Trump’s inauguration and beyond
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A lot has changed in the eight years since Donald Trump first took the oath of office as president. I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear. COVID-19, January 6th, inflation, impeachments, criminal cases, war. But one thing that hasn't changed is Americans' desire to have Trump upend the known political order. And so voters have invited him back into the White House.

On Monday, he'll take the oath once again and will waste no time in enacting his vision for the country. On this weekend episode of Reuters World News, we'll talk with our politics team on what to expect from Inauguration Day and beyond. I'm your host, Jonah Green.

These are violent criminals, so they're not going to go down easy. ABC Tuesdays. Let's get this done. The Rookie is back. We have two new rookies starting today. Being a cop is stressful 24-7. Every year on the job is different. And training day. We have a serial killer at large. Never ends. The Rookie. All new Tuesdays on ABC and stream on Hulu.

Steve Holland covers the White House and James Oliphant has been covering the Trump campaign and now the transition. And they join us today. Hello, everybody. Hello. Hello. So we're getting some breaking news here about a venue change for the inauguration. Trump now says because of severe cold weather forecast for Monday in Washington, the whole thing is going to be held indoors this year and it's going to take place in the Capitol Rotunda.

Steve, has this ever happened before? This has happened before. It's been 40 years since it's happened. When Ronald Reagan was inaugurated for his second term in 1985, he moved the ceremony indoors because of the cold. It was like under zero wind chill factor during that time period. And so Reagan made the choice to move this indoors.

And then what happens to the parade where they're going to put as many people as possible in the Capital One arena where Trump will have held a rally the night before? Okay, so the inauguration will look a little different this year. What about Donald Trump? How has he changed since 2017? What's different about Trump this time? He knows everything.

the levers of power, he knows more about the job that he's taking over. What we're told during the transition time that he has been very deliberate working on personnel, making decisions personally on who gets what job,

making sure they're loyal. It's a different Trump we're seeing this time. And I think part of it is the experience and part of it is the having been shot at twice last year during the campaign trail has maybe altered his attitude a little bit, but he's bound and determined to shake up Washington. And I think we'll see that happen as much as he can. Well, I would add to that too that the circumstances have changed a bit from when he first entered office in 2017. He entered the White House under a bit of a cloud.

He hadn't won the popular vote. It seems like he had squeaked by in a handful of states. He was angry about that. He was angry about people doubting the legitimacy of his victory. And of course, we can't forget that he had the Russia investigation hanging over his head for a couple of years into his presidency. And it was a daily, you know, we heard daily complaints from Trump about the witch hunt, about Jim Comey. He was really obsessed in his early time in office. And that's all gone.

So will we see Trump try, will he have to create new enemies, new opponents to stay fueled? Or will he fill his days in other ways?

That's one of the real interesting questions for me. Now, Trump's first inaugural speech was pretty dark. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now. Any idea what his focus this time will be? Because during the campaign, he did repeatedly say that the country was a failing country and a disaster. Well, Trump will probably revisit some of the dark themes of his earlier inaugural address

He wants to set the tone for the early days of his White House, maybe the first hundred days. A lot of those first hundred days will be consumed with carrying out executive orders on immigration. He's threatened a mass deportation. Will that actually happen? Will he only do the criminals that he considers should be expelled?

But I suspect that he will have some stern language on the direction he wants to take the country. And so there's the speech, but I see there will also be some notable musical performances as well. Yes. He's going to have the village people in person. Uh-huh.

And two of their songs are signature songs of Trump rallies, Macho Man and YMCA. Yeah. YMCA is played at the end of every single Trump event. And you'll see that kind of herky-jerky dance that Trump does without moving his feet. I find it very graceful. It's, it's. And Carrie Underwood is also performing. On the ceremonial stuff, is he going to meet?

the Bidens again? How much of the previous historical niceties are still going to be followed this year? Well, it's a carefully scripted day. And what usually happens is the incoming president will stay at Blair House, which is right across the street from the White House. The Trumps will stay there. They get up on Monday morning. He's going to go to a church service at St. John's

Episcopal Church right across the park from the White House. And you'll remember that's where he went during the George Floyd protests and held up the Bible and that famous photo. Then they will go to the White House proper and have

a tea with the Bidens. Usually the outgoing and incoming presidents will ride up to the Capitol together. I suspect that will happen again. And then you have the ceremony, the inaugural address, and afterward there's a lunch with lawmakers.

And all this has happened many inaugurals before. And after that, Biden will exit the far side of the Capitol, get on a helicopter and leave and probably do a flyby of Washington, D.C. Mm-hmm.

