Donald Trump Sworn in as 47th U.S. President Inside Capitol Rotunda

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On Monday’s local midday, Donald Trump made his way to the Capitol Rotunda where he swore an oath, vowing to safeguard the United States, as he resumed his position as U.S. President. He did this by placing his hand on a Bible.

“The Golden Age of America begins right now,” Trump said as he began his inaugural address.

In his speech, Trump mentioned the current crisis in Los Angeles, specifically the persistent state of emergency due to wildfires. He vowed to take action aimed at preventing and managing such emergencies from recurring. Earlier, he hinted that he might travel to L.A. shortly to assess the destruction wrought by the recent extensive fires over the last fortnight.

In critical situations, our nation fails to provide essential services… For instance, in Los Angeles, where fires that began weeks ago are still causing destruction without any apparent defense, these blazes have been ravaging homes and communities, affecting even the wealthiest and most influential individuals among us, some of whom are here today. They’ve lost their homes. This is concerning. We cannot continue like this. It’s time for change because we need to address this issue effectively.

On a bitterly cold day in Washington D.C., Trump’s inauguration took place, with temperatures reaching a high of 24 degrees and wind speeds peaking at 31 miles per hour as reported by the National Weather Service. Notably, Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985 was the only prior swearing-in ceremony to be relocated from the West Front of the Rotunda, a detail Trump mentioned in his announcement about the move on Friday.

Moving the event inside the Capitol building drastically decreased the number of attendees at President Trump’s second inauguration – dropping it by over half, as reported by NPR. Instead of having a 1600-person capacity on the West Front platform, they are now limited to approximately 750 people in the Rotunda. Unfortunately, around 250,000 people who had tickets for the outdoor inauguration were unable to attend and watch Trump’s swearing-in ceremony.

On his inauguration day, Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath to President Trump. Prior to Trump’s swearing-in, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh performed the ceremony for Vice President-elect J.D. Vance. Interestingly, Kavanaugh had previously supervised Usha Vance, wife of Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, at the D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals.

On Monday, not only were the typical attendees present for the inauguration – such as families of the president-elect and vice president-elect, former presidents and their spouses, dignitaries, cabinet members and nominees, military leaders like the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and others – but also some well-known figures from the tech industry. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla who had a close relationship with Trump during his campaign and almost secured a cabinet position, was seen in the Rotunda. Additionally, individuals outside of Silicon Valley included Mark Zuckerberg from Meta, Jeff Bezos from Amazon, Shou Zi Chew from TikTok, and Sam Altman from OpenAI.

Monday morning saw New York Mayor Eric Adams receiving an unexpected invitation to an inauguration event, which he intends to participate in. Earlier, Adams, who has pleaded not guilty following bribery and campaign finance charges filed against him in September, had lunch with Trump on a Friday gathering. It was also announced that Han Zheng, the vice president of China, will be present at this event as well, according to the Trump team’s announcement.

8:30 a.m. Pacific Time/11:30 a.m. Eastern Time is when you should switch on to watch the inauguration. You can do this on ABC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, MSNBC, NBC, or PBS. If you prefer streaming, options include DirecTV, Frndly, Fubo, Hulu + Live TV, Paramount+, Philo, or Sling.

This is a developing story.

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2025-01-20 20:54