Donald Trump Inaugurated as 47th U.S. President
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Donald Trump has just been sworn in as our nation's 47th president and has pledged to immediately sign nearly a hundred executive actions that would crack down on immigration, open up more domestic energy production, strip job protections from career civil servants, among other things. For his supporters, there's elation at his return to power. For detractors, many report a collective resignation rather than the resistance of 2017.

How are you feeling? And how is this moment different for you from eight years ago? Forum is next. Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. President Donald Trump's aides forecast that the nation's 47th president would strike a tone of unity and light during his inaugural address.

But except for a reference to sunlight pouring over the entire world, the president quickly pivoted to describing a dark, present, and incompetent previous administration and attacking marginalized groups. Focusing on himself, he described perceived betrayals and a federal government weaponized against him. My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal that

and all of these many betrayals that have taken place, and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and indeed, their freedom. From this moment on, America's decline is over.

We get your reactions to the 47th president's inaugural address and hear what the initial days and weeks will bring. Joining me is Claudia Grisales, congressional correspondent for NPR. Claudia, thanks so much for being with us.

Thanks for having me. And also with us is Zach Beecham, senior correspondent at Vox and author of Vox's newsletter on conservatism called On the Right. Zach, thanks for being with us, too. Happy to be here. Franklin Foer is also here, a staff writer at The Atlantic. His recent piece is How Biden Destroyed His

His legacy. And you, our listeners, of course, join the conversation with your reactions to Trump's inaugural address, the messages that stood out to you, how you're feeling as Trump returns to power compared with how you felt during his inauguration eight years ago. The email address is forum at KQED.org. We're on social channels at KQED Forum. And our phone number is 866-733-6786. Again, that's 866-733-6786.

Claudia, I'm going to start with you. So we have a new occupant now in the White House. You're on the ground in D.C. What's the atmosphere in the city where you are?

Well, it was a moment of anticipation seeing President Trump sworn in. We've heard a lot about all of these long list of plans that he has. Republican control of Washington is now finally set. This trifecta sweep that was set into motion with last year's elections. And they have set the bar pretty high in terms of everything they want to get done. We're hearing about a slew of executive orders that will be coming.

our way just in this first day. Republicans have tight margins in Congress. They want to get things done, such as pass a major reconciliation bill. By reconciliation, this is a special legislative vehicle that lawmakers can use with these tighter margins if they can get all members of their party on board to address the border, to address other issues, other partisan goals, if you will.

And so it's going to take a lot of work for these Republicans to stay on the same page, even with Trump at the top. When we get into budgetary issues, there's a lot of different ideas, especially on the House side. So we'll see if they're going to meet the mark that they have set already in many cases. It's a really, really tall order. Yeah. Is that what stood out to you, Claudia, the fact that this really did have a lot of

statements about policy proposals, executive actions that are going to be taken as opposed to maybe sort of a broad unifying message.

Yeah, no, not surprised at all. This is Trump's second term. There was obviously a lot of regret from his first term in terms of how things moved too slowly when it came to policy or getting the people he wanted in place. And so we're seeing folks move a lot faster, for example, on the Senate side of the nominations, even some of the more controversial names such as

Pete Hegseth to be the next defense secretary, who's obviously a crew of senators, Republican senators who are not on board with that, who have since budged. So Hegseth is looking good at the moment, but we'll see what his vote gets to the Senate floor, assuming he's on track for that. So no, it's not surprising at all. Trump is ready to address all the things, all the

loose ends. He didn't get covered in his first term. And that it also includes a revenge tour as well, targeting folks that he feels that didn't pay enough of a price for targeting him or others or who he has differences with. So they're going to try to move a lot faster this time. Let's hear a few of the things that the president has pledged to do. First, I will declare a national emergency at our southern border.

That is why today I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill. It will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female. Zach Beecham, what stood out to you from Trump's inaugural address? Well...

To me, it was in part a matter of tone, right? Trump's first inaugural was a vibrant, aggressive, powerful speech. I say what you will about it, but no one will forget the line about American carnage.

right, and ending it now. This speech, by contrast, you know, Trump has famously exhibited a gap between his teleprompter performance and his, you know, his real physical, when he was just sort of riffing performance. He's much more energized than the other one. But in this one, he was mostly the subdued version of himself. It didn't feel like Trump triumphant. It was oddly low energy, to use one of his own favorite epithets.

