| | | | |  | | By Calder McHugh | Presented by American Edge Project | | 
President Donald Trump speaks during inauguration ceremonies in the Capitol Rotunda. | Pool photo by Kevin Lamarque | BACK TO THE FUTURE — Today marked Donald Trump’s second inauguration as president, but he took the oath of office a different president than the first time. His electoral mandate was stronger and more durable. His political party had been brought to heel. He was surrounded by loyalists in a city that didn’t seem so foreign and hostile anymore. Eight years ago today, Trump entered the Oval Office in a defensive crouch, as trains, planes and buses filled with hundreds of thousands of protesters descended on Washington for the Women’s March that would take place the next day. This time around, he has assumed a far more aggressive and cocksure posture — even by Trumpian standards — and it radiated across every aspect of his inauguration. His inaugural speech was twice as long as his first one in 2017. He spoke in the first person far more. He crowed about his victory and promised a wave of first-day action, none of it timid. The GOP has already capitulated, with even his diciest nominees poised to pass Senate muster. America’s top business leaders — many of whom shunned Trump back in 2017 — also recognize this is a different president. Among those who descended on Washington to genuflect before the new president were some of the world’s richest men — visible from their prime seats at the inaugural proceedings were Elon Musk and fellow tech billionaires, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, Tim Cook and Sam Altman, whose combined net worth reaches close to $1 trillion. The jockeying for position inside the Capitol Rotunda — where the president was sworn in due to the frigid outdoor conditions — came on the heels of a record-smashing outpouring of corporate donations for Trump’s inauguration. The left’s resistance to Trump is also more muted — a protest on Saturday held by the People’s March, essentially a rebrand of the Women’s March, drew only a fraction of the attendees of the first go round. Even some Democratic politicians are convinced they should do what they can to get on the new president’s good side. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, in line for a potential pardon from Trump, drove down to Washington at around 3 a.m. this morning, canceling a series of MLK Day events that were on his schedule to attend the inauguration. Adams also flew to Mar-a-Lago last week to meet with Trump, as did Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who attended the inauguration in his trademark hoodie and shorts, even with temperatures hovering around 20 degrees Fahrenheit. In 2017, Trump’s inaugural address — penned in large part by Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller — was centered around the dark theme of “American carnage,” his ominous portrait of national decline. Today, he struck similar notes but with more muscular policy prescriptions and self-adulation. Almost immediately after his official inaugural address, he entered an overflow room, where he delivered yet another speech, this one more rambling, in which he discussed his belief the 2020 election was rigged, how much blood Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) lost when he was shot in 2017 and how people climb the border wall, among other topics. The two speeches served to remind that while Trump takes office as a more politically secure and better prepared president, what’s changed most is not him or his priorities, but rather how willing the rest of the political and business establishment is to placate him. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @calder_mchugh.
