going to take, saying he was going to sign a roster of executive orders. Said he was going to sign executive orders right away. For example, banning biological men from playing in women's sports or return on immigration, really going back to a lot of the executive orders he'd issued in his first term on immigration, such as remain in Mexico.

7:44I will declare a national emergency at our southern border. Yeah, he really kicked off the policy portion of his speech talking about immigration. What was his message there and what did he say he's going to do? He wants to limit border crossings from people who are crossing the border illegally. So he is wanting to implement processes that turn people back, you know, ending people being able to seek asylum and have a court date at a later time. He's also expected to sign an executive order ending birthright citizenship in the country, the idea being that if you come to the country and cross illegally, you cannot have your baby in the U.S.

8:28and have that baby be an American citizen. And from immigration, he went to another key issue from his campaign, which was inflation. What is his plan to address inflation? Donald Trump wants to push for more business in the country. He wants his whole cabinet to deal with inflation and then do more with energy. The inflation crisis was caused by massive overspending and escalating energy prices. And that is why today I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill. Whereas Biden restricted drilling in the United States, Donald Trump wants to grab more fossil fuels in the United States.

9:15He wants to use that to lower costs for fuel. What else would you say is on his economic agenda that he outlined in his speech? Donald Trump sees kind of a greater efficiency across the board. He wants this idea of the Department of Government Efficiency, which is an office, not a department. But the idea is to go look through every aspect of the federal government and see maybe what can you cut. I think a lot of his kind of policies in general on trade are also so key. And on Monday, he said he's going to overhaul the federal trade system and he wants to establish this external revenue service to collect tariffs and duties that are coming in.

10:09And then he spoke about race and gender. Yes. I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.

10:30We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based.

10:42As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female. Why was that such a big focus? Well, there's an aspect of the Republicans who really, really like this idea of the traditional family, the man, woman, child setup. And so that got a lot of cheers. There's been a lot of headlines right now about trans athletes playing in women's sports. And whether or not there's that many trans athletes playing, it's really become something that the cultural right has just jumped on as something they feel very passionate about.

11:31So that focus is something that's very important to Republicans right now and to conservatives at large. Trump also said he plans to rename the Gulf of Mexico to be the Gulf of America, that he wants to retake control of the Panama Canal, and that he wants to send American astronauts to Mars. How did he conclude his speech? What was his final message? The way he closed his address was not phrasing that he's used before when he ends speeches. This was a very, like, we will. We will stand bravely. We will live proudly. We will dream boldly. And nothing will stand in our way because we are Americans.

12:17The future is ours. And our golden age has just begun. Thank you. God bless America. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you very much.

12:56After the break, how this went down with Trump supporters. USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!

13:26Despite the cold, Trump supporters descended on the nation's capital to celebrate. They were on the street as his motorcade drove by. They were in bars watching the inauguration and singing along to America the Beautiful.

13:49Our reporter Jessica Mendoza and producer Matt Kwong were out in D.C. talking to Trump supporters. Tell me what you're excited about. What are you excited to hear from him today? The next four years. I'm excited for the next four years. I'm looking forward to a more secure country. I don't like all the people coming into our country illegally. That's a big issue for me. Defense, protection of our country is a big deal. And the economy, I think it's just gotten a little way out of control. And he's going to open energy. He's going to drill. Doing that is going to bring in the money and that he's going to be able to accomplish the other things that he wants to accomplish for the American people.

14:33So it'll be fantastic. Maybe I might not agree with everything that Trump is going to do or wants to do. I feel there's a captain at the ship now. And that's, you know, I'm not afloat. I feel like I'm not afloat anymore.

14:50After the speech, Jessica caught up with a couple from Tampa, Florida, Debbie and Gary Garcia. We just couldn't wait to hear this and be here present with all this excitement and exuberance. We're thrilled to be here and just can't wait to see what the next four years has in store for the United States and for the rest of the world. Did anything from his speech stand out to you? I think the taking back of Panama in whatever capacity we'll do that makes a statement to the world that we're no longer the America of yesteryear. We're a new America. The America of not putting us first and creating a stability in the world through our stability here at home.

15:39And we're unstable here at home now, and we can be more stable as purveyors in the world. How does it feel to be celebrating here with other Trump supporters in Washington, D.C.? I just feel like these people are just other people, just average every day, just like us, people who absolutely love their country. And I support people who love our country, not people who hate our country. So it's wonderful to be here with kindred spirits. Many of the people who Matt and Jessica spoke to shared this feeling of hope for the next four years. It's something that our colleague Natalie has been thinking about.

16:22I met so many voters and folks on the campaign trail who earnestly voted for Donald Trump because they want change. They have hope that Donald Trump can do that. Given what he said in his speech, what do you think Trump's first 100 days in office will be like? It seems as like a president who's going to twist arms. This is not a president who's going to want to negotiate. This is a president who's saying, did you see by how much I won with? The people are with me and we need to work and get what I want to get done, done. This is not someone who's going to be wanting to do carve outs or negotiate with each and every member of Congress for their little part that they want in a certain bill.

17:10This is someone who wants to come in, feels as though he has a mandate and wants to accomplish it. And what about the agenda he outlined? It seems incredibly ambitious. It's incredibly ambitious. It's incredibly vast. It's very difficult to do. He will face hurdle after hurdle. And it will be interesting to see if people are understanding about that as he tries to get things done. What does day one tell us about the next four years? You know, he's determined. Donald Trump is determined. He fought for this. This is a president who's come back. He's made the ultimate comeback. And he feels that.

17:53He feels that support. He's got the tech CEO sitting behind him. He's got his cabinet sitting behind him. He had people in the audience who helped get him elected, raised millions to put on the inauguration. So much money they couldn't spend it. So he's feeling as though he has the world behind him to do what he wants to do.

18:29Before you go, we have some exciting news. Molly and Ryan are coming back. Join senior political correspondent Molly Ball and your co-host Ryan Knudsen on Friday mornings for the first 100 days of Trump's presidency. They'll unpack the news of the week and answer your questions. So please send us your questions. Either record a voice memo or email them to thejournalatwsj.com. That's thejournalatwsj.com. That's all for today, Monday, January 20th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.