That's one thing, which is less substantive and more just something that was striking about the speech. Substantively, it was also striking how much more developed the immigration policies were than nearly everything else that was described, right? So it really – I mean, the structure of the speech was like a campaign speech mixed with the State of the Union, right? Because he's in power and not running for office. And he's outlining the list of things that he's going to do or is about to do. And –

The immigration stuff was very detailed, very specific. There had been a lot of work put into exactly what was going to happen on day one. The other policy items felt sort of very muddled, a little bit scattershot, less laid out, was clearly defined in terms of what was going to happen.

And it was also interesting sort of in that vein, how much more interested Trump was in annexing or seizing control of, it's not quite clear, the Panama Canal than most of the other foreign policy tactics or sorry, excuse me, topics that came up. So, I mean, if you're trying to read the tea leaves, which is what you have to do with an inaugural address because you can't, there's not yet policy for one to analyze in any deep substantive sense. The,

The early sign is that this is a presidency that is focused primarily on the Americas, on the American border, on the United States' relationship with immigration coming from Central America, and on expanding American hemispheric dominance, including...

bullying Panama, working on trying to seize control of Greenland, bullying Canada, too. I'm not sure what, but it's definitely not becoming the 51st state. I really do believe that these are, you know, they've been dismissed as jokes, but I've long thought they really are quite important to the once and current president. And I think they'll prove so in the years ahead. Yeah, Franklin, pretty clear about what he wants to do. What did you take away from the inaugural address, Frank?

I felt like it was the day that the American oligarchy was sworn into power, that the thing that was so striking to me was watching the heads of the four families, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Tim Cook, standing right behind the president's own family. And there was this disconnect, of course. I mean, as there always is.

And the way that Trump presents himself between this message where he's defending the construction worker and the everyday American and and he's going to try to restore equality to the American system, this populism, and then just this complete tethering to to these tech executives who.

many of whom have been critical of him, who have just kind of ushered themselves into the center of power. You could say, on the one hand, that this was Trump kind of forcing these guys to abase themselves. I was watching the moment where Jeff Bezos stood up and applauded

And I could see Tim Cook standing up and applauding where Trump said that the moment that he was saved in Butler, Pennsylvania, that he knew that he had he was blessed by God to have a divine mission in this presidency. They stood up and they cheered that that statement, which is they surely don't believe. And it's kind of a humiliating thing for them to do. But on the other hand, there is this way in which they are they are in turn kind of

They understand the opportunity. They're flexing their own power and that there is this unity that he was celebrating the speech between himself and Elon Musk and himself and these other forces in the world, which is, I think, the beginning of a dangerous new constellation of power in our nation's history. Yeah. And I want to get into later how that will affect America.

But first, could you just remind us of what a contrast this is, for example, especially along Bezos' lines, right, in terms of eight years ago? Well, I mean, there was a time where he was threatened with government regulation, the possible breakup of his country. And one way in which he tried to redeem his reputation was to buy the Washington Post, which was flailing, and to turn it into a newspaper that was kind of an explicit, explicit

explicitly a resistance newspaper, Democracy Dies in the Darkness, famously, it's still their motto. And then, you know, over time, he was threatened by Trump. There were contracts that he had he was aspiring to get with the Pentagon that he was unable to get. There was a sense that Trump was messing with his bottom line business interests. And of course, he also wants to

make his way to space and to have government subsidize his space company, Blue Origin. So he decided rather than take an oppositional stance, which could hurt his interest, he would kiss the ring, which would be both protective and also would allow him to accomplish some of his own dreams. Yeah. And you wrote that

For many of these tech moguls, the determination has become that resistance is not worth it. And that is a question that we're asking you, our listeners. There's been a lot of reporting that

The resistance of 2017 has given way to the resignation of 2025. And I want to ask you if that's how you are feeling, if you are a detractor of Trump, if you are a supporter, how you are feeling at his return to power. Ron writes, I don't feel much different than I did January 20th, 2017. Even back then, I saw Trump as a new Hitler.

Is that you? Tell us at 866-733-6786, email forum at kqed.org, post on Blue Sky Facebook, Instagram and threads your reaction to Trump's inaugural address and how you're feeling about his return to power. More after the break. I'm Mina Kim.

Hey, have you heard of On Air Fest? It's a premiere festival for sound and storytelling taking place in Brooklyn from February 19th through 21st. I'm Morgan Sung, host of KQED's new tech and culture show, Close All Taps, and I'll be there at the fest to give a sneak preview of the show, along with an IRL deep dive all about how to sniff out AI.