And then Trump will get into a heavily armored vehicle back to the White House. Wow. So once that's all wrapped up, it's time to get to business. What are we expecting day one from the man who once joked he would be a dictator only on day one? Well, they are preparing dozens of executive orders and directives.

for him to sign on the first day. Now, whether he'll go through all of these things on day one is unclear. The Trump team, the transition team, the lawyers, they've all been reviewing the language, trying to get all these things ready. At some point, it'll be put in front of Trump and say, here, do you want this? Do you want this? Do you want this?

and he'll decide which orders he can carry out on day one. His people tell us that he does want to have a shock and awe appearance on that day one to put all these things out. Many of the orders will relate to restricting immigration, increasing energy output in the United States, maybe

announcing his plans to impose tariffs on imports. Oh, so tariffs could be a day one thing? Tariffs usually have to go through like a regulatory process run by the Commerce Department. So I don't think he will impose tariffs on day one, but he would announce his intention to take U.S. policy in that direction. Can we talk a little bit about the money that goes into the inauguration process?

In every inauguration, there is this fund that people donate to, the inaugural fund. But this time around, there have been some high-profile donations from Silicon Valley that are getting a lot of attention. And it is all even more relevant now that Biden's closing message is that there's an oligarchy about to dismantle democracy. Now, he did not name anybody specifically, but there will be some prominence

prominent tech CEOs on the stage for the inauguration. So first, how normal or abnormal is this amount of money and this amount of billionaires? Well, I mean, the truth is there's always been money involved in planning and executing the inauguration because the taxpayers can only cover the ceremony at the Capitol. And so it's up to the incoming president to finance everything else. And that is the parade,

the balls, the stands by the White House, everything. So it's a situation that is sort of ripe for corporate influence and corporate donations. But Trump is certainly not the first president to benefit from corporate support at his inaugural. Both Biden and Barack Obama and George Bush, I mean, this has been a long-running thing. Now, it may be unusual for industry titans like an Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg to be sitting adjacent

to the president when he is being sworn in. But in terms of undercutting democracy, money has always flowed this way. I think the last estimate I saw is

is that Trump and his committee have raised something like $170 million for this, which is significantly more than they raised back in 2016. And of course, everyone talks about this as access and pay to play, but there are no limits on what you can give this committee. But Trump has certainly, especially since winning the election, shown a real affinity now for these tech executives. And part of it is these CEOs now realizing which

Which way the wind blows. And they don't want the heavy hand of the government to come down on them. And will all this money be spent for the inauguration itself? I would think not. I mean, it's such a huge slush fund that there's no way you can, you know, a ball, you can have a dozen balls and it's not going to soak up $170 million.

I read somewhere this week that a lot of this money will go toward different organizations, a super PAC here, a super PAC there, that will ultimately be supportive of Trump causes so that money's not just going to be spent in Washington, D.C. on Monday. I see reports that TikTok's CEO will be on the platform as well a day after the app is shut down in the U.S. Do we know anything about that? Well, I think it's a last-minute move to try to lobby Trump.

the Trump White House to come up with some sort of workaround so that TikTok doesn't have to shut down and, you know, sort of a measure, you know, it's a Hail Mary. Yeah. And we'll see. I mean, certainly we have read that Trump has made noises about wanting to do something because he likes the platform and he likes the fact that he has a lot of supporters on the platform. So, you know, this is, there's nothing subtle.

about this. This is TikTok trying to save its neck. There does seem to be a lot of enthusiasm in the business and finance world for the second coming of Trump. Why are they so happy? Well,

I would say that they anticipate business-friendly policies from Donald Trump. He's already signaled plans for a tax cut. He needs to extend the Trump tax cuts. I believe it's by the end of this year to keep those in place. And a lot of people benefit from these, but the wealthy do not.

significantly. That's drawing some support for Trump from the business world. And one of the things that they'll have to reckon with, though, is if they deport a lot of migrant workers, a lot of these businesses who rely on those workers are going to say, hey, we got to keep some of these people here just for the economy to function. And that's a decision that Trump will have to make down the road.

And there's also a concern that the tariffs, when they are imposed, will drive up prices again for American consumers, which could put a dent into the economy just when Trump is trying to grow it. But, you know, a lot of this stuff operates on optimism. Sometimes the economy can be a self-fulfilling prophecy where people are, you know, where businesses and investors feel optimistic.

drives the market up, and things look like they're in good shape. And I would add, too, that Trump has said that he wants to ease regulatory burdens on businesses, which is always the number one complaint that corporations have about government. And, of course, Trump has a Republican Congress, so he may be able to get through a lot of the stuff that he's actually promised. Now, past day one, you have reported a piece recently on plans within Trump world to really target what they call the deep state. So,

So what might that effort look like this time around? And what might that do to the federal government? Well, and let's be clear about what Trump thinks the deep state is. It's a group of individuals in his mind, and it could be, you know, Democratic lawmakers, longtime career government officials, the media, anybody who stood in the way of his agenda the first time around. And he has sworn, he and his allies,

have sworn to try to exert more control over the executive branch during the second term. So to that end, what Trump and his allies are looking to do is basically take 50,000 or more jobs that exist in the federal government right now that belong to what we call career bureaucrats. These are administrators.

who stay on from administration to administration. They're not supposed to be political. They're not supposed to be ideological. They're the people who actually basically have the institutional memory at these agencies, and they're the ones that keep it functioning from president to president.

