In sharp contrast to the start of his first term as president in January 2017, which was marred by poor personnel choices and awkward policy implementations, President Donald J. Trump wasted no time in taking charge of the federal government. He announced key cabinet picks and well-thought-out policy initiatives to implement his campaign promises starting the morning after his decisive November 5 victory, giving him a clear voter mandate that even his most outspoken Democrat opponents could not credibly deny.
Even before his November 5 election, victory it was apparent that Trump had won a far greater measure of acceptance from mainstream voters than he did in 2016, when Democrats led by Hillary Clinton’s supporters openly challenged the legitimacy of his narrow electoral victory. They then launched a campaign of “resistance” which hampered his ability to govern throughout the four years of his first term.
But this time, two of the nation’s leading Democrat-supporting newspapers, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, which had led the previous attacks on Trump’s suitability to serve as president, refused to endorse either Trump or his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. The dominant story of the 2024 campaign was the exposure of a vast White House and media conspiracy to cover up President Biden’s cognitive decline, and the bloodless coup by senior Democrat party leaders who forced Biden to drop out of the race and gave the nomination to Harris without a party vote. By contrast, the 2016 campaign was dominated by sensational media coverage of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, which turned out to be a Clinton 2016 campaign-financed dirty trick.
Trump also won the grudging respect of some of his critics by overcoming the politically motivated Democrat lawfare attacks which failed to disqualify him from running for president, and bouncing back courageously from a nearly successful assassination attempt. Trump also ran a highly effective campaign that captured the imagination of a broad cross-section of working-class voters and addressed their major concerns, including inflation and the open border.
Because Trump won the popular vote this time, swept seven of the “competitive” battleground states, and expanded his margin of victory in the Electoral College, Democrats were unable to claim credibly that Trump’s victory was a fluke, as they had after the 2016 election.
In the 2024 election cycle, Trump was able to expand his voter base at the expense of the traditional Democrat coalition, winning over large numbers of both white and non-white working-class voters, including blacks and Hispanics. These losses have touched off a bitter debate among Democrat party leaders over the extreme agenda dictated by the party’s liberal elites which has alienated so many of its former supporters.
The undeniable credibility of Trump’s November 5th electoral victory has also made public declarations of support for Trump far more acceptable in contemporary American culture than they were after he won the 2016 election, when he was the subject of a relentless Democrat-led “resistance” movement denying the legitimacy of his presidency.
By contrast, Trump’s more recent broad acceptance was epitomized by his pre-election endorsement by such popular social media opinion makers as podcast celebrity Joe Rogan and the richest man in the world, Elon Musk.
After his decisive November 5th election victory, Trump also received support from other high-tech corporate leaders including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, as well as Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, who had, until very recently been among the most generous Democrat campaign contributors. They had also cooperated with Biden administration requests to censor or suppress the comments of millions of Trump supporters and other Americans who sought to publicly dissent from its liberal views on their social media platforms, or to label it as “misinformation” and discredit it through liberally biased “fact-checking.”
ENDING GOVERNMENT CENSORSHIP
To put an end to that practice, Trump announced during his inaugural address that he would “sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.
“Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents, something I know something about,” the president declared.
“Under my leadership, we will restore fair, equal, and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law. And we are going to bring law and order back to our cities. . .
“I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based,” Trump declared.
In an interview with popular podcaster Joe Rogan, Marc Andreessen, one of the pioneers of the internet, the co-inventor of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser, and a co-founder of the first giant internet company, Netscape, expressed his relief that the re-election of Trump signals the end of an era marked by an increasing level of government interference with the free speech rights of American citizens.
Andreessen said, “I hope this last ten years increasingly is just going to feel like a bad dream,” he told podcast host Joe Rogan. “I can’t believe we tolerated the level of repression . . . and anger and . . . emotional incontinence and . . . cancellation campaigns,” that was orchestrated and encouraged by federal government agencies, such as the FBI.
Andreessen also said that he knew of 30 major tech industry innovators who had been condemned and persecuted for building new kinds of cryptocurrency or Artificial Intelligence (AI) businesses without the Biden administration’s blessing. Many of them were punished for publicly dissenting from some of the dogmas of the extreme Left by being denied access to their own banking and credit card accounts by major financial institutions, upon the orders of federal government agencies. According to the recently published memoir of First Lady Melania Trump, she and her son, Baron, were told that they would not be permitted to open bank accounts in their own names.