You'll also hear from podcast icons like Radiolab's Jad Abumrad, Anna Sale from Death, Sex, and Money, and over 200 more storytellers. So come level up your own craft or connect with other audio creatives. Grab your tickets now at onairfest.com. You're listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're talking about the inauguration of President Donald Trump and getting your reactions to his return to power and your questions about what the initial days and weeks will bring. You can share at 866-733-6786.

Thank you.

And a listener on Discord writes, for compassion's sake, I remember that it's unfair and ungraceful to fault a person or a nation for having produced a metastasizing tumor, even if their habits and inclinations have helped to produce it. The process is gradual enough that it's hard to stem. But for all that I cannot help but look with distaste on a patient's being in love with the foul mass that may well kill them, praising it and having been excised of it once, eagerly pursuing it again. And I will refuse to stop calling cancer, cancer, cancer.

You know, I want to ask, we're hearing from our listeners sort of a strong sense of frustration or concern after hearing the president's inaugural address. But I'm wondering, Zach, if you would agree with some of the diagnoses, especially among journalists, that this is an electorate that if they oppose Trump has become more resigned to his return?

To be honest, I think that's a mood among the American elites that...

I'm not sure how much is filtered down to the mass, right? I think there is among the press and others who have to spend their entire waking lives more or less thinking about Donald Trump. There's a sense of exhaustion here. Like, I can't believe we have to do this again. And that leads to a certain sense of resignation. I think that's combined with what some people have called the vibe shift.

A sense that the culture has shifted amorphously in a right-wing direction. Ezra Klein just published a column about this and this theory and its limits. And I think he's in the New York Times. And I think he's right that people are overreading what was, after all, a plurality victory by Trump.

It was quite narrow and the margin in the House is exceptionally narrow. This is not a sign of new Republican dominance. But I think for a lot of people who have spent the past four years saying, how could we ever have done this in the first place? And then the electorate, well, they go and do it again. They feel like their feeling, their understanding of the world has been upended and that they need to start listening to the people who elected Trump when in reality, it's still a very closely divided country.

And I think a lot of ordinary Americans are still, who oppose Trump, are still very angry about it. Those who support him, of course, are thrilled by his inauguration. So I think the battle lines are going to be much as they were in the first Trump term, with both sides having the added benefit of having seen how things went last time and trying to figure out what they could do this time around differently. Well,

Well, Claudia, talk about the kinds of protests that we have heard about and also about some notable Democrats who sat out the inauguration. Yeah, there have been protests today all over the country. We have seen the masses gather to protest the Trump presidency. I think going adding to Zach's point in terms of

You know, maybe there's an exhaustion there. Maybe there's a resignation there. There's also a lot of familiarity there. People know who Trump is. They're more familiar with him. They know he's going to make outlandish statements such as we may use...

military force to take over Greenland, for example. And I was talking to a Republican recently who made a really good point. They said, sometimes I don't have hope in American democracy. Sometimes I really don't have hope in the American voter. But one thing I truly believe in is bureaucracy. That will all slow down any of these plans. And we know Trump will make statements that folks will maybe get a reaction to.

in terms of what Trump's statement is, and that's normal. That's what he's looking for, is a statement. But, you know, in terms of like my case, for example, I'm looking forward to covering this administration because I understand him a lot better. I have a better sense when he is talking about something that is possible to accomplish and when he's making an outlandish statement and he has a much longer road ahead in order of implementing some of those more extreme ideas.

And what do you think the message is, maybe from Speaker Pelosi, for example, who skipped Trump's presidential inauguration?

Right. Well, so this was supposed to be held outside, as we know, and cold weather here, snow, predictions of maybe worse weather here provided a good excuse, you could say, for some to say, I better be held indoors. And already security concerns were on another level, just levels that we are not as used to here. And so it was very convenient and

to move it inside, very convenient to make this a smaller event for President Trump and very convenient for many Democrats who were already hesitating in terms of being at this inauguration to not go. There probably wasn't a lot of great room to stand

anyways in the capitol so a lot of folks were not missing out in terms of like the overflow room where they would have ended up at the capitol not even the rotunda which uh holds a much smaller scale of um people in that area so the message it sends is we know you're getting sworn in um

And we're going to do what we can as best we can in the role of opposition. That's what I've heard from many Democrats in terms of this new chapter. Democrats are still trying to find their footing after losing the elections in such a dramatic way last year and find their new messaging, find their new strategies. And so they're still needing that time to figure all this out. So that's a starting block, but they have a long way to go.

