Second inauguration of Donald Trump

The inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States took place on Monday, January 20, 2025. Due to freezing temperatures and high winds, it was held inside the United States Capitol rotunda in Washington, D.C. It was the 60th U.S. presidential inauguration and the second inauguration of Trump as U.S. president, marking the commencement of his second and final non-consecutive term as U.S. president, the four-year term of JD Vance as the vice president, and the second ever non-consecutive re-inauguration for a U.S. president, after the second inauguration of Grover Cleveland in 1893. It was also the first presidential inauguration to take place indoors since Ronald Reagan's inauguration in 1985. Trump's first inauguration was exactly eight years earlier, in January 2017.
The event included a swearing-in ceremony, a signing ceremony, an inaugural luncheon, a first honors ceremony, and then a procession and parade at Capital One Arena. Inaugural balls were held at various venues before and after the inaugural ceremonies.
The inauguration marked the formal culmination of the presidential transition of Donald Trump that began when he won the U.S. presidential election on November 6, 2024, and became the president-elect. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, were formally elected by the Electoral College on December 17, 2024. The victory was certified by an electoral vote tally by a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2025.
Held on the third Monday of January, the inauguration was on the same day as Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which marked the third time an inauguration occurred on the same date as the holiday, following the second inaugurations of Bill Clinton in 1997 and Barack Obama in 2013 (January 21). On January 17, Trump announced the inauguration ceremony would be moved inside to the Capitol rotunda due to expected cold weather, the first since the public second inauguration of Ronald Reagan on January 21, 1985.
In May 2024, both houses of Congress appointed a Joint Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies to oversee the construction of the platform and other temporary structures that were expected to be used for the outdoor ceremonies and celebrations.
Construction of the inaugural platform ceremonially began on September 18, 2024, with the driving of the first nail by United States senator Amy Klobuchar using a nail made from iron ore mined and processed from the Iron Range in Minnesota.
In October 2024, the United States Capitol Police conducted an intelligence assessment that concluded an activist group "with a history of large-scale demonstrations involving illegal activity plans to protest the Inauguration regardless of the outcome" and that other groups protesting the Israel–Hamas war were "nearly certain to target the Inauguration" regardless of the winner in the U.S. presidential election. According to the New York Times, organizers of the 2017 Women's March were committed to recreating it under the refreshed branding "People's March". On January 18, thousands participated in the march, but the turnout fell short of the expected 50,000 attendees.
Agencies expected to be involved with planning of the ceremony include the U.S. Capitol Police, the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police, and the U.S. Park Police. Twenty-four states offered National Guard support for the electoral vote certification and inaugural ceremonies.
On January 17, approximately 8,000 National Guard soldiers were deputized as -pecial deputy United States marshals, providing them police authority within the National Capital Region.
The transfer of power included the transition of official administration X accounts, formerly known as Twitter, @POTUS and @VP. Members of the Trump administration also assumed ownership of a number of institutional accounts, including @WhiteHouse, @FLOTUS for First Lady Melania Trump, @SLOTUS for Second Lady Usha Vance, @WHCOS for White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, and @PressSec for White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. New executive branch websites were initialized; previous administrations' websites reside in the National Archives.
On November 9, 2024, Trump announced the formation of the Trump Vance Inaugural Committee, Inc., a 501(c)(4) organization dedicated to planning inaugural events. The committee co-chairs were Steve Witkoff and former U.S. senator Kelly Loeffler, longtime friends and supporters of Trump.
Various tech companies and their leaders pledged donations and services for the inauguration. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said through a spokesperson that he would make a $1 million personal donation. Mark Zuckerberg, the head of Meta and the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, sent $1 million. It was also reported in The Wall Street Journal that Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, offered to stream the ceremony on Amazon Prime Video, and this amounted to a $1 million in-kind donation on top of a $1 million cash donation. Apple CEO Tim Cook personally donated $1 million. Uber and its CEO Dara Khosrowshahi each agreed to donate $1 million to the inauguration. Alphabet donated $1 million and supported an inauguration livestream with a direct link on the homepage of YouTube. Microsoft, Adobe, and Perplexity also donated $1 million. NPR quoted Margaret O'Mara, a Silicon Valley historian at the University of Washington, as saying these donations were due to some of these tech leaders having been in conflict with Trump in the past, in hopes to reduce regulatory pressure on their companies under the incoming administration.
Ford Motor Company and General Motors announced that they would donate $1 million each and provide a fleet of vehicles for the inauguration. Toyota, Chevron, Hyundai, and Stellantis also donated $1 million.
Various financial services businesses and their leaders donated at least $1 million, including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JPMorgan, Kraken, Coinbase, Intuit, Robinhood, Ken Griffin, Ripple, and Ondo Finance.