EXAMPLES OF LEFTIST CENSORSHIP HYPOCRISY
These social media and financial institutions determined which American citizens would be empowered to act as gatekeepers, enforcing the uniform acceptance of politically correct leftist views, and which Americans would be blacklisted. The latter were denied their rights to freedom of speech and punished for their non-conforming views on a wide variety of issues, ranging from gender identity rights to their views on Covid pandemic lockdowns, vaccine and mask-wearing mandates, and the nature of the Chinese origin of the Covid virus itself.
Adding to the injustice of this leftist-orientated censorship system was its logical inconsistency. For example, Democrats and the mainstream media condemned anyone who supported Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory as an election denier and a threat to American democracy. But at the same time, many of these same Democrats publicly supported the claims by Georgia’s Democrat gubernatorial candidate, Stacey Abrams, who refused to accept the results of the 2018 election which was won, according to the official state vote count, by Republican Brian Kemp.
Similarly, Democrats protested the 2022 ruling by a conservative majority of U.S. Supreme justices which overturned the controversial Roe v. Wade decision, which claimed that women have an inherent right to control their own bodies, but those same Democrats supported the Biden administration’s mandates which threatened to fire anyone who refused to take the Covid vaccine, and which required even small children with natural immunity to the Covid virus to wear a mask in school classrooms and commercial aircraft.
This leftist hypocrisy was most visible in the violent reaction on college campuses across the country to Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Overt acts of antisemitic violence and the intimidation of Jewish students were tolerated and even encouraged by the same liberal college administrators and faculty members who insisted on going to great lengths to protect members of other “oppressed” minority student groups on campus from the most minor real or imagined “micro-aggressions.”
TRUMP’S FIRST PRESIDENTIAL HONEYMOON
Trump realized that his clear electoral victory on November 5 had given him a clear mandate from a plurality of American voters, for the first time, to implement his Make America Great Again agenda. Immediately after the November 5th election, the American people gave Trump the traditional newly elected president’s honeymoon period that they denied him at the start of his first term as president, and he was determined to make the most of it. Trump used the transition period to prepare his administration to “hit the ground running” immediately upon taking office. That meant announcing the selection of all the members of his cabinet and the key federal agency heads of his new administration well ahead of his inauguration. Trump’s campaign staff also prepared roughly 100 carefully crafted executive orders that Trump would sign on Inauguration Day, when his political support from the American people would be at its zenith.
Trump also realized that his televised inauguration speech would give him a far broader national audience than at any time during the presidential campaign. It would represent a rare opportunity for him to introduce his policies and his vision for the future of this country to many voters who had tuned him out over the previous eight years of partisan controversy.
THE UNIFYING MESSAGE OF TRUMP’S INAUGURAL ADDRESS
As a result, his inaugural address presented a much more positive and unifying message than his typical campaign speeches. Trump promised to “begin the complete restoration of America [through a] revolution of common sense.” He also declared that “my proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. . .
“As our [electoral] victory showed, the entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda, with dramatic increases in support from virtually every element of our society: young and old, men and women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, urban, suburban, rural, and very importantly, we had a powerful win in all seven swing states, and the popular vote we won by millions of people. . .
“To the Black and Hispanic communities, I want to thank you for the tremendous outpouring of love and trust that you have shown me with your vote. . .
“Today is Martin Luther King Day and. . . in his honor we will strive together to make his dream a reality. We will make his dream come true. . . We will move with purpose and speed to bring back hope, prosperity, safety, and peace for citizens of every race, religion, color and creed. . . National unity is now returning to America, and confidence and pride are soaring like never before…
“For American citizens, January 20, 2025, is Liberation Day.”
TRUMP’S OPTIMISTIC OUTLOOK FOR AMERICA’S FUTURE
Trump also presented a very optimistic outlook for this country’s future. At the very outset of his inaugural speech, Trump stated, “The golden age of America begins right now. From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. We will be the envy of every nation, and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer. During every single day of the Trump administration, I will very simply put America first. Our sovereignty will be reclaimed. Our safety will be restored. . . And our top priority will be to create a nation that is proud, prosperous, and free. America will soon be greater, stronger and far more exceptional than ever before. . .
“I return to the presidency confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success. A tide of change is sweeping the country, sunlight is pouring over the entire world, and America has the chance to seize this opportunity like never before.
