Donald Trump inauguration 2025 updates: Trump is sworn in as 47th president

Our live page will soon come to a close. Here’s a summary of all the events that happened on Monday, the first day of Donald Trump’s second term as president.

• In the final hours of his presidency, Democrat Joe Biden issued a series of “preemptive pardons” for those he feared would come under attack during a Trump presidency.
• They include Biden’s brothers, immunologist Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley and the members of the House Select Committee on the January 6 attack, including former Congress member Liz Cheney.
• Faced with an Arctic blast outdoors, Trump held his inauguration ceremony inside the Capitol Rotunda, surrounded by dignitaries and family.
• Trump’s inauguration was the first to invite foreign leaders to participate, and many far-right politicians were in attendance, including Argentina’s Javier Milei and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni.
• In his inaugural address, Trump denounced the “radical and corrupt establishment” of his predecessor, as well as the alleged “weaponisation” of the justice system.
• He also advanced a vision of the future that called for the expansion of US territory, including by “taking” the Panama Canal “back” from Panama.
• The Republican leader also announced he would declare a state of emergency at the southern border with Mexico and declare drug-trafficking cartels “terrorists” in order to expel them from the country.
• Trump also withdrew the US for a second time from the Paris Agreement, a landmark international treaty designed to combat climate change.
• Later, at a rally for supporters at the Capital One Arena, Trump signed a series of executive orders freezing government hiring and halting the addition of federal regulations, among other things.

This live page is now closed. But if you would like to learn more about Monday’s events, check out our on-the-ground coverage from Washington, DC, here.

We also have five key takeaways from Trump’s inaugural speech and a schedule of the day’s events.

For more insight beyond Monday’s news, check out Al Jazeera’s reporting on the evolution of the Women’s March protests and what Trump had promised for his first day in office.

Thank you for following along for all the day’s events.

Following through with one of his frequent campaign-trail promises, Trump has announced that he has pardoned all defendants who had been charged for their role in the 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

On January 6 of that year, Trump held a rally encouraging his supporters to “stop the steal” – a phrase he used to falsely allege that his 2020 defeat was the result of electoral fraud.

Trump has continued to repeat that false claim, even as he was sworn in for a second term on Monday.

His supporters left Trump’s rally and descended on the US Capitol, attacking police officers and breaking into the building in an apparent attempt to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election, which was unfolding inside.

Some supporters chanted phrases like “Kill Mike Pence”, a reference to Trump’s vice president at the time. Lawmakers were forced to flee the Capitol.

Trump himself has faced legal fallout for his actions in relation to the 2020 election, including one state-level criminal case in Georgia and one federal indictment for election interference that was dropped late last year, as a result of his recent re-election.

In addition to the nearly 1,500 defendants he pardoned, Trump also issued multiple “J6” commutations, according to a statement from the White House.

They include figures like Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right militia the Oath Keepers who was convicted of seditious conspiracy in 2022.

Trump has reportedly called on the Justice Department to drop all pending cases against January 6 defendants. An estimated 1,583 people had faced federal charges in total.

Even as nighttime falls on Washington, DC, Trump’s schedule remains packed.

Not only has he pledged to return to the Oval Office to sign pardons for those charged in the riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, but he also has several official celebrations to attend.

They include the Commander in Chief Ball, where the musical group Rascal Flatts will play; the Liberty Ball, which will see performances by the Village People and Jason Aldean; and the Starlight Ball, where Trump will be serenaded by country singer Gavin DeGraw.

Trump will also make remarks at each event.

Normally, the presidential inauguration parade marches through the streets of Washington, DC.

But with an Arctic blast spreading freezing temperatures across the US East Coast, the parade had to be revised and brought indoors to the Capital One Arena.

A series of marching bands filtered through the centre of the arena on Monday afternoon, and a brief memorial was held for Corey Comperatore, a volunteer firefighter who was shot dead during a failed assassination attempt against Trump in July.

Trump and his family watched the proceedings from the stands, offering occasional waves and fist pumps, before exiting after the president’s speech.

With 99 votes, Florida Senator Marco Rubio has won unanimous confirmation to the role of secretary of state, the top diplomat in the US.

The Senate confirmation vote on Monday made him the first member of Trump’s cabinet to earn the chamber’s approval.

It was a rare bipartisan vote ahead of what are likely to be more contentious Senate proceedings over candidates like Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Pete Hegseth, his choice for defence secretary.

