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The United States officially has a new president after Donald Trump was sworn in at a ceremony in Washington earlier this morning.
Here’s everything you need to know:
- Donald Trump and his vice president J.D. Vance were sworn in before a small crowd including Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
- In his first remarks as the 47th president, Trump said the next four years would be the “golden age” of the US.
- Trump used the speech to take multiple swipes at the Biden administration, blaming the government for what he said were economic and immigration failures.
- He outlined multiple executive orders that he would sign in his first moments in office, including declaring an emergency on the southern border and pledging to expel illegal immigrants.
- He received standing ovations from the small crowd in the Capitol Rotunda. Biden and the Democrats mostly remained seated, other than when Trump mentioned the hostages released by Hamas.
- The celebrations will continue with a presidential parade and inaugural balls.
Among other false and misleading claims in US President Donald Trump’s inauguration addresses, his declaration that Americans “split the atom” prompted vexed social media posts by New Zealanders, who said the achievement belonged to a pioneering scientist revered across the Tasman.
Ernest Rutherford, a Nobel Prize winner known as the father of nuclear physics, is regarded by many as the first to knowingly split the atom by artificially inducing a nuclear reaction in 1917 while he worked at a university in Manchester in the United Kingdom.
The achievement is also credited to English scientist John Douglas Cockroft and Ireland’s Ernest Walton, researchers in 1932 at a British laboratory developed by Rutherford. It is not attributed to Americans.
Trump’s account of US greatness in one of Tuesday’s inauguration addresses included a claim that Americans “crossed deserts, scaled mountains, braved untold dangers, won the Wild West, ended slavery, rescued millions from tyranny, lifted millions from poverty, harnessed electricity, split the atom, launched mankind into the heavens and put the universe of human knowledge into the palm of the human hand.”
New Zealand politician Nick Smith, the mayor of Nelson, where Rutherford was born and educated, said he was “a bit surprised” by the claim.
Trump’s remarks provoked a flurry of online posts by New Zealanders about Rutherford, whose work is studied by New Zealand schoolchildren and whose name appears on buildings, streets and institutions. His portrait features on the 100-dollar banknote.
“Okay, I’ve gotta call time. Trump just claimed America split the atom,” Ben Uffindell, editor of the satirical New Zealand news website The Civilian, wrote on X. “That’s THE ONE THING WE DID.”
French President Emmanuel Macron has called on Europe to “wake up” and spend more on defence in order to reduce its reliance on the United States for its security, in a speech to the French military just as Donald Trump was inaugurated.
Without mentioning Trump by name, Macron referred to expected changes in Washington’s foreign policy, especially regarding the war in Ukraine, saying it was an “opportunity for a European strategic wake-up call.” It was his New Year’s speech to the military at the Army Digital and Cyber Support Command based near Rennes in western France.
French President Emmanuel Macron delivers his speech to the French Army.Credit: AP
“What will we do in Europe tomorrow if our American ally withdraws its warships from the Mediterranean? If they send their fighter jets from the Atlantic to the Pacific?” he asked.
Trump has criticised the cost of the war in Ukraine for US taxpayers and has made it clear that he wants to shift more of the fiscal burden onto Europe. He has vowed to bring the conflict to a swift end, even vowing to end it within 24 hours of taking office.
“Let’s not fool ourselves, this conflict will not be resolved tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow,” Macron said.
Read more here.
Trump 2.0 means what he says and his delirious base expects nothing else, writes Bruce Wolpe, senior fellow at the US Studies Centre and former political staffer, in this analysis of the president’s first day in office:
“Trump’s inauguration ceremony was without the massive pomp had it been witnessed in person by hundreds of thousands of people engulfing the Mall from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial.
Instead, it was delivered in the Capitol’s very rotunda that was desecrated by his armies to stop the peaceful transfer of power four years ago. Trump did not mention January 6 in this speech – but none doubted he would pardon as many of the participants in the insurrection as he could reach with his pen.
It was a dark and sombre speech, delivered with the scowl that Trump has mastered from his mug shot in Georgia when he was arraigned for trying to overturn that state’s presidential election in 2020, to the official portrait that every Australian will see in the immigration halls when they fly into a US airport.”
Read more here.
Penny Wong and Donald Trump: the cerebral, cautious champion of Labor’s left and the brash real estate tycoon turned Republican hero. It hardly sounds like a match made in political heaven, writes Matthew Knott.
Yet, there was Australia’s foreign minister, in prime position at Trump’s inauguration in the Capitol Rotunda, seated next to his elder sister Elizabeth Trump Grau.
Not the cheap seats: Penny Wong was in the rotunda for the inauguration of US President Donald Trump.Credit: AP
Wong stood out in a crowd that was dominated by leading figures from the global right. Former British prime minister Boris Johnson was there instead of the UK’s current leader, Labour’s Keir Starmer, who didn’t score an invitation. Argentinian President Javier Milei and Italian leader Giorgia Meloni, both populist conservatives, were there too.
Wong, one of only a handful of foreign dignitaries in the room, received a golden ticket to the event despite the crowd size being dramatically cut back when the inauguration was moved indoors because of freezing temperatures. Countries with far bigger populations and economies than Australia’s – such as France and Germany – didn’t make the cut.
It was “such a privilege and honour to be the first Australian foreign minister to be invited and to attend an inauguration”, Wong enthused after the ceremony.
Read more here.
The Trump administration has taken steps to gain control of the US Justice Department immigration courts, firing four top immigration court officials including the chief judge, three sources have told Reuters.