Let me go to caller Joseph in Walnut Creek. Hi, Joseph, you're on. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I wanted to respond to your request for comments about the tech titans and their...

Lack of courage, basically, and standing up against Trump. They're allowing him to speak freely now on social media platforms, and they're giving him money all for their own good.

ambitions. And, you know, could you imagine this lack of courage? And, you know, 200 years ago, when we were fighting to become a free country, they had been the need to the king. It's just unbelievable. Well, Joseph, let me get the thoughts of Frank on this. Because, yes, what do you think the way that the billionaire class, the tech industry is

is aligning themselves with Trump or at least showing themselves as aligning with Trump. What do you think it's going to mean for the average American? What should we be watching for?

Well, one of the things that's been fascinating over the last eight years is it looked like there was a bipartisan consensus that was emerging as it relates to the big tech companies. And over the course of the last four years, one of the things that the Biden administration did was not just move against Google in a court case.

They passed new mergers and acquisition guidelines that were specifically tailored to rein in big tech. There was always the possibility, however distant, that there would be bipartisan legislation to pass new privacy laws or new bills that would do something to curb the power of big tech. And they would be a case of strange political bedfellows. But I think now we're seeing this moment where

especially as it relates to artificial intelligence and other things where even big tech agrees that there should be some form of regulation. There won't be regulation now. And one of the things, just in response to the caller that I've been thinking about over time, is that this might be the true colors of the big tech titans. They all have libertarian inclinations. I think that they...

all have harbored some resentments against the way in which the culture wars have been prosecuted. I think they've all felt some, you know, it's ridiculous to say because they're the most powerful, richest guys in the world, but they've felt victimized in various ways. You hear this, I mean, pretty clearly in the way that Mark Zuckerberg

talks about free speech and about the abuse that he feels like he suffered for having to apologize for Facebook's performance in the 2016 election. I think that there's a lot of resentments that they harbor and that Donald Trump may actually be channeling in this moment. So this may be them. This may be their innards spilling out.

President Biden, in his farewell address, mentioned concerns about an oligarchy. Do you think this is the makings of America's version of oligarchy? I do. I think that when Biden formulated things in that sort of way, he was explicitly saying,

calling back to the warning that Dwight Eisenhower issued on his way out the door about the emerging military industrial complex. And I kind of regret in some sense that Biden didn't make that case against oligarchy earlier on because he had some substance to back up where he was going. And I think it would have been a more potent campaign issue for Democrats if they were campaigning against it. But pretty clearly, when you have a

Elon Musk, assuming these kind of unprecedented powers, having done Donald Trump an unprecedented favor in the amount of money that he spent on behalf of his campaign. I think that there's good reason to worry about a dangerous partnership between the world's richest men and the government of the United States run by somebody who is

bent on breaking norms and changing the way that things are done. It's an enormous opportunity for those tech oligarchs to be expansive. But Zach, I was struck that in a piece you talked specifically about Elon Musk and your view that he may prove less important than he seems at present.

That's right. With the caveat that the thing that came directly after that was that the class that he speaks for may prove more important than many people primarily assume. I think that Elon personally is...

it's the right way to put this, not somebody who always has the best track record of following through on things that he's said he's going to do. Uh, so in 2017, for example, he said he had verbal approval from the federal government to build a hyperloop that could connect DC to New York in 29 minutes. Uh,

that was obviously made up. There's a whole website called Elon Facts, which tracks a number of these fanciful proposals. And what's striking is that his companies have actually done really amazing things when it comes to American aeronautics and space exploration. There's no denying that. But when Musk himself gets on Twitter or gets out in public on some kind of stream and promises something fanciful...

Like you said recently that we're going to have colonies on Mars in four years. That has a very high probability of not panning out.

And it's because he says a lot of stuff and often doesn't understand the details of what he's discussing. This is something when he talks about software engineering, you talk to a software engineer and they say, oh my God, what he's saying is complete nonsense, right? And it feels that way when Elon talks about government policy or areas that I know. So he's sort of made up some statistics about undocumented migration to Pennsylvania, but

That I had to go research because it was impossible to even sort of gauge the nature of the claim that he was making. My point is not just to insult Elon personally, or not really to insult him at all, but just to say he's not somebody who has...

