WASHINGTON >> Donald Trump pledged to rescue America from what he described as years of betrayal and decline in his inaugural address today, prioritizing a crackdown on illegal immigration and portraying himself as a national savior chosen by God.

“First, I will declare a national emergency at our southern border,” he said. “All illegal entry will be immediately halted and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”

The speech echoed many of the themes he sounded at his first inauguration in 2017 when he spoke darkly of the “American carnage” of crime and job loss that he said had ravaged the country.

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

Trump, 78, took the oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend” the U.S. Constitution at 12:01 p.m. ET (7:01 a.m. Hawaii time) inside the U.S. Capitol, administered by Chief Justice John Roberts. His vice president, JD Vance, was sworn in just before him.

Trump will be the first felon to occupy the White House after a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records to cover up hush money paid to a porn star.

Trump intends to sign a raft of executive actions in his first hours as president, incoming White House officials said today, including 10 focused on border security and immigration, his top priority.

In addition to declaring an emergency, the president will send armed troops there and resume a policy forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their U.S. court dates, officials told reporters.

He will also seek to end so-called birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children whose parents lack legal status, a move some legal scholars have said would be unconstitutional.

The inauguration completes a triumphant comeback for a political disruptor who survived two impeachment trials, a felony conviction, two assassination attempts and an indictment for attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss.

“The journey to reclaim our republic has not been an easy one, that I can tell you,” Trump said, before referring to the assassin’s bullet that grazed his ear in July. “I was saved by God to make America great again.”

The ceremony was moved inside the Capitol due to the cold, four years after a mob of Trump supporters breached the building, a symbol of American democracy, in an unsuccessful effort to forestall Trump’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden, 82.

Biden and outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump in November, were on hand inside the Capitol’s Rotunda, along with former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016, arrived with her husband Bill, but Obama’s wife, Michelle, chose not to attend.

Numerous tech executives who have sought to curry favor with the incoming administration – including the three richest men in the world, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg — had prominent seats on stage, next to cabinet nominees and members of Trump’s family.

Trump, the first U.S. president since the 19th century to win a second term after losing the White House, has said he would pardon “on Day One” many of the more than 1,500 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. He skipped Biden’s inauguration and has continued to claim falsely that the 2020 election he lost to Biden was rigged.

Biden, in one of his last official acts, pardoned several people whom Trump has targeted for retaliation, including former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci, former Republican U.S. Representative Liz Cheney and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley.

Trump will restore the federal death penalty, which Biden had suspended, and require that official U.S. documents such as passports reflect citizens’ gender as assigned at birth, incoming administration officials told reporters.

They said he will also sign an order ending diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the federal government today, which is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a national holiday in memory of America’s most famous civil rights leader.

But Trump will not immediately impose new tariffs today, instead directing federal agencies to evaluate trade relationships with Canada, China and Mexico, a Trump official said, an unexpected development that unleashed a broad slide in the U.S. dollar and a rally in global stock markets on a day when U.S. financial markets are closed.

Some of the executive orders are likely to face legal challenges.

Even as he prepared to retake office, Trump continued to expand his business ventures, raising billions in market value by launching a “meme coin” crypto token over the weekend that prompted ethical and regulatory questions.

Earlier Trump and incoming first lady Melania Trump arrived at the White House, where Biden and outgoing first lady Jill Biden greeted them with handshakes.

“Welcome home,” Biden said.

As he did in 2017, Trump enters office as a chaotic and disruptive force, vowing to remake the federal government and expressing deep skepticism about the U.S.-led alliances that have shaped post-World War Two global politics.

The former president returns to Washington emboldened after winning the national popular vote over Harris by more than 2 million votes thanks to a groundswell of voter frustration over persistent inflation, though he still fell just short of a 50% majority.

In 2016, Trump won the Electoral College – and the presidency – despite receiving nearly 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton.

Trump, who surpassed Biden as the oldest president ever to be sworn into office, will enjoy Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress that have been almost entirely purged of any intra-party dissenters. His advisers have outlined plans to replace nonpartisan bureaucrats with hand-picked loyalists.

Even before taking office, Trump established a rival power center in the weeks after his election victory, meeting world leaders and causing consternation by musing aloud about seizing the Panama Canal, taking control of NATO ally Denmark’s territory of Greenland and imposing tariffs on the biggest U.S. trading partners.

His influence has already been felt in the Israel-Hamas announcement last week of a ceasefire deal. Trump, whose envoy joined the negotiations in Qatar, had warned of “hell to pay” if Hamas did not release its hostages before the inauguration.

Unlike in 2017, when he filled many top jobs with institutionalists, Trump has prioritized fealty over experience in nominating a bevy of controversial cabinet picks, some of whom are outspoken critics of the agencies they have been tapped to lead.

The inauguration took place amid heavy security after a campaign highlighted by an increase in political violence that included two assassination attempts against Trump, including one in which a bullet grazed his ear.

The traditional parade down Pennsylvania Avenue past the White House will now take place indoors at the Capital One Arena, where Trump held his victory rally on Sunday. Trump will also attend three inaugural balls in the evening.

Some diehard Trump followers slept in the street in frigid conditions to make sure they were in line to get a seat at the arena.

A desk and chair sat on the stage, where Trump was expected to sign some of his first executive orders in front of his supporters before heading to the White House.

Additional reporting by Steve Holland, David Morgan, Nandita Bose, Doina Chiacu, Stephanie Kelly, Rami Ayyub and Gram Slattery.

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