“But first,” Trump cautioned, “we must be honest about the challenges we face. . . As we gather today our government confronts a crisis of trust.”
REPAIRING AMERICA’S BROKEN GOVERNMENT
“For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens, while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair. We now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home.”
In a reference to the Biden administration’s open border policies, Trump said, “It fails to protect our magnificent law-abiding American citizens, but provides sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals, many from prisons and mental institutions, that have illegally entered our country from all over the world.
“We have a government that has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders but refuses to defend American borders, or, more importantly, its own people. . .
“We have a public health system that does not deliver in times of disaster, yet more money is spent on it than any country anywhere in the world. And we have an education system that teaches our children to be ashamed of themselves. . . to hate our country despite the love that we try so desperately to provide to them. All of this will change starting today. . .
TRUMP CLAIMS HIS ELECTORAL MANDATE
“My recent election is a mandate. . . to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and indeed, their freedom. From this moment on, America’s decline is over.
“Our liberties and our nation’s glorious destiny will no longer be denied. And we will immediately restore the integrity, competency, and loyalty of America’s government.”
In a reference to the politically motivated criminal prosecutions that he has had to overcome, Trump pledged that during his new presidency, “The scales of justice will be rebalanced, [and] the vicious, violent and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end.”
Looking back at his unlikely political odyssey, ranging from electoral victory to defeat and now back to victory again, Trump said, “Over the past eight years I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history. And I have learned a lot along the way. The journey to reclaim our Republic has not been an easy one, that I can tell you. Those who wish to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom, and indeed, to take my life.”
Trump noted that, after losing his 2020 re-election bid, “many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political comeback. But as you see today, here I am. The American people have spoken.
“I stand before you now as proof that you should never believe that something is impossible to do. In America, the impossible is what we do best. . .”
TRUMP’S HIGHER MISSION
He also said that since surviving the assassination attempt at a Butler, Pennsylvania, campaign rally this summer, he felt that his life had been spared to fulfill a higher mission for his country. “I felt then, and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by G-d to Make America Great Again,” Trump declared.
With that in mind, Trump promised, “In everything we do, my administration will be inspired by a strong pursuit of excellence and unrelenting success. We will not forget our country, we will not forget our constitution, and we will not forget our G-d.”
Trump also took the opportunity to present a full and detailed accounting of his main policy initiatives, making it sound more like a presidential State of the Union speech rather than a traditional inaugural address.
At the same time, he was careful to omit some of his more controversial positions, such as his defense of his supporters who rioted at the Capital building on January 6, 2021, to protest against the ratification by Congress of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election, to avoid alienating the more liberal segment of his national television audience. For the same reason, he also avoided using the kind of colorful and flamboyant invective against his political opponents and critics in his inaugural address that his supporters had come to expect from him at campaign rallies.
That was why some of Trump’s most loyal supporters felt somewhat “let down” by his inaugural address because they felt that, uncharacteristically, he was pulling his punches. But because he did so, some of the people watching the address who do not particularly like him were positively impressed by its calmer tone and more inclusive message.
That point became clear shortly after the end of the inauguration ceremony when Trump spoke to a much smaller group of his most loyal supporters. That speech was much more like the ones that he delivers at his campaign rallies. It was complete with the spontaneous riffs and entertaining side comments which his rally audiences love and have come to expect. It also included a frank admission by Trump that he had deliberately restrained himself while delivering the inaugural address in compliance with the urging of some of his closest advisors.
Trump’s clear electoral victory also had an immediate international impact. Trump’s statement during the campaign of his intention to impose tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada forced the leaders of those countries to appeal to him to reconsider.
TRUMP’S IMPACT ON THE ISRAEL-HAMAS CEASEFIRE TALKS
More significantly, Trump’s public warning that if a ceasefire and hostage release agreement in Gaza was not yet in place by the time that he took office there would be “h- – – to pay,” was taken very seriously both by the leadership of Hamas and Israeli Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu.
Furthermore, Trump made it clear that the threat was not just another idle statement. He dispatched his close friend and designated Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, a successful New York-born Jewish real estate developer, to coordinate with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Biden Middle East envoy Brett McGurk, and CIA director Bill Burns during the final days of the ceasefire negotiations in Qatar. Trump’s ultimatum, which he repeated several times, provided new “momentum” to push the ceasefire talks, which had been stalled for months, past the finish line, culminating in the first hostage-prisoner exchange last Sunday which freed three Jewish women who had been held by Hamas in Gaza since the October 7 attack.
