Trump takes office determined to bend government to his singular will

Summary
Four years as a private citizen have left Trump no less emboldenedIf he came in the first time unexpectedly, he returned as a conqueror. And so Donald Trump stood in the Capitol’s marble rotunda, surrounded by the titans of power and industry, taking the reins of a government he is more determined than ever to bend to his singular will.
The newly sworn-in 47th president pulled no punches in his combative inaugural speech, decrying to their faces the “radical and corrupt establishment" that he said had “extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair." He laid out a sweeping and disruptive agenda, vowing to liberate the country from its decadeslong malaise, restore its lofty ambitions and plant its flag on Mars. In a tone at once subdued and defiant, he enumerated his grievances while pledging to pacify “a world that has been angry, violent and totally unpredictable."
It is the dawn of the second Trump era, and the vibes have shifted to a remarkable degree. Four years as a private citizen have left the central character older but no less pugilistic—emboldened by the intervening election loss and near-assassination. But as America prepares for Season 2 of the Trump Show, the world around him has changed dramatically in the eight years since he last took the oath.
Outside the Capitol, where the ceremony was held indoors for the first time in four decades, the sun shone bright in the chilly air, the liberal city’s streets and subways vacant but for a trickle of tourists in MAGA regalia. In the stately rotunda hung with oil paintings, statues around the perimeter watched in silence, symbols of the mute past, as billionaires and foreign dignitaries mingled with the incoming cabinet.
To Democrats, it is a crime scene, the chamber that four years ago Trump’s supporters desecrated in their violent but futile attempt to keep him in power. On his way out the door, former President Joe Biden issued pre-emptive pardons to the members and witnesses of the committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, riot as well as members of his own family.
Yet Trump’s enemies have never been weaker or more cowed. A resistance march over the weekend drew only a few thousand people, a pale shadow of the 2017 protests across the nation that were said to be the largest in history to that point. He has ground them into forbearance if not submission, his narrow popular-vote win forcing Democrats to reckon with a country that has sharply rebuked them. Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris leave office diminished and near-invisible, slinking out the door in a hail of recrimination from their fellow partisans.
In the overflow room in the Capitol—where 1,000 dignitaries watched the ceremony on screens flanking a 20-foot-tall white statue of a female figure in a feathered headdress—the podcasters Theo Von and Kyle Forgeard, a member of the Nelk Boys, posed for selfies with fans as the blond-fauxhawked boxer and media personality Jake Paul elbowed his way past.
Von, whose hourslong podcast interview with Trump was credited with helping him attract younger voters, said he hoped Trump would reduce the influence of the American Israel Political Action Committee and fix a healthcare system that has put too many people in debt. Forgeard hoped the new president would prevent wars and “keep everybody friends."
“More UFC, and put it in the prisons," added Von. “How great would that be?"
Eight years ago, Trump took over the White House from former President Barack Obama to become the 45th president, delivering a speech that decried “rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation" and vowed to reverse the “American carnage."
Trump hit the Washington of 2017 like an earthquake, yet he was frequently thwarted by the dug-in institutions of a hostile government: a GOP still in thrall to old orthodoxies, a bureaucracy that stifled his intentions, an implacable Democratic resistance, a wave of popular backlash. By 2020, Trump’s chaotic governance would prove his undoing as voters in the grips of a deadly pandemic ejected him from the White House in favor of a reassuringly conventional politician—a result that held despite Trump’s determination to overturn it.
When Biden addressed the nation in 2021, the nation was still reeling from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. He pleaded for tolerance and unity and spoke of the preciousness and fragility of democracy. Yet the four years that followed would undermine his promises of unity and normality, delivering instead mostly division.
Trump meanwhile spent his four years out of power plotting his comeback, reshaping his adopted party in his image and fending off legal challenges. He battled his way back to relevance on the strength of an unshakably loyal movement that grew only more devoted as he came under attack by a trio of Democratic prosecutors. In 2016 candidate Trump had been viewed skeptically by conservative evangelical voters; by 2024 he was viewed as a savior figure. With help from the Supreme Court he had helped install, he beat his legal cases and defeated not one but two Democratic nominees, the sitting president and vice president.
Trump assumes the presidency with the West Coast still in flames, a cease-fire hanging by a thread in the Middle East and the addictively popular social-media app TikTok technically outlawed but continuing to operate. Trump has promised to broker a deal to save the video-sharing service, thus defying both Congress and the Supreme Court before he even lifts his presidential pen. In the Rotunda on Monday, TikTok’s Singaporean CEO Shou Zi Chew was seated next to Trump’s controversial nominee for director of national intelligence, the former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.
Two big questions will define the months and years ahead as Trump looks to implement his vast agenda with help from a loyal but small Republican majority in Congress. First, how big will he go? He began signing executive orders Monday to curtail illegal immigration, increase fossil-fuel exploration, reshape the federal bureaucracy and end recognition of transgender identity. But the president and his appointees have sent mixed signals about how quickly he will be able to implement the deportations and tariffs he has threatened. The extent of the immediate disruption to the economy and society will depend on whether he pursues these goals incrementally or whole hog.
At the Penn Quarter Sports Tavern in Washington, people cheer for Trump during the inauguration ceremony.
Second, how determined is Trump to fulfill the populist promises that won over his working-class coalition? In his first term, he often paid lip service to ideas that horrified traditional Republicans, but in practice he mostly did things they wanted. This time around he has a bigger mandate as well as a Trumpier vice president, Congress and cabinet, but he will still have to take on old-school conservatives on taxes and spending if he is to fulfill his full slate of pledges.
After his scripted inaugural speech, Trump repaired to the overflow room, where he unleashed an improvised half-hour rant against his enemies. Craig Dohner of Naples, Fla., a 58-year old in an American-flag sweater who owns a business that distributes lubricants for breadmaking machinery, thrilled to every word. “I’m so ready for the nightmare to be over with," he said. “I want immigration to be taken care of. But I also want justice. The people who weaponized government against not only Trump but many others, I want them held accountable. I want our system fixed."
It is a tall order by any measure, but in his inaugural address Trump insisted he was up to the challenge. “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."
Trump supporters gathered on the National Mall before the inauguration at the Capitol.
Write to Molly Ball at molly.ball@wsj.com