Hegseth has faced scrutiny over allegations of sexual misconduct and excessive drinking while on the job. Patel, meanwhile, has spurred fears that he would use the FBI – an agency that is supposed to be nonpartisan – to pursue Trump’s political rivals.

Sitting at a desk in the centre of the Capital One Arena, Trump fulfilled a pledge to sign executive orders peeling back his predecessor’s actions.

The first document Trump signed rescinded “78 Biden-era executive actions, executive orders, presidential memoranda and others”, according to a representative narrating the proceedings.

He then proceeded to sign a series of documents that called for:

• a freeze on government regulations
• a freeze on hiring in the federal government, with exceptions for the military
• federal employees to return to in-person work, rather than working from home
• federal agencies to address the cost-of-living crisis
• the US to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, a landmark treaty designed to combat climate change
• preventing government censorship
• an end to the “weaponisation of government against political adversaries”

After signing the seven documents, Trump stood up and offered fist pumps as the crowd chanted, “USA! USA!”

At one point during the ceremony, he exclaimed, “Could you imagine Biden doing this? I don’t think so!”

Earlier on Monday, Trump took the oath of office under the Capitol dome and gave the first speech of his second term.

But a few hours later, at the Capital One Arena, Trump told supporters he was frustrated that he did not take more jabs at his predecessor, Biden, in his inaugural speech.

“The only thing wrong with it is I had a lot of tough things to say,” Trump said of his speech.

He indicated that his aides encouraged him to hold back on his attacks against Biden.

“I have some great people that work for me: ‘Sir, this is such a great speech, so unifying. Don’t talk about Biden with his pardons of his family. We want a unified country,'” Trump said.

“ I said, ‘All right. I won’t put it in my speech, but you know what? I’m speaking in front of a hell of a lot of people at a place called Capital One Arena. And I’ll talk about it there.'”

Trump’s presidency has long spurred fears that the administration would administer “loyalty tests” to career civil service employees, who work for the government  no matter the president in charge.

In his speech at Capital One Arena, Trump seemed to take aim at that sector, saying he would remove “Biden bureaucrats”.

“To gain immediate control of the vast federal out-of-control bureaucracy, I will implement an immediate regulation freeze, which will stop Biden bureaucrats from continuing to regulate,” Trump said.

“Most of those bureaucrats are being fired. They’re gone. Should be all of them, but some sneak through,” he added.

“ I’ll also issue a temporary hiring freeze to ensure that we’re only hiring competent people who are faithful to the American public.” It was unclear how he would measure such fealty.

The gloves have come off – completely.

At the podium at the Capital One Arena, Trump has reverted to his pugilistic campaign trail style, throwing punches at the outgoing administration of Democrat Joe Biden.

“We’re going to sign executive orders,” Trump said, referring to a pile of documents nearby.

“First, I’ll revoke nearly 80 disruptive and radical executive actions of the previous administration, one of the worst administrations in history – not one of them. The worst. Anybody  would allow millions of people to pour through our borders from jails, prisons, mental institutions, insane asylums…”

There is no evidence to support that foreign countries are releasing people from prisons or mental health institutions into the US.

Even as he celebrates his first day in office, Trump has returned to his usual grievances, once again accusing his political opponents of trying to “rig” the election.

It was a throwback to Trump’s previous claims that his 2020 defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud.

For the 2024 race, he called on his supporters to turn out en masse, using the slogan “Too big to rig” – a phrase he reprised on the floor of the Capital One Arena on Monday.

“They worked so hard,” Trump said of his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who formerly headed the Republican National Committee. “They knew they’d be rigging, but they said we’re going to make it too big to rig.”

“And we did. We made it too big to rig. We won every swing state by a lot. We won the popular vote by millions and millions of votes. We won the whole ball of wax. And now we’re going to go and drill, baby, drill and do all the things that we wanted to do.”

“We won! We won! But now the work begins.”

Trump declared that, later on Monday evening, he would begin signing pardons for the rioters arrested after the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

“ Tonight, I’m going to be signing the J6 hostages’ pardons to get them out,” Trump said. “ And as soon as I leave, I’m going to the Oval Office and we’ll be signing pardons for a lot of people.”

As of January 6 of this year, the Justice Department had charged 1,583 people with federal crimes related to the riot. Approximately 1,009 people have pleaded guilty, and 221 have been found guilty.