That same night, Witkoff, who had just returned from Qatar, told a capacity crowd of roughly twenty thousand Trump supporters attending a rally on the eve of his inauguration at Washington DC’s Capital One Arena, that concluding the deal in Gaza would not have been possible without Trump’s direct intervention.
“I just received on my phone pictures of the first three hostages who were released,” Witkoff began, holding up his phone as the crowd roared.
“We had a great team, but it doesn’t happen without Donald J. Trump. The president was responsible for this release, and we all owe him a debt of gratitude, as do all the families.”
“His leadership extends beyond our borders, influencing the world in ways that reflect the best of our ideals,” Witkoff continued. “The [Abraham] Accords are a testament to the president’s belief that peace is achievable when we approach challenges with strength, clarity, and a shared vision for the future. . .
“The Abraham Accords are not just agreements. They are a blueprint for a future where peace is not the exception but is the expectation. As we look ahead, the challenges remain significant, but so do the opportunities. Under your leadership, Mr. President,” Witkoff said, addressing his trusted friend, “we will continue to expand the circle of peace, strengthen partnerships, and promote prosperity across the world.”
During his inaugural address the next day, he declared that because of his efforts, “I’m pleased to say that as of yesterday, one day before I assumed office, the hostages in the Middle East are coming back home to their families.”
A few hours later, at a post-inaugural Trump rally in the same Capital One arena, Trump greeted a group of family members of hostages that Hamas is still holding in Gaza and pledged to continue working for their return. He highlighted his role in finalizing the ceasefire hostage exchange deal between Israel and Hamas which took effect the previous day.
TRUMP WAS MORE EFFECTIVE THAN BIDEN EVEN BEFORE TAKING OFFICE
At the pre-inaugural rally Sunday, Trump cited the commitments he got from leading corporate executives such as Apple CEO Tim Cook to make “massive investments” in the American economy; his last-minute rescue of the popular but controversial TikTok social media platform as well as the Gaza ceasefire agreement. Trump declared, “We’ve achieved more without being president than they [the Biden administration] have achieved in four years with being president.”
Trump promised his audience that, “You’re going to see executive orders that are going to make you extremely happy — lots of them,” beginning with his promise to end Biden’s open border policies, and including an executive order that pardoned all 1500 of his supporters who were jailed or who were being prosecuted for participating in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Trump also reiterated his campaign promise to prevent men from being allowed to participate in women’s sports, and to end Biden-era federal government-funded diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
Earlier Sunday, Stephen Miller, Trump’s incoming White House deputy chief of staff for policy, briefed a small number of senior GOP leaders in a conference call, on the substance of the more than 100 executive orders that Trump signed during the first days of his presidency. They included declaring a national emergency due to illegal immigration and smuggling on the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as a national energy emergency, unwinding President Biden’s newly imposed limits on drilling for fossil fuels offshore and on 625 million acres of federal land, the rescinding of Biden administration directives on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and the repeal of most of the other executive orders issued by Biden when he first took over the White House in 2021. These include Biden’s cancellation of a Trump initiative at the end of his first term to establish a new category of federal employees, known as Schedule F, which eliminates some of the job protections for civil service workers. If it survives the expected liberal court challenges, Schedule F will enable Trump and his Elon Muask-led DOGE committee to fire excess federal workers without the long delays imposed by civil service regulations.
TURNING AROUND THE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY
Miller has also promised that “Accountability is coming. Justice is coming. The whole federal bureaucracy is about to learn that they don’t work for themselves. They work for you [the American people].”
Trump also signed executive orders to eliminate the Biden administration’s “Catch and Release” policy that allowed illegal immigrants apprehended at the border to enter and stay in the country, and to re-instate the “Remain in Mexico” policy that Trump negotiated during his first term as president requiring illegal refugees applying for asylum to wait in Mexico for the adjudication of their asylum applications.
Trump signed an executive order declaring the Central and South American drug cartels to be foreign terrorist organizations. He also said that he would use the U.S. military to fight them both inside and outside U.S. territory, and to assist in the completion of the unfinished wall across the southern border with Mexico to prevent illegal crossings.
During his inaugural speech, Trump declared, “All illegal entry will immediately be halted and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens to the places from which they came.”