| | | | A message from American Edge Project: New Poll: Voters continue to worry about technological threats from foreign adversaries, namely China, and see U.S. tech as part of the solution to their national security concerns. They also want policymakers to take steps to ensure the U.S. remains a global tech leader – for example, by encouraging U.S. tech innovations and open-source AI models. See the findings of our voter priorities survey. | | | | | — Donald Trump sworn in, promising a ‘golden age of America’: Donald J. Trump declared his inauguration as the nation’s 47th president as a moment of American renewal, promising to usher in a “thrilling new era of national success” after depicting the last four years as “a horrible betrayal.” “The golden age of America begins right now. From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world,” Trump said at the outset of an inaugural address delivered to a scaled-down, in-person crowd inside the Capitol Rotunda where the ceremony was relocated due to the frigid temperatures. — Get out of DOGE: How Musk helped eject Ramaswamy: Elon Musk has already achieved his first cut at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency: his co-leader Vivek Ramaswamy. Musk, the tech tycoon and Donald Trump confidant, made it known that he wanted Ramaswamy out of DOGE in recent days, according to three people familiar with Musk’s preferences who, like others for this article, were granted anonymity to discuss them. An ill-received holiday rant on X by Ramaswamy about H-1B visas apparently hastened his demise. Just 69 days after Trump announced the team, Ramaswamy is now leaving DOGE and planning to announce a run for Ohio governor next week. Musk’s ability to ice out Ramaswamy, who for a variety of reasons had irked some Republicans in Trump’s circle, is the latest sign of his influence in the incoming administration. And it presages an encore of all of the infighting that marked Trump’s first term. Ramaswamy “just burned through the bridges and he finally burned Elon,” said a Republican strategist close to Trump advisers. “Everyone wants him out of Mar-a-Lago, out of D.C.” — Trump’s Day One actions, summarized for Congress: Donald Trump’s team is touting more than 20 Day One actions across four categories in a document sent to key Republican congressional offices this morning. The two-page memo summarizes many executive actions that were briefed to lawmakers and to reporters Sunday and today. Read the memo here. — First lawsuits against Trump admin target DOGE: Within minutes of Trump taking the oath of office, at least three lawsuits were filed in federal court in Washington, seeking to shut down Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” until it complies with transparency rules related to governmental advisory entities. The lawsuits allege that the project Trump announced to target government waste violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act by giving private individuals roles in the government decision-making process without the public access the law requires. — Trump’s already tapped an army of acting officials to lead his agencies: Although many of Trump’s top appointees appear to have a clear path to Senate confirmation — including his once-embattled pick for Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth — it’s unclear when the president will have some of his most important jobs filled. At most agencies senior career staff were elevated to fill the leadership gap. After being sworn in, Trump signed a series of executive orders approving dozens of appointments, including acting designations across the government.
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Marine One, carrying former President Joe Biden and former First Lady Jill Biden, takes off from the east plaza of the U.S. Capitol after the presidential inauguration today. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | — Biden pardons several family members: As one of his final acts in office, President Joe Biden pardoned several members of his family. The White House announced the pardons in a last batch of clemency decisions just minutes before Donald Trump took the oath of office, saying they were intended to prevent “baseless and politically motivated investigations” against his family. — Biden said his pardon of family was meant to shield them from Trump. That’s not the full story: Joe Biden cast his last-minute pardons of family members merely as an effort to shield them from the retribution of Donald Trump. In reality, his brother, serial entrepreneur Jim Biden, had already come under scrutiny from investigators in Biden’s own Justice Department. In addition to calls from Republicans in Congress to prosecute him for allegedly lying to congressional impeachment investigators, Jim Biden’s activities have been investigated in recent years in two federal criminal probes, as POLITICO previously reported. Jim Biden, 75, has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing in those cases. Both investigations deal with a now-bankrupt hospital operator, Americore, that Jim Biden worked with in the years between his older brother’s vice presidency and presidency. — Biden issues preemptive pardons for Fauci, Milley, Jan. 6 Committee and others: President Joe Biden has issued preemptive pardons to a slew of high-profile targets of President-elect Donald Trump — a striking last-minute effort to shield them from prosecution just hours before Trump, who has promised to punish his perceived enemies, is sworn in. Biden issued the pardons to former public health official Anthony Fauci and former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. He also pardoned the members and staff of the House special committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection as well as officers from Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department and the U.S. Capitol Police who testified before the committee. — Left off Biden’s list of pardons: Jack Smith: Among the flurry of last-minute pardons issued by Joe Biden in the final moments of his presidency today, a group of names was conspicuously absent: prosecutors and judges who have sought to apply the law to Donald Trump. Trump has frequently mused about seeking revenge on prosecutors like special counsel Jack Smith, who led the two federal criminal cases against Trump, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the New York hush money case that ended in Trump’s conviction. Neither was named by Biden today as the recipient of a pardon, even as the outgoing president moved to protect other prominent officials who have sparked Trump’s ire. — Harris heads home to Los Angeles: Former Vice President Kamala Harris is headed back home to Los Angeles today, and will immediately visit a local fire station to thank firefighters for their work battling the deadly blazes. Harris, who lives with her husband in Brentwood, an area that had evacuations, had told aides she wanted to visit even sooner, but a trip in her last days in office never materialized.