Major donors from the telecommunications industry included AT&T, Comcast, and Charter Communications.
Major donors from the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry included PhRMA, Pfizer, and Him & Hers.
Major donors from the manufacturing and industrial sector included Stanley Black & Decker, Pratt Industries, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin.
Other major donors included Delta Air Lines and McDonald's.
Trump's inauguration marked the first time in U.S. history that a president-elect formally welcomed foreign leaders to the ceremony.
Outgoing U.S. president Joe Biden (who defeated Trump in 2020 and was inaugurated as the 46th president in 2021), outgoing U.S. vice president Kamala Harris (who had been Trump's main opponent in 2024), former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama (whom Trump first succeeded in 2017) attended the inauguration. Former first ladies Hillary Clinton (Trump's former opponent in 2016) and Laura Bush also attended the inauguration, but former first lady Michelle Obama was absent. Former U.S. vice presidents Dan Quayle and Mike Pence (who served under Trump during his first term) and former second lady Marilyn Quayle were also in attendance, while former vice presidents Al Gore and Dick Cheney and former second lady Karen Pence were absent. New York mayor Eric Adams and media proprietor Rupert Murdoch also attended the inauguration.
Chinese president Xi Jinping was invited to the ceremony, but sent vice president Han Zheng as his special representative instead. This marked the first time a senior official of China's government was sent to a US presidential inauguration. El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni were also reportedly invited.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu initially planned to attend, but ultimately did not after not receiving a formal invitation. Argentine president Javier Milei and last democratically elected Georgian president Salome Zourabichvili had been reportedly planning to attend. Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has indicated that he was an invitee, but he would have needed his confiscated passport to be returned by the government in order to travel. Russia confirmed that President Vladimir Putin did not receive an invitation. Trump stated that he had not invited President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to his inauguration but expressed willingness to welcome him if he decided to attend. Current British Prime Minister Keir Starmer did not attend the inauguration, while former British prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss attended. Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa, first lady Lavinia Valbonesi, and Paraguayan president Santiago Peña were also planning to attend. Edmundo González, whom the U.S. government recognizes as the winner of the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, also reportedly attended.
The foreign ministers of Quad nations, including S. Jaishankar from India, Penny Wong from Australia, and Takeshi Iwaya from Japan, also attended the inauguration. They were expected to meet with Trump the day after the ceremony for discussions.
A number of right-wing populist politicians attended the inauguration. French Reconquête politicians Éric Zemmour and Sarah Knafo, National Rally politicians Louis Aliot, Julien Sanchez, and Alexandre Sabatou, and Identity–Liberties leader Marion Maréchal, attended the ceremony. Spanish Vox leader Santiago Abascal, Belgian Vlaams Belang leader Tom Van Grieken, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Tino Chrupalla, Estonian Conservative People's Party leader Martin Helme, Alliance for the Union of Romanians leader George Simion, Danish People's Party leader Morten Messerschmidt, Portuguese Chega leader Andre Ventura, Hungarian Fidesz vice-president Kinga Gál, and former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki were also in attendance. From the Czech Patriots.eu representation were invited ANO MEP Ondřej Knotek and vice president of the Patriots for Europe MEP Klára Dostálová, Přísaha senator Robert Šlachta, MEP Filip Turek from the Motorists for Themselves, as well as their founder and leader Petr Macinka [cs], the latter of whom – as manager of the Václav Klaus' Institute – was also invited to the Foster's Outriders Foundation inauguration ball at the Museum of the Bible to meet Tucker Carlson and Rick Santorum. AfD Members of the Bundestag Jan Wenzel Schmidt and Beatrix von Storch alongside her husband Sven von Storch have confirmed their attendance. AfD co-leader Alice Weidel, Freedom Party of Austria leader Herbert Kickl, and Bulgarian Revival leader Kostadin Kostadinov were invited, but did not attend the ceremony. Hristijan Mickoski, Prime Minister of North Macedonia, was invited to the inauguration.
Numerous businesspeople including Bernard Arnault, Delphine Arnault, Sergey Brin, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg, among the world's richest people, attended the inauguration. They had a prominent role at the event, seated together on the platform alongside other distinguished guests, including Cabinet nominees and elected officials. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew attended the inauguration. Alphabet's Sundar Pichai, Apple's Tim Cook, OpenAI's Sam Altman, Reliance's Mukesh Ambani, and Uber's Dara Khosrowshahi also attended the event. Las Vegas Sands owner Miriam Adelson also attended the ceremony.