Reportedly, Trump’s immigration czar, Tom Homan, will soon be launching large-scale immigration raids in major American cities including Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., Miami, Los Angeles, Denver, New York, and San Antonio. The initial goal of the raids will be to arrest and deport illegal immigrants who have been convicted of crimes, as well as those whose applications for asylum have been disapproved by a federal immigration court.
BIDEN’S EFFORTS TO SABOTAGE TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY
Meanwhile, defying the will of the voters, outgoing President Joe Biden devoted the final two months of his lame-duck presidency to putting every conceivable obstacle in the way of Trump’s policy objectives. For example, on January 6, Biden signed an order putting 625 million acres of coastal waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, on the continental shelves off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and portions of the Bering Sea of Alaska off-limits to the oil and natural gas exploration and drilling.
The move was intended to frustrate Trump’s efforts to boost domestic supplies of fossil fuels to dramatically reduce the cost of energy. Trump has argued that the energy savings in the cost of production and transportation will ultimately be passed along to consumers in the form of lower prices for everything they buy, and that the increased supply of cheap fossil fuel energy will help to revive the American manufacturing sector.
Shortly after being inaugurated, Trump signed an executive order canceling Biden’s effort to put those areas off-limits to drilling; but there will be a court fight over whether Trump has the power to cancel Biden’s move without congressional approval.
As the opening shot in his war against fossil fuels, Biden began his presidency by killing the previously approved Keystone XL pipeline to pump oil from Canada’s tar sands to American refineries on the Gulf of Mexico; Biden also put an indefinite hold last January on permits to build new facilities for the export of American liquid natural gas to meet the demand in Europe to replace embargoed Russian natural gas. Also, for the first time in 42 years, the Biden administration held no offshore lease sales for oil and natural gas exploration.
Nevertheless, the increased efficiency of America’s fossil fuel industry enabled its domestic production to reach new highs last year despite Biden’s best efforts to shut it down.
TRUMP’S AMBITIOUS ENERGY POLICIES
Trump’s cabinet picks to head the Department of Energy and the Department of the Interior are outspoken advocates of the president’s “drill baby, drill” mindset who will pursue an “all of the above” domestic energy policy. Similarly, we can expect Trump’s EPA to roll back its most recent regulations meant to further hasten the forced transition from gasoline-powered vehicles to “green” electric vehicles. Trump is also seeking to do away with the tax credits of up to $7,500 for the purchasers of American-made electric vehicles that were authorized by Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
“In other words,” Trump told the American people in his inaugural speech, “you’ll be able to buy the car of your choice.” He also claimed that by revoking the Biden administration’s “electric vehicle mandate, [we will be] saving our auto industry.”
On Inauguration Day, Trump also signed an executive order removing the United States from the 2016 Paris Agreement requiring sharp reductions in American carbon emissions. He also promised to refill America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve which was repeatedly drained by President Biden in order to meet rising demand for fossil fuels without authorizing more domestic drilling or increasing the cost of gas at the pump for American consumers.
Trump had previously announced a $20 billion foreign investment in the construction of new data centers in the United States dedicated to the development of artificial intelligence (AI) as well as the development of additional sources of fossil fuel energy to provide the enormous amount of additional electricity those data centers will need. This will also provide the additional pieces of infrastructure, such as natural gas and liquid natural gas (LNG) pipelines, needed to support them. In addition, because these data centers need to be powered on a 24/7 basis, they cannot be powered by windmills or solar panels, which can only provide intermittent power when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing.
TRUMP WILL FIGHT INFLATION BY PRODUCING MORE OIL AND GAS
During his inaugural address, Trump said that the best way to deal with the inflation problem was to end the federal government’s massive overspending and to reduce energy prices by increasing domestic fossil fuel production.
He predicted that “America will be a manufacturing nation once again, [because] we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have: the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we are going to use it.”
By increasing the “export of American energy all over the world, we will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it.”
Trump also promised to “overhaul our trade system to protect American workers and families. Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.”
Before leaving office, Biden also signed long-term labor contracts with federal employee unions to block the efforts of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), originally to be led by entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, to identify and eliminate government waste and inefficiency, and reduce the bloated federal payroll, starting with those hired in compliance with Biden’s liberal “woke” DEI (diversity equity and inclusion) policies.
