The second coming: how Trump 'encored' the presidency

On Monday, January 20, at exactly 12:00 noon Washington time, Donald Trump took the oath of office on the Bible and from that moment became the 47th president of the United States. The process was closely watched all over the world, because the inauguration in the American way is not so much a colorful political action as an inaugural history of traditions online. By the way, if we talk about the past, it should be noted that the first inauguration of a U.S. president in history did not go according to plan. Congress originally set the date of inauguration for March 4, 1789, but the vote count was delayed, and George Washington took office only on April 30.

An inaugural ceremony involves both the president-elect and the outgoing president. A protocol breaker in 1801 was John Adams, who refused to attend the inauguration of presidential rival Thomas Jefferson. Another “dodger” was Donald Trump, who skipped Joe Biden's inauguration in 2021. At the same time, William Harrison holds the record for the longest inaugural speech. His speech in 1841 lasted two hours and contained 8,445 words. A month after taking office, the president died of pneumonia, which he is believed to have contracted during the ceremony.

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Perhaps the most unusual was the inauguration of President Lyndon Johnson, who, after the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, was sworn in aboard the presidential plane. No Bible was available for the ceremony, so Johnson took the oath of office on a missal (a devotional book in the Roman Catholic Church - ed.) found on John F. Kennedy's bedside table on the airplane.

Barack Obama's inauguration in 2009 was held twice for the first time in U.S. history because of his error in the words of his oath of office. Instead of the phrase “I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of President of the United States” he said: “I will fulfill for the United States the duties of the presidency faithfully.” The next day the ceremony was repeated and became a record number of guests (up to 1.8 million people). But the inauguration of Joe Biden in 2021 was held with a limited number of spectators (3 thousand people) because of the coronavirus. Two weeks before the ceremony, supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, so because of fears of unrest, more than 25 thousand National Guard soldiers were pulled to Washington.

The second inauguration of Donald Trump in 2025 has become the most expensive in the history of the United States - it raised a record $200 million in donations. This is more than twice the amount spent on similar ceremonial events by his predecessors - Biden and Obama.

The date of January 20, 2025, was an eventful one for Trump. In the morning, the then president-elect and his wife Melania attended a service at St. John's Episcopal Church near the White House. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and his wife Usha were also there. Among the guests spotted at the church were Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeffrey Bezos, and Apple CEO Tim Cook, among others. Attendance at inauguration day services is a long-standing tradition, dating back to President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933.

After the service, the Trump motorcade headed to the White House, where a traditional tea ceremony was held with Trump and his wife on one side and Biden and his wife on the other. Such events are held in a strictly closed regime.

Well, while the Trumps and Bidens were having tea, guests were arriving in the Capitol rotunda. Among them were former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush Jr. and Barack Obama, members of Donald Trump's family, Supreme Court justices, key Trump cabinet members, members of Congress, Argentine President Javier Milay, and former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. By the way, in the front rows at the inauguration ceremony stood 89-year-old billionaire Phil Ruffin, who is a close friend of Trump and his wife - a former model from Odessa, “Miss Ukraine-2001” and founder of the beauty contest “Miss Ukraine Universe” - Alexandra Nikolayenko.

The first to recite the oath of allegiance to the American people was now full-fledged Vice President of the United States J.D. Vance, followed by Donald Trump. The main Republican solemnly vowed to “faithfully fulfill the duties of the President of the United States” and described exactly how he would do it. “America's Golden Age begins now,- Donald Trump promised at the very beginning of his inaugural address, addressing the crowd in the Capitol rotunda. “From this day forward, our country will once again prosper, it will once again be respected around the world...I will simply put America first...Our sovereignty will be returned to us. Our security will be restored. The scales of justice will be rebalanced. The cruel, harsh, and unjust use of the Department of Justice and our government as a weapon will cease.”

Donald Trump promised to immediately sign “a series of historic executive orders” that will “begin a complete rebuilding of America and a revolution of common sense.” While stating that he wants to “be a peacemaker,” Trump assured that the U.S. “military will be free to focus on its sole mission of defeating America's enemies.”

After the inauguration ceremony, the program of events was far from complete. It also included, for example, a luncheon organized by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. Trump also attended the presidential parade and took part in three inaugural balls at once. At the same time, the original program was somewhat different. So, the parade was to go from the Capitol to the White House, but in the end it was shortened and moved to the Capital One Arena. And the entire inauguration ceremony was to be held outside, not in the Capitol rotunda, which holds several hundred people. The reason - bad weather in the American capital. The change of plans came as a shock to hundreds of thousands of people who traveled to Washington these days. According to The Washington Business Journal, only through members of Congress were distributed more than 220 thousand tickets for the inauguration, which in fact turned into souvenirs. By the way, the cost of tickets to some balls - those attended by Donald Trump himself - was up to $1 million.

Full-fledged President Trump signed his first executive orders while addressing supporters at Capital One Stadium. Among the first documents signed were the reversal of 78 decisions made under Joe Biden, as well as the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Having finished signing the decrees, Donald Trump artistically threw into the crowd of his supporters several pens, with which he, in fact, signed the debut documents. By the admission of the 47th president of the United States in the current year, we should expect a lot of unexpected turns and sensations. In general, watching the news, according to Trump, “now it will be very interesting”.

Already after the inauguration, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, President Trump spoke out about the Russian-Ukrainian war. In particular, he said that he intends to meet with Putin and wants the war to end “as soon as possible.” In addition, the old-new White House host added that Vladimir Zelensky is set “for a deal” and expressed hope that Moscow is also ready for a deal. The Kremlin dictator, by the way, congratulated Trump on taking office and noted that Russia is ready to make contact with the new US administration. The main goal of this dialog, as recognized by the international criminal Putin, is “the settlement of the military conflict in Ukraine.”

However, it is not worth counting on any final solution in the medium term. The Kremlin is already hinting that the only possible peace may be only if Ukraine capitulates. Senior Kremlin officials, notably Putin and Lavrov, have repeatedly noted in recent weeks that the Kremlin refuses to consider any compromise on Putin's demands for late 2021 and early 2022. Those demands include Ukraine's permanent “neutral” status, its non-membership in NATO, strict limits on the size of the Ukrainian army, and the removal of the Ukrainian government from power. So Trump may find himself in an extremely tricky situation where negotiations may not work out.

Natalia Romashova