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| | | | | BENDING THE KNEE — Several foreign heads of state and government, from Ecuador to Italy, were among the guests at President Donald Trump’s inauguration today — an unprecedented sight at such an event, according to historians and State Department records. The foreigners’ presence at a ceremony honoring the new U.S. leader underscored how much Trump has dashed American norms both domestically and globally. It suggested that many foreign leaders see a useful strategy in showing personal deference to Trump to stay in the good graces of the world’s most powerful country. Also telling was who got prime seats: Argentina’s Javier Milei and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, who both hail from far-right and libertarian traditions, sat in the special group behind Trump during the ceremony. WITHDRAWAL — President Donald Trump will withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement for the second time, delivering a blow to the effort to keep global temperatures from rising to dangerous levels. The president announced plans to exit the nearly 200-nation pact today in a White House press release outlining a forthcoming executive order. The process will take a full year from the date the Trump administration formally notifies the United Nations climate body. While the U.S. can still participate in annual climate negotiations, it will do so with less influence than before. LE MONDE DITCHES MUSK — One of France’s most prominent newspapers, Le Monde, is abandoning Elon Musk’s X, the paper’s editor-in-chief announced today. In his editorial, Jérôme Fenoglio said the burgeoning alliance between U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and “social platform bosses” like Musk and Mark Zuckerberg poses a global threat to free access to reliable information. Le Monde’s move came just hours before Trump is sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, and is in line with a fairly broad movement of institutions — including news organizations as well as prominent political officials — to leave X in France. COLLATERAL DAMAGE — A senior EU official cautioned Donald Trump hours before his inauguration that Europe can’t meet more aggressive defense spending targets if there’s a trade war. European Commission industry chief Stéphane Séjourné said he agreed Europe needs to invest more in its defense capacities, but argued that it would be impossible to do so if Trump launches a trade war with Europe. Dating back to his first term in the White House, Trump has berated European countries to cough up more cash on defense, arguing that they have been freeloading in NATO under the American security umbrella and even suggesting that the U.S. could pull out of the transatlantic military alliance. PAPAL BLESSING — Pope Francis blasted Donald Trump’s plans to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, calling the United States president’s proposal a “disgrace.” “If true, this will be a disgrace … This is not the way to solve things,” the pontiff said Sunday, speaking on Italian talk show Che Tempo Che Fa. He was responding to a question about sweeping immigration raids reportedly planned in Chicago in the days after Trump’s inauguration. Trump, who was sworn in today, has vowed to start deporting millions of undocumented immigrants on his first day in the Oval Office, making “the largest deportation program in American history” a signature pledge of his campaign.
| | | | New Year. New Washington. New Playbook. With intensified congressional coverage and even faster delivery of policy scoops, POLITICO’s reimagined Playbook Newsletter ensures you’re always ahead of the conversation. Sign up today. | | | | | | | | | | | | VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLARS — The world is home to hundreds — and possibly thousands — of venomous caterpillars. And while the insect isn’t known for its venomous members, it turns out that these species of caterpillar might actually have all kinds of medically useful compounds amidst their venomous secretions. Given that no two species produce the same exact venom, scientists are now in the midst of studying the compounds that make up all of these species — and learning about whether their generally destructive properties might actually help to find new drug candidates. Bob Holmes writes about the research for the BBC.
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On this date in 1981: Iran releases 52 Americans it had held hostage for 444 days, minutes after the presidency passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan. | AP | Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.
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To secure our leadership, policymakers must partner with the private sector and champion open- and closed-source AI development, while avoiding misguided regulations that risk weakening us and handing the future to authoritarian regimes. See our voter priorities survey. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