In a last, parting shot at the incoming president, just a few hours before Trump’s inauguration, Biden announced his granting of unprecedented pre-emptive presidential pardons to prevent the potential investigation and prosecution of some of the most prominent targets of Trump’s public criticisms. These include Dr. Anthony Fauci, who, as the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was responsible for some of the most controversial anti-Covid 19 pandemic policies; former Congresswoman Liz Cheney and now-Senator Adam Schiff, who were leaders of the anti-Trump January 6th congressional investigatory committee, and the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley. These are even more controversial than the sweeping pardon that President Biden provided for his son, because, unlike Hunter Biden, none of these people has been convicted of federal crimes or is currently under criminal investigation.
BIDEN’S FINAL DISAPPOINTING PARDON SURPRISE
Furthermore, just 19 minutes before Biden’s presidency came to an end, too late for President-elect Trump to be notified of it before making his inauguration speech, Biden issued pre-emptive pardons to his brother, James Biden, along with his spouse, Sara Jones Biden, his sister, Valerie Biden Owens, and her husband John Owens, and Joe’s other brother, Francis Biden. All of these members of the Biden family have been accused of enriching themselves with millions of dollars, along with Joe’s son, Hunter Biden, by selling their access to Joe Biden, and his considerable influence on U.S. government policy when he was Obama’s vice president, to Hunter’s business partners from foreign countries including Ukraine, China and Russia.
Some prominent Democrats had been calling for these preventive pardons out of fear that Trump, during his second term, would emulate the example that the Biden administration set, not only by targeting Trump himself for criminal prosecution, but also some of Trump’s leading presidential advisers who were convicted and sentenced to terms in prison. These include Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro, Michael Flynn, and others, including more than 600 Trump supporters who either pleaded guilty or were convicted for their participation in the January 6th, 2021 riot at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.
Trump’s public threats during the campaign to criminally prosecute some of his political enemies should have been taken with a grain of salt. That is because he made similar threats against Hillary Clinton during his 2016 presidential campaign, but decided, once in office, not to follow through, because he feared that prosecuting her would further divide the nation.
Furthermore, even some of the Democrats who had been urging Biden to issue the preventive pardons admitted that his use of the pardon power to protect his own family members left a bitter taste in their mouths, and tended to confirm the Republican accusations that the entire Biden family was involved in Hunter Biden’s influence-peddling schemes.
In addition to Biden’s efforts to sabotage Trump’s agenda, the Democrat governors in several deep “blue” states, such as Gavin Newsom in California and Kathy Hochul in New York, have attempted to put policies in place designed to thwart Trump’s announced policy goals and “Trump-proof” their states’ policies. These include Trump’s promised mass deportation of illegal immigrants, beginning with violent criminals and those whose applications for asylum have been rejected in immigration court. Trump also promised the elimination of the controversial congestion pricing tolls for all drivers entering Manhattan, which were put in place just two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, in defiance of his promise to eliminate them.
One of Trump’s first tests of political strength in his second term as president will be his ability to overcome these blue-state efforts, as well as liberal legal challenges designed to block his efforts to conduct a mass deportation of illegal aliens and to eliminate the Biden administration’s intrusive, expensive and impractical climate change and electric vehicle regulations, quotas and subsidies.
In sharp contrast to the poorly organized start of Trump’s first term in 2017, this time he has a full roster of cabinet and federal agency appointees who are personally dedicated to the implementation of his agenda which is deliberately intended to overturn many long-established federal goals and policies and challenge the power of the so-called administrative state.
HOW TRUMP WILL “MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN”
Trump’s key cabinet picks include several former Democrats and respected medical experts who have suffered serious setbacks due to attacks by the so-called Cancel Culture for openly expressing their anti-establishment views. Robert F, Kennedy Jr. dropped his candidacy after being denied a fair opportunity to challenge Joe Biden for the 2024 Democrat Presidential nomination. After he challenged Biden, Kennedy was labeled by mainstream Democrats and the liberal news media as a crackpot for challenging the safety of several widely used vaccines, criticizing the policies of Dr. Anthony Fauci. He also exposed the corrupting influences of the pharmaceutical, food, and insurance industries on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Trump has agreed to give Kennedy the power to reform those agencies as the Secretary of Health and Human Services with the ambitious goal of Making America Healthy Again. He will be assisted by Stanford epidemiologist Jay Bhattacharya, whom Trump has named as the new head of the NIH. Bhattacharya’s professional reputation was attacked when he warned the public, as a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, against the unnecessary Covid lockdowns which called instead for a more focused effort to protect the elderly and other people identified as most at risk to the Covid virus. Bhattacharya is also expected to diversify the NIH’s investments in medical research beyond traditional fields, such as developing more effective treatments for Alzheimer’s and cancer, to include the fields of nutrition, preventive care, and novel treatments being explored by less established and politically well-connected researchers.
