• Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th President of the United States on January 20 at the US Capitol.
• Trump vowed “a new US golden age” as he took the oath for a historic second presidential term.
• Trump served his first term as US president from 2016 to 2020 after defeating Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
• Trump, 78, is the oldest President ever elected. He is also the first defeated President in 132 years to win another term in the White House. The first was Grover Cleveland, who served two four-year terms starting in 1885 and 1893.
• The inauguration completes a triumphant comeback for a political disruptor who survived two impeachment trials, a felony conviction, two assassination attempts and an indictment for attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss.
• Trump took the oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend the US Constitution”, administered by Chief Justice John Roberts. His Vice President, J.D. Vance was sworn in just before him.
• Joe Biden and outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump in November, were on hand inside the Capitol’s Rotunda, along with former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
• The ceremony was moved inside the Capitol due to the extreme cold, four years after a mob of Trump supporters breached the building, a symbol of American democracy, in an unsuccessful effort to forestall Trump’s loss to Joe Biden.
• Trump will enjoy Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress that have been almost entirely purged of any intra-party dissenters.
• Even before taking office, Trump established a rival power center in the weeks after his election victory, meeting world leaders and causing consternation by musing aloud about seizing the Panama Canal, taking control of NATO ally Denmark’s territory of Greenland and imposing tariffs on the biggest US trading partners.
• His influence has already been felt in the Israel-Hamas announcement last week of a ceasefire deal.
• Winning the election also rid Trump of two federal indictments — for plotting to overturn the 2020 election and for retaining classified documents — thanks to a Justice Department policy that Presidents cannot be prosecuted while in office.
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