Well, what Trump wants to do is he wants to knock out a whole layer of these people and replace them with political appointees that he and his White House will know will faithfully execute his policy directives. Because as I said before, they blame Trump.

people in the Justice Department, people in the Department of Education, people in the Labor Department, for either slow walking or downright obstructing their directives during his first term. So this is Trump's attempt to get around that, add more control over these institutions. The public sector unions that represent these workers say that this is illegal and that they're going to sue over it. So this is not something that Trump is going to be able to accomplish overnight or easily.

As others have noted, Trump starts day one as a lame duck president since, you know, he, barring any constitutional changes, can only serve one term. On the other hand, he's referred to as the most powerful executive in memory. So which is a more accurate read?

Well, in a way, they're both true. I mean, he will be a lame duck soon after taking office. That's why he wants to jam as much as he can into the first 100 days as possible to just set the tone for the rest of his term. But he will also wield enormous power, not only from the White House, but he controls both houses of Congress.

And as long as he's putting forth policies that they can stomach, then they will support him and he'll be able to get a lot done over the next four years. And I would add to that, too, that in a way, Trump is freer to do things because he doesn't have to stand.

for reelection again. So he may be in a position to propose more radical changes or policies than he may have if he was worried about coming back to the voters. Although I will note that members of Congress will have to face the voters both in two years and four years. So that may put a cap on how far they are willing to go in some areas.

Like, say, cutting benefits, Social Security, you know, Medicare, something like that. And he will play a role in picking or handpicking his next successor. I mean, who replaces him? Will he throw his support behind the vice president, J.D. Vance? Possibly, but there's a whole coterie of other Republicans eager to run, including people like Arkansas Governor Sarah Sanders, who was his White House press secretary for a period of

Ron DeSantis of Florida. There's a whole long list of people and Trump will probably want to play a role in deciding who's going to replace him. Or let's not forget too that, you know, Trump is not a young man.

Biden came into office in his late 70s, and we did see some physical decline over the years. So will that happen with Trump? We don't know. Where will the Trump crowd hang out now that he's sold his D.C. hotel? I mean, the former Trump International Hotel was the physical manifestation of

the MAGA scene. So where's Giuliani going to go? Well, I don't think Giuliani can afford to go to the Trump hotel anymore. That's true. He's got a lot of legal cases. Well, listen, this is such a popular question that the Trump organization and Trump's family have discussed reacquiring the rights to the place. Wow. Because they

They are interested in having a place where, you know, allies can stay and foreign dignitaries can stay and Trump can go have a meal and not be bothered and feel comfortable. So, you know, and people that Steve and I have spoken to have said, well, maybe they'll just go to the hotel anyway, which is right now a Waldorf Astoria. How is the press supposed to cover this person who is still...

A unique presence in Washington. He's loose with the truth. He's made some authoritarian threats. So what is what is the press's role this time around? Well, our role is going to be very similar to what it was before to cover faithfully what he's doing and also cover faithfully the ramifications of his policies.

Now, we expect some blowback from them over the direction we try to take things. That's very possible. But we will execute our mission as always. We will cover what he's doing and provide the proper context and call into question policies as we would normally do under any president. We'll just take it one day at a time. Now, we are expecting some friction. We may be in for a rough ride, but hey, we're tough and we'll be right there every day.

Yes, they may punish outlets who write negative stories. They will play games with access

They may reorganize the White House briefing room to favor conservative outlets. We don't know how often they're going to be briefing the press. These are all sorts of questions that are going to have to be answered. But I do think we need to show the American public, too, that we are honest brokers here and we are interested in fact-based coverage, that we are not an opposition party. We are chroniclers.

And to that end, if we can just provide a faithful report that people can trust, I think we've done our job. Be honest. When's the last time you had a homemade meal? We get it. Between meetings, workout classes, and the kids' after-school sports, who's got time to cook? That's where HelloFresh comes in. No matter how busy you get, HelloFresh has everything you need to get an easy, home-cooked meal on the table with fast,

Thanks again to Steve and Jim for their time and their expertise. Reuters World News is produced by Gail Issa, Sharon Reich-Garson, Christopher Wall-Jasper, David Spencer, and me, Jonah Green.

Our senior producers are Tara Oaks and Carmel Crimmins. Our executive producer is Lila de Kretzer. Musical composition and sound design by Josh Sommer. We'll be back on Monday with our daily headline show. To make sure you never miss an episode, click follow on your preferred podcast platform or download the Reuters app.