Skip to Content

Washington

Trump breaks with tradition at his inauguration

Like everything else about him, Trump's speech was a break from established tradition.

Published: January 21, 2017, 9:20 am

    Read more

    Nowhere was this more obvious than in the selection of words that had never appeared previously in any US inaugural address.

    The new president struck a defiant tone: “From this day forward it’s going to be only America First.” Thousands of people had gathered on the National Mall despite rain to listen to what transpired to be a stirring call for national unity and patriotism.

    Trump accused previous US administrations of enriching Washington at the expense of struggling American families, with Obama, the Clintons and two other former presidents in the audience. The Clintons looked glum.

    Foreign industry had been enriched at the expense of American companies, Trump noted. He added that the US had also subsidised the militaries of other countries while letting the US military become depleted, and trillions had been spent abroad while allowing domestic infrastructure to crumble.

    “The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed across the entire world,” he said.

    Some of the Trump lexicon included: bleed, carnage, depletion, disrepair, flush, Islamic, ripped, sad, rusted, sprawl, stealing, stolen, subsidized, tombstones, trapped, trillions, unstoppable.

    Trump advisor Carl Icahn, told CNBC, “Donald surprised me coming on so strongly about the establishment. I admire him for doing that.”

    Icahn, Trump’s special advisor on regulatory reform, said he expected the 45th president of the United States to take a somewhat confrontational approach. Yet he welcomed it as a good thing because it will promote change.

    “I admire him for not just trying to say, ‘Wow. Let’s smooth it over. Let’s be buddies.’ I mean, he came on extremely strongly and he’s giving you a look at what the future, I think, is going to be,” Icahn added.

    “I think you have to break up this establishment. You have to stop the perception which we have in this country that the government is at war with business, that the government doesn’t like business and that’s what you’ve had for eight years with Obama,” Icahn said.

    President Donald Trump wasted no time getting to work on Friday night, heading straight to the Oval Office where he signed his first executive orders since arriving at the White House.

    He signed an order to confirm General James Mattis as Secretary of Defense and another order to “ease the burden of Obamacare” straight off the bat.

    Trump has already made changes to the Oval Office decor, swapping its formerly crimson drapes for gold curtains and putting back in its former place a bust of former British prime minister Winston Churchill. Barack Obama had replaced the bust of Winston Churchill with one of Martin Luther King.

    Only John F Kennedy and Jimmy Carter had shorter inaugural speeches than Trump, but he set a record with the amount of prayers during his inaugural ceremonies.

    The day started at St. John’s Church with a service at 8:30 a.m., followed by six religious prayers as part of the ceremony, three invocations and three benedictions.

    The president was sworn in using both his own Bible, gifted to him by his mother, and the Bible used to swear in President Abraham Lincoln.

    Meanwhile orchestrated protests against the Republican president turned ugly in downtown Washington. Protesters, many paid, smashed shop windows, blocked traffic and battled police in riot gear who had to respond with tear gas and stun grenades. Police confirmed that more than 200 people were arrested.

    Estimates of Friday’s crowd at the inauguration were not immediately available from police.

    The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 56 percent of Americans approved of Trump’s job performance so far and only forty-four percent disapprove.

    Eighty-five percent of Republicans and 55 percent of unaffiliated voters had a positive view while seventy percent of Democrats disapproved.

    Consider donating to support our work

    Help us to produce more articles like this. FreeWestMedia is depending on donations from our readers to keep going. With your help, we expose the mainstream fake news agenda.

    Keep ​your language polite​. Readers from many different countries visit and contribute to Free West Media and we must therefore obey the rules in​,​ for example​, ​Germany. Illegal content will be deleted.

    If you have been approved to post comments without preview from FWM, you are responsible for violation​s​ of​ any​ law. This means that FWM may be forced to cooperate with authorities in a possible crime investigation.

    If your comments are subject to preview ​by FWM, please be patient. We continually review comments but depending on the time of day it can take up to several hours before your comment is reviewed.

    We reserve the right to del​ete​ comments that are offensive, contain slander or foul language, or are irrelevant to the discussion.

    Americas

    Ohio disaster: When hedge funds manage rail traffic

    East PalestineAfter the derailment of a freight train loaded with highly toxic chemicals in the US state of Ohio, a devastating environmental catastrophe may now be imminent. The wagons burned for days, and a "controlled" explosion by the authorities released dangerous gases into the environment.

    US President Biden orders ‘spy’ balloon to be shot down

    WashingtonThe US President gave the order to shoot down China's "spy balloon". The balloon had caused US Secretary of State Blinken to cancel a trip to Beijing. In the meantime, a second balloon was sighted.

    US is heading for a financial ‘catastrophe’ US Treasury Secretary warns

    WashingtonOn January 19, 2023, the United States hit its debt ceiling of $31.4 trillion. The country faces a recession if it defaults on its debt, the US Treasury Secretary warned in an interview. Her warning underscored the danger of printing money.

    Gun violence: More risk in Chicago and Philadelphia than Iraq, Afghanistan

    Providence, Rhode IslandA striking statistic: young Americans are several times more likely to be injured by a gun in cities like Chicago and Philadelphia than they are while serving as a soldier in a foreign country.

    Elon Musk, the first person in history to destroy $200 billion in a year

    Never before in human history has a person lost as much money in one year as Elon Musk did in 2022. The Tesla and Twitter boss lost $200 billion last year. However, with his remaining $137 billion, he is still the second richest person in the world.

    Extreme cold and winter storms sweep across US

    More than a million households without electricity, thousands of canceled flights, temperatures in the double-digit minus range and already 41 fatalities: The US is being overwhelmed by an enormous cold wave.

    Soros sponsors violent leftists and anti-police lobby as US crime surges

    WashingtonThe mega-speculator and "philanthropist" George Soros remains true to himself – he has been sponsoring anti-police left-wing groups with billions of dollars.

    FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested after crypto billions go missing

    NassauHe is no longer sitting in his fancy penthouse, but in a cell in the Bahamas: Sam Bankman-Fried (30), founder of the crypto company FTX, is said to be responsible for the theft of 37 billion euros. An interesting fact is that media in the EU have so far kept this crime thriller almost completely secret.

    How Twitter helped Biden win the US presidency

    WashingtonThe short message service Twitter massively influenced the US presidential election campaign two years ago in favor of the then candidate Joe Biden. The then incumbent Donald Trump ultimately lost the election. Internal e-mails that the new owner, Elon Musk, has now published on the short message service show how censorship worked on Twitter. The 51-year-old called it the “Twitter files”.

    Alberta PM suspends cooperation with WEF

    EdmontonThe newly elected Premier Danielle Smith of the province of Alberta in Canada has recently made several powerful statements against the globalist foundation World Economic Forum and its leader Klaus Schwab. She has also decided to cancel a strange consulting agreement that WEF had with the state.

    Go to archive