While many mainstream public health experts strongly disagree with RFK Jr.’s criticism of the safety of vaccines, they admit to supporting Kennedy’s desire to make regulatory changes at HHS that will encourage more Americans to eat a healthier diet to combat the current epidemic of obesity, especially among the many children who are addicted to eating “junk food.”
During his inaugural speech, Trump referred indirectly to his appointment of Kennedy to head HHS by promising that his administration would “end the chronic disease epidemic and keep our children safe, healthy and disease-free.”
Trump has also asked Johns Hopkins pancreatic surgeon and public health advocate Dr. Marty Makary to end the “revolving door” practices with the health industry at the FDA which have created conflicts of interest that compromise the integrity of its drug approvals and food safety regulations. Makary was widely condemned for his outspoken criticism of the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates for those who are not healthcare workers, as well as his conviction that vaccination was unnecessary for the many millions of people with naturally acquired immunity to the Covid virus. Makary is expected to crack down on potentially harmful food ingredients, such as artificial dyes and preservatives which research has linked to various health conditions, but which the FDA still permits, and to support Kennedy’s desire to make healthier and more wholesome foods more widely available to the American people.
TRUMP’S UNCONVENTIONAL NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE CZAR PICK
Trump also made the unlikely choice of former Democrat Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to become his National Director of Intelligence. When Gabbard ran for the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination, she was accused of serving as a Russian agent because of her opposition to what she saw as unnecessary U.S. military involvement in foreign nations. Gabbard’s name was also briefly added to a federal government terrorist watch list after she demolished Kamala Harris’ positions during an early primary race debate.
But Gabbard’s foreign policy mindset is consistent with President Trump’s expressed desire to limit U.S. military commitments abroad during his second term to essential ones only.
Gabbard explained that her decision in October 2022 to end her Democrat affiliation was because the party had been captured by the “powerful elite. . .
“The Democrats of today are hostile to people of faith and spirituality. They demonize the police and protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans. The Democrats of today believe in open borders and weaponizing the national security state to go after political opponents. Above all else, the Democrats of today are dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.”
Last October, during the presidential campaign, Gabbard accused Vice President Kamala Harris of being the “main instigator” in starting the Russia-Ukraine war and said that Harris’ foreign policy had brought the U.S. to “the brink of World War III.”
DE-POLITICIZING THE PENTAGON
Trump’s selection of Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary was widely attacked because he represents the opposite of the typical recent Pentagon type whose primary concern was political correctness and career advancement rather than national security. Hegseth, on the other hand, is a winner of two Bronze Stars and has completed tours of combat duty in Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as at Guantánamo Bay. After having overcome some of his earlier personal failings, including a problem with alcohol, which he has freely admitted, Hegseth has been an outspoken advocate for the rights of American military veterans, and has harshly criticized, in his role as a Fox News military commentator, the recent deterioration in U.S. military preparedness and the Pentagon’s personnel standards,
Hegseth has argued that the Biden Pentagon’s radical leftist ideological agenda has undermined morale in the three branches of the U.S. armed service and discouraged recruitment among American families that have sent previous generations of their sons and daughters to fight and die defending this country’s freedom.
Hegseth has committed himself to carry out Trump’s pledge, during his inaugural speech, “to stop our warriors from being subjected to radical political theories and social experiments while on duty. . . Our armed forces will be free to focus on their sole mission: defeating America’s enemies.”
Trump also pledged to “again build the strongest military the world has ever seen, [and to] measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.
Democrat critics of Hegseth’s nomination to run the Defense Department cited his lack of prior executive and managerial experience and reports of his drinking problems in the past. Nevertheless, on Inauguration Day, the Senate Armed Services Committee approved his appointment by a 14-13 vote, making it almost certain that the whole Senate will soon confirm his nomination as Secretary of Defense.