The know-how to operate effectively inside the federal government or the track record of doing things outside his core area of expertise, which has to do with specifically physical engineering, cars and rockets.

And succeeding there, right? It's just there's no evidence there. Not only that, he's a man who has a very, very inflated sense of self, who really wants to be the protagonist of the story. And that kind of person also has a very long track record of generating friction with Donald Trump, because Trump is a very similar way, right? Trump needs to be in charge. He needs to be the boss.

And so I think the combination of those two factors, Musk's unfamiliarity with how to deal with Washington, especially given that he lacks any kind of really formal government power, like an appointed position or a Senate-confirmed position or something like that.

And the fact that his personality will likely to break him in conflict with Trump at one point in the foreseeable future means that he just – he's not going to be this world historical government revolutionary figure that he's selling himself as. Hmm.

We're talking with Zach Beecham of Vox, Franklin Foer of The Atlantic, and Claudia Grisales of NPR. And we're hearing from you, our listeners. Stephen writes, after mentioning various groups that supported him more, Trump certainly poked the Native American community in the eye with his desire to change the name of Denali back to Mount McKinley. Anthony writes, I agree that Trump seemed rather subdued. I suspect he soared that he had to appear before a much smaller crowd than

than he was planning to. Another listener writes about the NPR staff immediately covering the inauguration speech. They seem to be on the verge of hysterics. I detected not the slightest real interest in the incoming POTUS statements or policies and unmitigated hostility and anger. In their incessant partisanship, they didn't demonstrate the least bit of perception regarding the new administration. I don't understand the persistence of the Trump derangement syndrome. Zach, I know you have to leave us at the break. So let me ask you this, especially with regards to your last comments.

First, do you think that this administration, this executive office will be less chaotic than the first because there are more loyalists in that office? Or do you think it will be because of personalities like Musk, just the same or similar?

So I would expect chaos of a different kind. The internal dynamics of the first Trump administration were a conflict between the president and the so-called adults in the room. The people who wanted to rein in Trump, restrict Trumpism, generally kind of impose an old Republican order on a new Republican government. And that fight is over. That's been resolved in favor of the Trump team.

But the new antagonism is what defines Trumpism, right? And which faction of the Republican Party speaks for the president and whose policy priorities will be reflected in law. And there are really tremendous disagreements among people who would be self-identified or reasonably identified as MAGA conservatives. You know, the tech right, who we've been talking about a lot due to their presence at the inauguration, has a lot of tensions with, say, Republicans

the sort of post-liberal right or national conservative right, which is really skeptical of quote-unquote progress, what they understand to be sort of the workings of modern capitalism and liberal society in ways that challenge or undermine the foundations of a traditional family, community faith. And that makes them hostile to the sort of growth at all costs of

We need to get to the moon because we need to transcend the limits of human civilization as we understand them type ideology that's dominant in Silicon Valley. And that's – or at least in the Silicon Valley, right. And that's just one of several different internal tensions. On foreign policy, Trump does not have coherent isolationist ideas.

I mean, he just talked about trying to seize the Panama Canal again. But he is quite skeptical of international institutions and America's role in NATO and stuff like that. And that brings him into tension with, you know, brings sort of two different wings of the foreign policy world into his administration embodied by some of his own choices, right? Marco Rubio for Secretary of State and Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence. Those two people have very different ways of

of seeing the world. So we go on down the list here, but the point is, we're now in a fight that is not about whether MAGA should govern or not. It's what does it mean to govern in a MAGA fashion? And with Trump himself not likely imposing significant controls outside of a select number of issues that he really cares about, I expect there to be a lot of chaos based on an internal conflict between these factions. Hmm.

And then you wrote a piece where you predicted some of the first things that Trump would do. One at the top of your list was Trump will attempt a purge of the federal civil service. Do you still feel that way?

Absolutely. There's already been reporting that Trump is going to revive what's called Schedule F, which reclassifies large chunks of the federal civil service as at-will employees that the president could fire. There's been some roadblocks from the Biden administration that they threw up to make sure that Schedule F would not be able to be implemented, that they've gone through the regulatory process. This might take a while to unwind. So a lot depends on how aggressive Trump is in acting

acting on schedule F, not just declaring that he has schedule F powers, but then picking specific employees and saying, you are no longer a protected civil servant and I will fire you. So that's what I want to watch, right, is how serious he is about this purge he's declared. Well, again, Zach, I know you need to leave us. Thanks so much for being with us.

