An exultant Donald Trump has promised to behave with “historic speed and strength” when he returns to the White Home on Monday, teeing up a barrage of government orders focusing on unlawful immigration, transgender rights and different rightwing priorities.
“We won, we won,” Trump declared on Sunday throughout a triumphant return to Washington, the place he held a raucous “victory rally” with 1000’s of supporters in a downtown sports activities area. “What a good feeling. We like winning, don’t we, eh? We’re going to make our country greater than ever before.”
The soon-to-be forty seventh president delivered a characteristically rollicking speech, a mixture of boasts, false claims and sweeping guarantees, that set the stage for his inauguration at midday on Monday and the populist blitz that may observe.
“Starting tomorrow, I will act with historic speed of strength and fix every single crisis facing our country,” he mentioned.
“Every radical, foolish executive order of the Biden administration will be repealed within hours of when I take the oath of office. You’re gonna have a lot of fun watching television. Somebody said yesterday, don’t sign so many in one day, let’s do it over a period of weeks. I said, like hell … no, we’re doing them tomorrow.”
Simply as on the marketing campaign path, Trump put unlawful immigration entrance and centre, portray a lurid image of the US as land of open borders underneath siege by violent thugs launched from overseas jails as distant as Congo. He performed a video exhibiting crimes allegedly dedicated by undocumented individuals.
“By the time the sun sets tomorrow, the invasion of our country will have come to a halt,” he mentioned. “The border security measures I will outline in my inaugural address tomorrow will be the most aggressive, sweeping effort to restore our borders that the world has ever seen.”
Trump repeated his marketing campaign pledge to launch the most important deportation effort in US historical past, which might take away thousands and thousands of immigrants – an operation of that scale would most likely take years and be massively expensive.
The occasion marked his first main deal with in Washington since his speech on 6 January 2021 that preceded the storming of the US Capitol by an offended mob of his supporters. Trump has mentioned he’ll pardon most of the greater than 1,500 individuals convicted or charged in reference to the assault, calling them “hostages”.
He mentioned: “Tomorrow everybody in this very large arena will be very happy with my decision on the J6 hostages. Very happy. I think you will be very, very happy.”
The pre-inauguration rally was not like something that an incoming president has staged earlier than. 1000’s of individuals lined up exterior the Capital One Area on a chilly, gray and snowy day. Sweater slogans included “Make America great again,” “Pro God, Pro Gun” and “Proud J6er” – a reference to January 6.
Trump walked down a stairway as Lee Greenwood sang the signature marketing campaign music God Bless the USA and the gang roared in adulation, chanting “USA! USA!” He stood on pink carpet underneath basketball and ice hockey pennants, however the high tier was largely empty, and promised to “take back our country”.
The president-elect mentioned: “Tomorrow at noon the curtain closes on four long years of American decline and we begin a brand new day of American strength and prosperity, dignity and pride.”
He went on to say credit score for Sunday’s launch of hostages from Gaza and the return of TikTok for US shoppers. “As of today, TikTok is back,” he mentioned, earlier than falsely claiming he had “won the youth vote” due to his help on the app. Trump elevated his share of the youth vote in 2024, however nonetheless misplaced that demographic to Kamala Harris.
Trump mentioned he would instruct the army to assemble an “iron dome” missile defence system. He additionally pledged to “get radical woke ideologies the hell out of our military” and performed a video intercutting scenes of a bullying drill sergeant within the movie Full Metallic Jacket with clips of transgender people supposedly related to the Biden-Harris administration.
Roared on by the gang, Trump mentioned: “We will get critical race theory and transgender insanity the hell out of schools … This will be done tomorrow. We will keep men out of women’s sports.”
He shared plans to journey to Los Angeles on Friday to survey the harm of wildfires that killed at the least 27 individuals and scorched the most important city space of California in at the least 40 years.
Trump additional promised to reverse the “over-classification” of presidency paperwork, a seeming reference to his federal indictment for retaining labeled papers after leaving workplace. He pledged to launch labeled paperwork regarding the assassinations of John F Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy and civil rights chief Martin Luther King Jr.
The rally featured an look by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who spent $200m to assist Trump win election and is heading a job drive to chop authorities spending.
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Cheered by the gang, Musk mentioned: “We’re looking forward to making a lot of changes. This victory is the start, really. What matters going forward is to actually make significant changes … and set the foundation for America to be strong for centuries, forever. And make America great again.”
Trump appeared to reference “racehorse theory”, the concept sure bloodlines produce superior offspring, whereas complimenting Musk and his younger son who joined him on stage. “If you believe in the racehorse theory, he’s got a nice, smart son,” Trump mentioned of Musk.
The time period, which Trump has beforehand defined as which means that “fast horses produce fast horses”, is a reference to racehorse breeding. It has at occasions been utilized by white supremacists, Nazis and eugenicists to advertise racial purity.
The rally additionally featured a efficiency by musician Child Rock and speeches by Hollywood actor Jon Voight in addition to Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr and granddaughter Kai.
Trump wrapped up his hourlong speech with a efficiency by the Village Folks, who sang YMCA, the anthem that closed out practically all of Trump’s marketing campaign rallies. Trump swayed on stage, bopped his head and sang alongside as they carried out.
The Maga devoted welcomed Trump’s plans for January 6 rioters. Felecia Hicks, 30, from McAlester, Oklahoma, mentioned: “He needs to pardon them. My mom was there that day and could very well have been one of those people falsely accused.
“I believe that it was the Capitol police that incited a lot of that and there were a lot of infiltrators that looked like Trump supporters that added to the chaos. There’s a lot of people that’s been falsely accused and they haven’t been given the right justice.”
Hicks, a particular training educating assistant who has supported Trump since 2016, mentioned of his different plans: “He needs to go through with checking our vaccines and getting the red dyes and different things out of our food. I believe that there’s a lot of different things he needs to do and I would not want to be the one prioritising what goes first.”
Reina Decapua, 52, from Carmel, Indiana, was attending her first Trump rally “because he’s going to be such an awesome president. I like his policies. I like that he tells you what he thinks. He’s got a set of balls.”
Trump’s priorities, she added, needs to be eradicating unlawful immigrants, finishing his wall on the southern border and maintaining his 2017 tax cuts in place.
Irving King, 49, from Washington DC, mentioned he had come to see wrestler Hulk Hogan, whom he had been a fan of since he was a boy. “It makes sense he’s a Trump supporter because he’s a conservative,” he mentioned. “Trump is on the right track because we need change. I hope he will make it a little easier for us to pay for our groceries and our bills.”