Several celebrities and sports figures – including Victor Willis, Carrie Underwood (who sang "America the Beautiful"), Christopher Macchio (who sang the national anthem), Antonio Brown, Mike Tyson, Jorge Masvidal, Evander Kane, Gianni Infantino, Anuel AA, Justin Quiles, Rod Wave, Kodak Black, Lee Greenwood, Fivio Foreign, Jake and Logan Paul, Theo Von, Conor McGregor, Danica Patrick, Dana White, Joe Rogan, and Wayne Gretzky – attended the ceremony. Media personalities Charlie Kirk, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson also attended the event.
On the morning of January 19, Trump and Vance visited the Arlington National Cemetery where they placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. They were joined by family members of some of the victims of the 2021 Kabul airport attack.
That evening, the Trump campaign organized a rally for supporters at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. The event featured performances by Kid Rock and Lee Greenwood, as well as speeches by Trump and Megyn Kelly. Trump also performed the Trump Dance to a rendition of "Y.M.C.A." performed by Village People who joined the president elect on stage.
An order of events for the January 20, 2025, inauguration was published by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies and the National Park Service, with a detailed schedule to follow closer to the event.
Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh administered the vice presidential oath of office to JD Vance. Chief Justice John Roberts administered the presidential oath of office to Donald Trump. Trump's wife, Melania, held two Bibles for Trump to place his left hand on while reciting the oath, in accordance with custom, but he did not do so. This is merely a tradition; incoming presidents are not required to place their hand on the Bibles.
President Trump's inaugural address started with complaints about the supposed weaponization of the judicial system against him, followed by the announcement of the new administration's nationalist and conservative policy priorities, including immigration restrictions, the easing of environmental regulations, anti-DEI and anti-"gender ideology" policies, the establishment of a Department of Government Efficiency, and a negotiated settlement to the Russo-Ukrainian war. Trump defined his presidency as the beginning of a golden era for America.
The Washington Post described Trump's inaugural address as attempting to emphasize unity, but as his speeches usually do, it veered off course and came off as "dark". Through the course of it, Trump made numerous false and inaccurate claims. He described himself as chosen by God, and that he was "tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history," which The Post noted placed himself above every other president in U.S. history such as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Trump invoked the phrase "Manifest Destiny" as he described an expansionist agenda, and criticized Democrats and other leaders. NPR said the speech gave the American public a better idea of what Trump's policies and directives would be, noted he spoke nothing of the January 6th attack nor his prior promises of political retribution, and pointed out his derision of the outgoing administration right in front of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the former president and vice president.
Invocations proceeding the inaugural address were offered by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, and Rev. Franklin Graham of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Benedictions were offered by Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, Rabbi Ari Berman, and Father Frank Mann, Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn. Imam Husham Al-Husainy, a Muslim cleric from Dearborn, Michigan, was initially on the program but did not speak or appear at the event.
Customarily, inaugural balls are held at various venues before and after the inaugural ceremonies. Official balls, at which the president and first lady appear, are organized by the inaugural committee, while unofficial balls are not.
Three official inaugural balls occurred, at which performers including Nelly, Rascal Flatts, and Jason Aldean appeared. A larger number of unofficial balls were organized.
Approximately 24.6 million total viewers watched the inauguration across 15 networks and peaked at 34.4 million when Trump took the oath of office at 12:15 PM ET. Viewership was lower than that of Biden's 2021 inauguration as well as Trump's first inauguration in 2017. The figures below, Nielsen data sourced from Adweek, do not include streaming figures.
Several members of the Democratic Party in the 119th Congress decided to boycott the inauguration. This boycott is perceived as an initial opposition to the incoming administration.
Multiple reasons were given for the decision to boycott, including the event coinciding with Martin Luther King Jr. Day events and memories from the January 6 United States Capitol attack. As of December 14, below is a list of House Democrats who publicly stated they would not be attending the inauguration:
Protest rallies and marches occurred in cities and towns all over the United States the weekend before and on the day of the inauguration. Organizers of the Women's March (which first took place the day after Trump's first inauguration and every year thereafter) rebranded their event the People's March and had events in at least 70 locations. The People's March was co-organized with Abortion Rights Now, Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, ACLU and National Women's Law Center. Attendance at one of the Washington marches was, according to the Associated Press, "far fewer than the expected 50,000 participants, already just one-tenth the size of the first [2017] march".
"We Fight Back" rallies, organized by the People's Forum, Party for Socialism and Liberation, the ANSWER Coalition, Democratic Socialists of America, Dream Defenders, CODEPINK, labor unions, tenant unions and other groups were held in 90 locations.
Around the world, anti-Trump protests occurred at consulates and elsewhere in Mexico City, London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, Prague, Warsaw, Panama City, and Manila.