Thank you. I really appreciate coming on. You can check out Zacks Reporting as senior correspondent at Vox and author of the newsletter on conservatism called On the Right. Frank Forer of The Atlantic and Claudia Grisales will stay with us. And so will you, our listeners. This is Forum. This is Forum. I'm Mina Kim. President Donald Trump was just sworn in as our nation's 47th

Thank you.

Dwayne writes, anybody who's read the 1619 Project will know the reelection of Trump comes as no surprise. The American status quo historically has torn down the democratic pillars to put certain people back in their place. And America has historically shown that demagogues as Trump are part and parcel of the American experience.

John writes, it was curious, if not shocking, to hear Trump actually use the term manifest destiny, a phrase that rightfully had been relegated to the trash heap of history due to both its outmoded belief that a divine being somehow manifestly supported American expansionism and has also held an utter disrepute due to its tragic consequences, which include the massacre of Native Americans and the Civil War. Further, his repeated assertions that there are only two genders also ignores a widely documented allegation

ancient religious and cultural recognition that there are actually multiple genders and fails to understand that it is a relatively modern notion born of ignorance that there are only male and female.

And another listener, Diane writes, I would leave if I could. I realize how much I internalize the abuse thrown at women and people of color since his nasty emergence. I feel like someone who escaped an abusive relationship and enforced back in it. The man is sick and the nation has caught his mental sickness. He is a vindictive and sets the tone for the behavior of the American people. Such an abasement.

Frank, so much of the talk and concern has been on democracy. And actually, Zach just left us. But one of the things that he said was less that democracy ends with the return of Donald Trump, but that the test of democracy begins with the return of Donald Trump. I'm wondering how you feel about that and how you think this second term will be different from his first term.

in relative ways, related ways. I mean, well, I think that the first Donald Trump presidency was an epic test of American institutions in its own right. And I think that American institutions actually performed quite well in light of the stress that he put on them. We saw it in the way in which the opposition party responded. We saw it in the way in which media responded. We saw it to some extent in the ways in which

uh courts responded and my fear this go around is that uh you it's this combination of forces the first is is the apathy that we've been talking about one of the reasons that those institutions responded well was that there was

a market pushing them on. So there were protests in the street, which pushed Democratic politicians to respond with backbone. There was this voracious appetite in reading about Trump that caused media to respond as aggressively as it did. This time we see apathy. I think that the institutions themselves are weaker this go-round because

Because they've been run down. I think media has been run down over time because of various changes within the profession. I think the courts have shifted to the right because of Trump. And then there's the final thing that Zach noted, which is that Paul Krugman called the first Trump administration malevolence tempered by incompetence. And I think what we're seeing in this initial flurry of executive orders and the way in which the Trump administration is proceeding is that there's a high degree of

of competence or higher degree of competence. Let's not give them too much credit. There's a higher degree of competence this go around. So I think it's kind of a perfect storm. It's kind of a perfect storm. This listener, Mary writes, resist. We should be working our buns off to support organizations that will fight for democracy and for officials and judges throughout the country who will also do the same. I'm tripling my donation to the ACLU. And the more KQED can point out what an extremely narrow win his was, the better it's

Frank, are you seeing a shift at all? I mean, you wrote about the apathy and resignation that you were concerned setting in even before the actual before the election itself before Election Day. Are you seeing any kind of meaningful shift or portion of the electorate feeling the way that Mary does that they will resist?

I'm sure that portion, that swath of the electorate is out there. I think it doesn't feel, sitting here in Washington, D.C., on Inauguration Day, like it's actually resonating in Washington. My sense is that in six months' time, things could be very different, that once mass deportations begin—

I think there's a possibility there could be a public response to that. I think that Trump being Trump in the way that he discourses, that there's the possibility that, you know, some of the things that he says will be sufficiently triggering, their actions will be sufficiently triggering, that there is a return to something resembling politics. But right now, it feels like the Democrats especially are just in a

in a position of weakness and some surprising deference, I guess is how I would put it. And so I'm waiting to see if this is just a moment. You know, if Democrats can knock themselves out of this feeling of apathy, that they're this apathetic state that they're in and whether they revert to something closer to, I mean, resistance is like a terrible cliched word, but let's use it, something closer to resistance.