In his remarks, Witkoff – Trump’s envoy to the Middle East – echoed many of Trump’s talking points, including the idea that foreign allies were relying too heavily on US aid.

“We are done carrying the financial burden for nations that are unwilling to fund their own progress. The days of blank cheques are over,” Witkoff said.

He also described his role as continuing the work of Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021. That includes continuing work on the Abraham Accords, a series of diplomatic normalisation agreements between Israel and Arab countries in the surrounding region.

“My commitment is to continue to do the work of advancing President Trump’s vision for the Middle East,” Witkoff said. “Whether through expanding the Abraham Peace Accords, fostering an economic development or facilitating dialogue between long-standing adversaries, my focus remains on actual actionable results.”

He also underscored Trump’s self-described role as a peacemaker – and emphasised that Trump would achieve results.

“A stable and prosperous Middle East is not an unattainable dream. It is a goal within our reach, made possible by strong leadership and unwavering commitment. Under President Trump’s guidance, we have proven that the impossible can become reality.”

Witkoff, Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, has welcomed on stage at the Capital One Arena the families of captives who are slated to be released in Gaza, following the recent ceasefire agreement.

Each person passed in front of Trump to receive a handshake from the president himself.

Trump has claimed credit for pushing the ceasefire deal over the finish line, after his predecessor Biden unveiled its terms in May.

Adam Isacson, a migration and security analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), has said that, with Trump’s cancellation of all existing CBP One appointments, the right to asylum has been effectively nullified at the US-Mexico border.

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has said that more than 936,500 migrants and asylum seekers have used the CBP One app, launched in October 2020, to schedule entry appointments since January 2023.

“The Biden rule blocked nearly all asylum access between ports of entry. The Trump admin just killed all CBP One appointments at ports of entry,” Isacson said in a social media post.

“There is now virtually no way to access asylum at the US-Mexico border. The border is in a state of egregious illegality right now.”

Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of the armed group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that overthrew the government of former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, has congratulated Trump as he returns to the White House.

“The past decade has brought immense suffering to Syria, with the conflict devastating our nation and destabilizing the region. We are confident that he is the leader to bring peace to the Middle East and restore stability in the region,” al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Julani, said in a statement.

“We look forward to improving the relations between our two countries based on dialogue and understanding.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has congratulated President Trump on his return to power, though she noted that relations with Mexico must be conducted on the basis of mutual respect.

“On behalf of the Government of Mexico, I congratulate Donald Trump POTUS on his inauguration as the 47th President of the United States of America,” Sheinbaum said in a social media post. “As neighbors and trading partners, dialogue, respect and cooperation will always be the symbol of our relationship.”

Global leaders and officials involved in efforts to coordinate a worldwide response to climate change have said that Trump’s plan to once again withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement will increase the severity of the climate crisis.

Extreme weather patterns are already affecting millions of people around the world, amplifying deadly events like heatwaves, fires and floods.

People in poor countries that have contributed relatively little to global carbon emissions are expected to bear the brunt of those disasters.

“The leadership of the United States is critical in mobilising climate finance, advancing clean energy transitions and ensuring the equitable implementation of global climate goals. Equally important is the need to promote multilateralism as the foundation for addressing climate change and other global challenges,” said Ali Mohamed, Kenya’s special envoy for climate change.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren has slammed the prominence given to powerful tech billionaires at Trump’s inauguration.

“Big Tech billionaires have a front row seat at Trump’s inauguration,” Warren said in a social media post. “They have even better seats than Trump’s own cabinet picks. That says it all.”

One of the first proclamations Trump issued after his inauguration had to do with a source of contention in the lead-up to his inauguration: whether the US flag would fly at full staff.

Trump was vocally upset at the prospect that the flag would be lowered for his inauguration day, as part of the mourning period for the late President Jimmy Carter.

According to the US Flag Code, federal flags are lowered for a period of 30 days following a president’s death. Since Carter died on December 29, that 30-day period overlapped with Trump’s inauguration on Monday.

But Trump took the half-mast flag as a slight against his presidency, and at his urging, Speaker Mike Johnson ordered the flag raised for the president’s swearing-in.

Trump formalised the move in his first presidential proclamation afterwards.

“I hereby order that, on this and all future Inauguration Days, the flag of the United States shall be flown at full-staff,” Trump wrote.