WASHINGTON >> Donald John Trump completed an extraordinary return to power Monday as he was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States and delivered an immediate blitz of actions to begin drastically changing the course of the country and usher in a new “golden age of America.”

In a triumph of the man and his movement, Trump took the oath of office during a ceremony in the Capitol four years after he was evicted by voters, reinvigorated for another term aimed at remaking America in his vision. He wasted no time outlining an ambitious program of often divisive policies to “reclaim our Republic” and purge its enemies and his own.

“My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place, and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and, indeed, their freedom,” Trump said during a 29-minute inaugural address as former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris looked on. “From this moment on, America’s decline is over.”

Feeling vindicated by voters after impeachments, indictments and conviction on 34 felony counts, Trump claimed a personal mandate as well as a political one. “Many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political comeback,” he said. “But as you see today, here I am. The American people have spoken.”

‘Saved by God’

Indeed, he saw divine intervention in his restoration to the White House, citing his close call during an assassination attempt this past summer, when a bullet nicked his ear. “I felt then, and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason,” he said. “I was saved by God to make America great again.”

Trump was inaugurated in the same building where a mob of his supporters rampaged four years ago in a failed effort to reverse the results of an election that he lost, culminating one of the most astonishing comebacks in U.S. history. In a stark sign of the changing power dynamics in America, Trump in the evening pardoned about 1,500 rioters for their roles in the attack and commuted the sentences of another 14.

Biden, wary of Trump’s threats of “retribution” against perceived enemies, used his final hours in power to use the pardon power himself to thwart possible political prosecutions by his successor. Biden pardoned five members of his family, including his two brothers, as well as other figures who had been targeted by Trump, such as former Rep. Liz Cheney, retired Gen. Mark Milley and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

‘Welcome home’

But Biden, who for years has warned that Trump posed a threat to democracy, nonetheless observed the rituals of the day, unlike his predecessor who four years ago refused to concede or attend the inauguration. Biden, by contrast, graciously hosted Trump for coffee at the White House before the ceremony.

“Welcome home,” Biden told Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, when they arrived at the executive mansion.

Trump moved quickly beyond Inauguration Day ceremonies to put his stamp back on the government as he signed the first of as many as 100 orders and actions. He declared a national emergency at the southern border and said he would send the military to guard it. He said he would end government programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. He said he would rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America and promised to seize the Panama Canal. “We’re taking it back,” he said.

He signed orders in the early evening rescinding 78 of Biden’s executive actions, blocking new regulations, freezing federal hiring, pulling the United States out of the Paris climate accord and directing agencies to end “government censorship” and the “weaponization” of the Justice Department.

He signed a directive denying citizenship to children of immigrants without legal status born in the United States, in defiance of the long-standing interpretation of the 14th Amendment, an issue likely to spark a legal fight to the Supreme Court.

Much as he did eight years ago, when he denounced “American carnage” in his first inaugural address, Trump painted a grim portrait of a country on its knees that only he could revive. But even more than in 2017, he largely dispensed with lofty themes and the broad unifying strokes favored by most presidents after taking the oath and instead detailed specific policies he would enact.

Partisan responses

Trump spoke of “national unity” but made no nod to Democrats in the speech and offered no thanks to Biden, as other presidents have done for their predecessors. Indeed, the nation’s 60th inauguration quickly took on the feel of a State of the Union address as Republicans jumped to their feet to applaud particular plans announced by the new president while Democrats sat mute and apparently uncomfortable.

Sitting a few feet away, Biden stared downward during some of the speech, while former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at one point even laughed at what she seemed to think was the absurdity of the Gulf of Mexico line. Elon Musk, the new president’s billionaire patron and owner of SpaceX, pumped his fists in the air when Trump said he hoped to send “American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars.”

Chief Justice John Roberts administered the 35-word oath of office to Trump at 12:01 p.m., a minute after the constitutionally prescribed time, during a ceremony that the president-elect’s team moved indoors citing the cold weather. James David Vance was sworn in a minute before as the nation’s 50th vice president by Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Historical overtones

Trump, 78, became the oldest person inaugurated as president, eclipsing Biden, who was five months younger when he took the oath four years ago. Vance, 40, by contrast, became the third-youngest vice president in history.

Trump also became only the second president since the founding of the Republic to reclaim the White House after being defeated for reelection, joining President Grover Cleveland, who served nonconsecutive terms in the 19th century.

Trump’s restoration came on a sunny but frigid day as temperatures dipped to 26 degrees (and felt like 19 degrees) in a city virtually locked down by security forces. Much of downtown was blocked off by scale-proof fencing, concrete barriers, military vehicles and dump trucks, while the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue was canceled and held at Capital One Arena instead.

As he took the oath, Melania Trump held two Bibles, one given to him decades ago by his mother and the other used by Abraham Lincoln in 1861, but her husband did not put his hand on them as is traditional.

While all three other living presidents — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — showed up for the inauguration as is customary even though none of them supported Trump, Michelle Obama refused to attend and none of the other presidents stuck around for the crab-cakes-and-ribeye-steak congressional luncheon that followed the ceremony.

Likewise in attendance was former Vice President Mike Pence, who refused to endorse Trump last year because of his effort to overturn the 2020 election and became the first vice president not to serve in a president’s subsequent term since 1944. But his wife, Karen Pence, who refused to shake Trump’s hand at Carter’s funeral, stayed away.

The new power map in Washington was on display during the ceremony and the lunch. Mixed in with the former presidents, family members, prospective Cabinet members and congressional leaders were check-writing billionaires like Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook.

Trump followed most of the conventions of the day. He shook Biden’s hand after taking the oath and escorted his predecessor and Jill Biden to a Marine helicopter on the East Front of the Capitol to bid them farewell as they began their journey back to Delaware. Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, likewise saw off Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, as they headed back to California.

Trump, the first convicted felon ever inaugurated as president, inherits a country that by many normal metrics is in better shape than at any inauguration in a couple of dozen years.

Unemployment, inflation and crime are low, jobs and stock markets are up, energy production has hit record highs and no American troops are fighting an active overseas war. But Trump asserted that “the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair” and portrayed himself as its savior.

“The golden age of America begins right now,” he said, opening the speech.

Speaking on the holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, he said he would build a “colorblind and merit-based society” while taking a swipe at transgender Americans by saying government policy would hold “that there are only two genders, male and female.”

He also presented himself as a man who had evolved since leaving office four years ago. “I return to the presidency confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success,” Trump said.

“Over the past eight years,” he added, “I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history. And I have learned a lot along the way.”