Let me go to caller Paul in San Francisco. Hi, Paul, you're on. Yes, thank you. I think we all have to remember and forget the hyperbole that Trump is not a politician. He's a businessman.

being a politician, I think it's two different things. When he says he's going to indulge in mass deportation, it's a negotiation tactic in his mind. He knows he can't deport all these factory workers and all these agricultural workers. The Republican businessmen will never allow that. So he's just using that as a tactic. And when people fall into that, falling into his game, it just makes it easier for him. I

I think we just got to put things in perspective. What he says and what he can do is two different things. Thanks, Paul. Let me go to caller George in San Jose. Hi, George. You're on.

Well, I certainly heard a lot of partisan ideas today, but I did hear one sort of nonpartisan idea, and that was his comment about common sense, about reintroducing common sense into the government. And he didn't really say what he meant by that, but I'm wondering, you know, why did he take time to say that? And what does he mean by that? And is it really possible to do that?

Hmm. Well, I guess time will tell George, but it sounds like that line resonated with you. This listener writes on discord, I'm probably going to sit in the bathtub with a whole tub of ice cream and turn on the shower head. Another listener, Jacqueline writes in response to the speech, a sad day in my heart as a healthcare provider, I noticed healthcare was not mentioned at all.

Frank, you wrote in a piece in December about how you expect blue states might push back on this administration, which we've talked about before because we're in California, of course. How do you anticipate states might push back? And is this idea that you wrote about in December around federalism something you're seeing now?

Well, I think there are a couple of things. One is that democratic states, as I think California is probably a pretty good example, are not always models of efficiency and competence and good governance. So there's a lot that can be done there. But I think that one of the ways in which

when a party enters into a state of crisis, it's also a moment of opportunity. And there's one place in the Democrats actually hold power, meaningful power, and that is within the states. And there's the possibility that they can use states in innovative, progressive ways to regenerate the party. It's one of the things that gives me kind of a sense of optimism about their prospects for renewal.

I don't think that the early signs are all that promising, but I think it'll take a little bit of time for the new paradigm to kick in. Claudia, are you hearing anything from congressional Democrats or even the California congressional delegation with regards to what their pushback, what form it will take?

Right. I mean, we can look at how, for example, this dance will play out when we look at the wildfires in Los Angeles area and how Trump approaches it. We've gotten a few hints as Trump neared office and is swearing in today, which is there was a level of interest, maybe of some negotiating there in terms of handling what happened.

folks need in California in terms of emergency assistance. And the California delegation includes Republicans as well. They would be heard as well if they don't get the attention they need from this new administration. So that's gonna be one of the first tests.

Now, when we're talking about Democrats in California, as Frank was mentioning, when it comes to these blue states, when he's covered, is that we're expecting them to take a hard line in as many cases as possible with the president when it comes to these dynamics in terms of this resistance, if you will, that Democrats want to make sure they illustrate today.

in states such as California against the Trump administration and their policies. So we could see a lot happening there in terms of that back and forth and that resistance. Yeah, well, let's hear what Trump did say during his inaugural address related to the Los Angeles wildfires. We're watching fires still tragically burn from weeks ago without even a token of defense.

They're raging through the houses and communities, even affecting some of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in our country, some of whom are sitting here right now. They don't have a home any longer.

That's interesting. That's interesting. That's an interesting way to end that. And we are hearing from you, our listeners, about how you're reacting to the president's inaugural address. Donald Trump has been sworn in as our 47th president. This listener on Discord writes, with the amount of hearsay and rapid fire misinformation being spread over the Internet,

The best that some of us can do is just hunger down and wait to see the kind of storm that starts blowing in. We know some things will happen during the presidency and some things may not follow through, but the unpredictability this administration could bring in will keep some of us on our toes for a very long time. Stephen writes, I was struck by Trump's vision of America, the bully. No one else in the world matters. Not once were any of our overseas friends affected.

mentioned he actually used the phrase manifest destiny and said we should resume territorial expansion, just like in his personal life, an extremely self-centered and selfish point of view, which will alienate most of the world's population. We're talking with Claudia Grisales, congressional correspondent at NPR and Franklin Foer, staff writer at The Atlantic, and with you, our listeners. And you are listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.

Frank, so much of the, especially the beginning of the speech was spent describing incredibly incompetent administration and how Trump will undo much of what it did. But how does Trump stand to benefit from a lot of the things that Joe Biden has put in place?

