The key moments in Donald Trump’s big speech

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Sticking to a teleprompter, and speaking in a more measured tone than he deployed at his rallies, Donald Trump began his inaugural address by predicting “America’s golden age is just beginning” and promising that the United States would “evolve and be respected again everywhere. The world.” .

But the 78-year-old’s speech, which was the longest by an incoming American president in nearly a century, soon launched an attack on his predecessor Joe Biden and threatened to undo much of his legacy by executive order. .

Here are some key paragraphs:

It was one of several applause lines lifted almost word for word from Trump’s first, and famously dark, inaugural address eight years ago.

Trump He also renewed his criticism of the “establishment”, which he said had “extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society have crumbled and seemingly become completely unemployed”. Four of the world’s five richest men and several corporate executives were among the VIPs seated a few feet away.

While Trump’s speech wasn’t as ominous as his 2017 “American Murder” inauguration speech, the president took several opportunities to attack Biden’s record.

“We now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home and at the same time stumbles upon a consistent catalog of catastrophic events abroad,” he said.

He also criticized “a government that has given unlimited funding to foreign border defense” in a thinly veiled reference to US aid to Ukraine.

Trump campaigned hard for the White House last year, claiming that immigrants crossing the southern border were turning the United States into an “occupation country.” He hit the theme hard again in his opening speech.

Trump claimed that the Biden administration’s immigration policies provided “sanctuary and protection” for criminals, including “many from prisons and mental institutions who entered our country illegally from around the world”.

The new president has pledged to “begin the process of returning millions of criminal aliens back to where they came from”. He said he would send troops to the southern border to repel an “invasion”.

Some of Trump’s comments hinted at specific policies designed to please different factions within his broad coalition.

He won rousing applause as he signed executive orders to expand US oil and gas exploration – to tap America’s “liquid gold” – a move he said would lower energy prices and beat inflation. As he spoke, the White House said he would also withdraw the U.S Paris Climate Agreement.

Trump also said he would uphold “his sacred promise to our great American auto workers” by repealing the electric vehicle mandate — even though the U.S. has no laws forcing people to buy EVs — and tariffs on other countries to “enrich our citizens.” promised to impose .

The president also backed a plan championed by his biggest financial backer, Elon Musk, to colonize Mars — a mission that the US government considered a distraction from the moon’s renaissance.

Halfway through the speech, Trump unleashed a list of outlandish promises. He said the United States would change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to “America’s Gulf” and restore the name of North America’s highest peak, Alaska’s Denali, to Mount McKinley in honor of the former president who “enriched our country so much through customs and duties. Through genius.”

He said the US would “take back” the Panama Canal, which Washington gave to the Central American country in 1978.

“The intent of our agreement and the spirit of our agreement have been completely violated,” Trump said. “American ships are being grossly overcharged and are not being treated fairly in any way, shape or form,” he added, before falsely claiming – in front of China’s vice-president, who was in attendance – that Beijing was “managing the Panama Canal”.

A sense of messianic destiny and a touch of justice were prominent features of Trump’s lengthy speech.

“Those who want to stop our cause have tried to take away my freedom and, in fact, have tried to take away my life,” Trump said. He referred to a July rally in Pennsylvania when “an assassin’s bullet tore through my ear”. “I felt then and believe even more now that my life was spared for a reason.”

The first convicted felon to hold the presidency also hit out at various criminal cases brought against him over the past few years, vowing to “put an end to the evil, violent and unjust weapons of the judiciary and our government”.

While he did not repeat his false claim that he had won the 2020 election, Trump said his victory in November was “a mandate to completely and utterly reverse a terrible betrayal”.