The four officials were part of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the federal office for adjudicating immigration cases.
One of those removed was chief immigration judge Sheila McNulty, America’s ABC News reported.
The sackings are understood to be one of the first signs that President Donald Trump will push through immediate changes in how refugee claims are processed.
As part of his sweeping immigration crackdown, Trump has the US military aiding border security, issued a broad ban on asylum and took steps to restrict citizenship for children born on US soil.
A large number of senior career diplomats who served in politically appointed leadership positions and also lower-level posts at the State Department are also leaving their jobs at the demand of the incoming Trump administration, which plans to install its own people, according to current and outgoing US officials.
Inaugurations generally have several features. There’s the oath of office, the inauguration parade, and the inauguration balls.
Trump and first lady Melania Trump have just danced at the Commander-in-Chief Inaugural Ball, which is geared towards military members.
Donald and Melania Trump dance at the Commander-in-Chief Inaugural Ball along with Vice President J.D. Vance and wife Usha.Credit: AP
The first lady wore a black and white dress custom-made by Hervé Pierre, the same designer who crafted her 2017 inaugural gown.
The pair enjoyed a slow waltz on a raised dais as hundreds of guests watched on.
Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife, Usha, then joined the Trumps on the dance floor.
Trump is also due to attend the Liberty Inaugural Ball, where Rapper Nelly, country singer Jason Aldean and disco legends the Village People are scheduled to perform. Following that is the Starlight Ball, which is geared towards high-dollar donors.
Trump will speak at all three. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who is in Washington to attend the inauguration as a representative of the Albanese government, has been invited to the Starlight Ball.
The mother of Enrique Tarrio, a leader of the far-right Proud Boys militant organisation who was sentenced to 22 years’ jail after the Capitol Building riot in 2021, said her son was ready to come home after having his sentence for sedition commuted by Donald Trump.
“He’s very excited,” Duarte Tarrio told Florida news website local10.com. “It’s surreal to him. He’s ready to go”
Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio rallies in Oregon in 2019.Credit: AP
Tarrio’s mother, who spoke to her son earlier in the day, was one of a few dozen people gathered at a Las Vegas restaurant for a private watch party, taking in the sights and sounds of President Donald Trump’s second inauguration.
“It was the best and most exciting inauguration I think ever,” she said.
A lawyer for Joseph Biggs, another former Proud Boys organiser whose sentence was commuted by Trump, said it was “wonderful” that his client would no longer have to serve his full 17-year sentence for seditious conspiracy.
“It gets him out of prison,” attorney Norman Pattis told Associated Press. “He had 13, 14 more years to go, and there’s no place like home.”
The Proud Boys are a group of far-right militants who engage in political violence. Some people wearing the group’s insignia were seen marching and chanting in the streets of Washington outside Trump’s inauguration.
Donald Trump issued a flurry of executive orders and directives as he sought to put his stamp on his new administration on matters ranging from energy to criminal pardons and immigration.
Donald Trump with his order pardoning January 6 rioters.Credit: AP
An executive order is an order issued unilaterally by the president that has the force of law. Notable executive orders issued by Trump in his first term included a ban on travel from some Muslim-majority countries and an order expanding the leasing of offshore waters for oil exploration.
Trump issued 220 executive orders in his first term, more than any other president in a single four-year term since Jimmy Carter. President Joe Biden issued 155 executive orders as he left office.
Read about the key executive orders signed on Trump’s first day back in office here.
The new US president expressed doubts about the Hamas-Israel ceasefire as he sat in the Oval Office signing executive orders and responding to questions from reporters.
“I’m not confident,” Trump said when asked if he thought the truce would hold. “That’s not our war. It’s their war.”
He said his administration “might” help rebuild Gaza, which he compared to a “massive demolition site.”
“Some beautiful things could be done with it,” said Trump, the real estate developer turned commander-in-chief, noting the territory’s coastline and “phenomenal” weather and location.
“Some fantastic things could be done with Gaza. Some beautiful things could be done with Gaza.”
Trump has signed an executive order temporarily suspending all US foreign assistance programs for 90 days pending reviews to determine whether they are aligned with his policy goals.
It was not immediately clear how much assistance would be affected by the order because funding for many programs has already been appropriated by the US Congress and is required to be spent.
President Donald Trump said he planned to enact previously threatened tariffs of as much as 25 per cent on Mexico and Canada by February 1, reiterating his contention that America’s two immediate neighbours are allowing a flow of undocumented migrants and drugs into the country.
“We’re thinking in terms of 25 per cent on Mexico and Canada because they’re allowing vast numbers of people,” into the country, Trump said in response to questions from reporters, as he sat behind the Oval Office’s Resolute desk on Monday night (US time). “I think we’ll do it February 1.”
Trump mused on imposing tariffs on Mexico and Canada as he signed executive orders in front of journalists in the Oval Office.Credit: AP
Trump’s plans for tariffs on two nations vital for US energy and vehicle imports threatens to set off a trade war among the signatories of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the successor to NAFTA negotiated at Trump’s insistence during his first term. The pact governed the flow of $US1.8 trillion in goods and services trade, based on 2022 data.
Both Canada and Mexico have said they’d retaliate against American goods if Trump slaps tariffs on them. The trade pact is up for review in 2026.
“Canada’s a very bad abuser,” Trump said, complaining about the passage of the drug fentanyl and migrants across the northern US border.
The US dollar jumped against most major currencies following Trump’s remarks. The Canadian dollar and Mexican peso fell more than 1 per cent against the US dollar.