Also on Inauguration Day, the Senate voted unanimously, by 99-0, to confirm the appointment of Florida Senator Marco Rubio to be Trump’s Secretary of State. It reflected a broad bipartisan consensus, including among Senate Democrats, that Rubio, as a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was well-qualified to serve as the new Trump administration’s top diplomat. While Rubio ran against Trump for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, since then he has become an enthusiastic Trump supporter.
PASSING A BILL TO PUT CRIMINAL ALIENS IN JAIL
Before it adjourned on Inauguration Day, the U.S. Senate also passed the Laken Riley Act, named after the Georgia nursing school student who was murdered last year by an illegal immigrant who had previously been arrested and released from police custody after having committed a serious crime. The measure requires the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to detain any illegal immigrant who has been charged, arrested, or convicted of a serious criminal act, including “burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting,” as well as assaulting a law enforcement officer and any crime resulting in death or bodily injury.
The Republican-sponsored measure passed the Senate with significant bipartisan support, including the votes of 12 Democrats. An earlier version of the bill passed the House with the support of 48 Democrats. It is expected to soon receive final congressional approval and be signed into law by Donald Trump.
Most of Trump’s other cabinet picks are also well qualified for their new positions and are expected to win Senate confirmation on party-line votes in which Republicans enjoy a three-vote majority, in addition to a tie-breaking vote by Vice President J.D. Vance. They include Pamela Bondi (Attorney General), Scott Bessent (Treasury), North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum (Interior), former fracking oil company executive Chris Wright (Energy), former NY Congressman Lee Zeldin (EPA), John Ratcliffe (CIA), and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem (Homeland Security).
DEMOCRATS AND BIDEN ACCUSED TRUMP TO JUSTIFY THEIR OWN MISCONDUCT
Meanwhile, in his televised farewell address to the nation five days before Trump’s inauguration, Joe Biden reverted to his previous campaign warnings about the alleged “dangers” and “abuse of power” of another Trump presidency. But in fact, Biden and his fellow Democrats have repeatedly used these accusations as a lame justification for having committed far more serious abuses of government power for their own partisan advantage than Trump ever did.
During his first term in office, the constant refrain that President Trump was acting like a “tyrant” was used by the Democrats and the liberal media as an all-purpose excuse for violating all of the usual standards of conduct and respect when dealing with a sitting president. It was the original justification for the “resistance” movement defying the authority of Trump’s presidency launched by the Clinton campaign the morning after she lost the 2016 election to Trump. It was the reason cited by holdover Obama-appointed acting Attorney General Sally Yates for defying newly inaugurated President Trump’s instruction that the Justice Department defend his executive order banning the admission to this country of refugees and visitors from mostly Islamic countries widely known for the prevalence of terrorism.
It was the reason why FBI officials lied to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to put an innocent member of Trump’s campaign under secret surveillance. It was the Justice Department’s excuse for putting Trump, as a sitting president, under investigation by a special counsel in the hope of finding non-existent evidence justifying his impeachment. It was the Democrats’ excuse for dragging the reputation of Brett Kavanaugh, his widely respected nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, through the mud, based on wild and uncorroborated accusations in circus-like confirmation hearings.
TRUMP PROMISES TO RESTORE AMERICA’S INTEGRITY
But towards the end of his inaugural speech, Donald Trump promised the American people that his presidency would restore the tarnished integrity of their government, and begin to realize, once again, its vast potential.
“In recent years our nation has suffered greatly. But we are going to bring it back and make it great again, greater than ever before. We will be a nation like no other, full of compassion, courage and exceptionalism. . .”
Trump promised as president to raise America’s expectations and restore its pride through symbolic gestures, such as changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and taking back the Panama Canal, which the United States built more than a century ago because the government of Panama has turned it over to China. Trump also recalled America’s pride, more than 50 years ago, when it won the race with the Soviet Union to put the first man on the moon, by setting a new goal, as suggested by Elon Musk, of “launching American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars.”
Trump concluded, “After all we have been through together, we stand on the verge of the four greatest years in American history. With your help, we will restore the American promise and we will rebuild the nation that we love. . .
“America will be respected again and admired again, including by people of religion, faith and goodwill. . .
“We are one people, one family, and one glorious nation under G-d. So to every parent who dreams for their child, and every child who dreams for their future, I am with you, I will fight for you and I will win for you. . .
“We will stand bravely, we will live proudly, we will dream boldly, and nothing will stand in our way because we are Americans. The future’s ours. And our golden age has just begun. . .
“G-d bless America.”