I mean, he was setting himself an extremely low bar because when it comes to immigration, when it comes to inflation, even when it comes to some of the culture war issues, he was depicting a nation that's in this severe existential state of crisis. This was American Carnage 2.0. But really, when you look at the actual numbers, I mean, the border crossings are

low because the Biden administration has imposed a lot of the restrictions that he would probably like to see put in place. Inflation has been coming down for a very, very long time, and it's close to a problem that's under control. Even as he was aggressively waging all of these culture war issues, we're not in 2020 anymore. I think that the nation has kind of

You know, a lot of a lot of the nations chilled out as it relates to culture wars. Now, we're not we're not in the same sort of place that we were in then. And so he's depicting carnage. He's saying he's the one who, blessed by God, will deliver us into a new golden age. But, you know, if by his metrics, we're actually in something kind of close to a golden age world.

already. And, you know, I think the way that he disparaged Biden in the course of the speech with him sitting right there over his shoulder in this, it felt like that was a breaking of a norm unto itself. You also, though, wrote a piece where you said how Biden destroyed his legacy. Talk about how you think Biden has done this. Well, I think today was the moment that Joe Biden

kind of had sworn to himself and sworn to his nation and his party, sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly, that he would prevent from occurring because he said he was defending democracy against autocracy. And it was pretty clear what he meant when he was talking about the autocratic threats from within. And by making this very selfish decision to run for reelection, even though it was probably pretty clear to his aides and to himself

that he was entering a period of his life when he would not have the stamina to run for president again and probably didn't have the stamina to actually be president until the age of 86. Rather than giving his party time to cope with that fact and move on, he kind of doomed them by creating a set of circumstances in which Donald Trump was most likely to return to the White House. Let me go to caller Emily in San Francisco. Hi, Emily, you're on.

Hi there. I have a question. I'm just wondering about Trump's promise to bring back American jobs, what the forecast is for that. And then on top of that, are we going to start encouraging American children to work at farms? Yeah. So that's my question. Claudia, do you want to take that?

Yeah, in terms of the latter point, there was groundbreaking reporting that came from the New York Times in recent years about children who were working at farms. And so we do know that a lot of efforts were set already in motion to try and prevent that from happening again. Continues to be a concern.

So it remains to be seen how this administration will approach that policy issue. Now, when it comes to jobs, Frank brings up a great point in terms of

moving into quote this golden era and a lot of it is born of the Biden administration. We did see a lot of gains. That Trump, of course we would expect him to claim credit. This is his style, to claim credit for others' work. And so he is coming off a really great start, but there will be a battle

as we covered in terms of incompetency versus experience now, in terms of what kind of experience the Trump administration has, the conflict they could bring in once again, but on a different level. This is Trump 2.0. We have much bigger figures here who are going to fight it out, like Elon Musk. And what does that mean in the end for Americans and the job market? That all remains to be seen in terms of how they handle the next steps there.

Claudia, did you hear anything at all that could be perceived as an olive branch to those who didn't support Trump? You know, even just saying the fires and acknowledging the fires, even if he used the word interesting, for example.

That is actually, for me, a little bit surprising. I was expecting him to try and completely turn his back on California. He said he was going to do that for folks who didn't vote for him for blue states. And so there is a little bit of an opening there. And it's a clue that the

potentially we could see an Olive Garden. We have seen Trump make amends a bit with folks that were considered mortal enemies, such as his former vice president, Mike Pence, who was there today at his inauguration. So these are the little clues that we're seeing, we're picking up on, where we could see olive branches here and there come up during his tenure as president.

Well, Martin writes, I share the despair of millions of people at this moment, but we must regroup, repair, re-energize, and resist. We will oppose the Trump right-wing corporate profit agenda with all our heart, soul, and whatever legal mechanisms we can muster. Our struggle is a class struggle, and we are the working class majority, whether we voted for Trump or not. Franklin, we just have 30 seconds, but I'm wondering how you yourself are approaching this period, what you will be looking for as well.

Just, you know, on the level of journalism. Yeah. There's so much. I mean, among some of my colleagues, we look at some of the threats that are legitimately being leveled against Democrats, Democrats, the threats that are being legitimately leveled against people he's classified as opponents of his government, ranging from Democrats to journalists. And it is scary. But I think that our job is to keep on going because I think that's that's that's our job. That's what the nation needs.

Well, Frank, Claudia, my appreciation for both of you. My appreciation to our listeners. This is Forum. We are with you. I'm Mina Kim.

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