page_title: Presidency of Donald Trump
section_title: Transition period, inauguration and first 100 days
hierarchical_section_title: Presidency of Donald Trump / Transition period, inauguration and first 100 days
caption_attribution_description: Outside the Depth of Field, the linear perspective is focusing on the tabernacle of presidential power, the legendary Resolute desk. “Two days after the election on November 10th 2016, the President meets with President-elect Donald Trump.” (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza, Behind the Lens: 2016 Year in Photographs) The Oval Office Oval Office[1] is the president's formal workspace, where he confers with heads of state, diplomats, his staff, and other dignitaries; where he often addresses the American public and the world on television or radio; and where he deals with the issues of the day. Size of the room: • Long axis: 35' 10" (10.9m) • Short axis: 29' (8.8m) • Height: 18' 6" (5.6m) The Resolute desk is a large, nineteenth-century partners' desk mostly chosen by presidents of the United States for use in the White House Oval Office as the Oval Office desk. It was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 and was built from the timbers of the British Arctic exploration ship Resolute. Franklin Roosevelt requested the addition of a door with the presidential seal to conceal his leg braces.[1] Many presidents since Hayes have used the desk at various locations in the White House, but it was Jackie Kennedy who brought the desk into the Oval Office in 1961 for President John F. Kennedy for the first time. It was removed from the White House only once, after the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, when President Johnson allowed the desk to go on a traveling exhibition with the Kennedy Presidential Library. After this it was on display in the Smithsonian Institution. President Jimmy Carter brought the desk back to the Oval Office, where Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush used it. It is currently in use by President Barack Obama ... The tabernacle (Hebr.: מִשְׁכַּן‎‎, mishkan, "residence" or "dwelling place"), according to the Hebrew Bible, was the portable earthly meeting place of God with the children of Israel from the time of the Exodus from Egypt through the conquering of the land of Canaan. Built of woven layers of curtains along with 48 standing boards clad with polished gold and held in place by 5 bars per side with the middle bar shooting through from end to end and other items made from the gold, silver, brass, furs, jewels, and other valuable materials taken out of Egypt at God's orders, and according to specifications revealed by Yahweh (God) to Moses at Mount Sinai, it was transported [1] by the Israelites on their journey through the wilderness and their conquest of the Promised Land. Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem superseded it as the dwelling-place of God some 300 years later. The English word "tabernacle" is derived from the Latin tabernāculum meaning "tent" or "hut", which in ancient Roman religion was a ritual structure. Other uses of this word include nautical usage, referring to a mast step, which by its arrangement of boards allows the mast to be raised and lowered, and textiles industry usage, referring to a similar wooden bar scaffold used for holding a large rug while weaving. The word sanctuary is also used for the biblical tabernacle, as is the phrase "tent of meeting". The Hebrew word mishkan implies "dwell", "rest", or "to live in", that dwelt within this divinely ordained structure. Barack Hussein Obama II (US Listeni/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/ bə-RAHK hoo-SAYN oh-BAH-mə; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician and the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to be elected to that office and the first president born outside the contiguous United States. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. While serving three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, he ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for the United States House of Representatives in 2000 against incumbent Bobby Rush. In 2004, Obama received national attention during his campaign to represent Illinois in the United States Senate with his victory in the March Democratic Party primary, his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July, and his election to the Senate in November. He began his presidential campaign in 2007 and, after a close primary campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2008, he won sufficient delegates in the Democratic Party primaries to receive the presidential nomination. He then defeated Republican nominee John McCain in the general election, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months after his inauguration, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. During his first two years in office, Obama signed into law economic stimulus legislation in response to the Great Recession in the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010. Other major domestic initiatives in his first term included the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often referred to as "Obamacare"; the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act; and the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. In foreign policy, Obama ended U.S. military involvement in the Iraq War, increased U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan, signed the New START arms control treaty with Russia, ordered U.S. military involvement in Libya in opposition to Muammar Gaddafi, and ordered the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. In January 2011, the Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives as the Democratic Party lost a total of 63 seats; and, after a lengthy debate over federal spending and whether or not to raise the nation's debt limit, Obama signed the Budget Control Act of 2011 and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. Obama was re-elected president in November 2012, defeating Republican nominee Mitt Romney, and was sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2013. During his second term, Obama has promoted domestic policies related to gun control in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, and has called for greater inclusiveness for LGBT Americans, while his administration has filed briefs that urged the Supreme Court to strike down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (United States v. Windsor) and state level same-sex marriage bans (Obergefell v. Hodges) as unconstitutional. In foreign policy, Obama ordered U.S. military intervention in Iraq in response to gains made by ISIL after the 2011 withdrawal from Iraq, continued the process of ending U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan, promoted discussions that led to the 2015 Paris Agreement on global climate change, brokered a nuclear deal with Iran, and normalized U.S. relations with Cuba. In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus (/ˈdʒeɪnəs/; Latin: Ianus, pronounced [ˈjaː.nus]) is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, doorways, passages, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past. It is conventionally thought that the month of January is named for Janus (Ianuarius), but according to ancient Roman farmers' almanacs Juno was the tutelary deity of the month. Janus presided over the beginning and ending of conflict, and hence war and peace. The doors of his temple were open in time of war, and closed to mark the peace. As a god of transitions, he had functions pertaining to birth and to journeys and exchange, and in his association with Portunus, a similar harbor and gateway god, he was concerned with travelling, trading and shipping. Janus had no flamen or specialised priest (sacerdos) assigned to him, but the King of the Sacred Rites (rex sacrorum) himself carried out his ceremonies. Janus had a ubiquitous presence in religious ceremonies throughout the year, and was ritually invoked at the beginning of each one, regardless of the main deity honored on any particular occasion. The ancient Greeks had no equivalent to Janus, whom the Romans claimed as distinctively their own.
context_page_description: The presidency of Donald Trump began at noon EST on January 20, 2017, when he was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States, succeeding Barack Obama. A Republican, Trump was a businessman and reality television personality from New York City at the time of his 2016 presidential election victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. While Trump lost the popular vote, he won the Electoral College vote, 304 to 227, in a presidential contest that American intelligence agencies concluded was targeted by a Russian interference campaign. Trump has made many false or misleading statements during his campaign and presidency. The statements have been documented by fact-checkers, with political scientists and historians widely describing the phenomenon as unprecedented in modern American politics. Trump's approval rating has been stable, hovering at high-30 to mid-40 percent throughout his presidency.
  Trump rolled back numerous environmental protections, as well as reducing enforcement of existing regulations.
context_section_description: Prior to the election, Chris Christie was leader of Trump's transition team. After the election, Mike Pence replaced Christie as chairman of the transition team, while Christie became a vice-chairman alongside Jeff Sessions, Michael Flynn, Rudy Giuliani, Ben Carson, and Newt Gingrich.
  Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2017. He was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts. In his seventeen-minute inaugural address, Trump made a broad condemnation of contemporary America, pledging to end "American carnage" and saying America's "wealth, strength and confidence has dissipated". He repeated the "America First" slogan he had used in the campaign and promised that "[e]very decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American factories". At the age of seventy, Trump surpassed Ronald Reagan and became the oldest person to assume the presidency, and the first without any prior government or military experience. The largest single-day protest in the history of the United States, the Women's March, took place the day after his inauguration and was driven by opposition to Trump and his policies and views.
  One of Trump's major first year accomplishments, made as part of a "100-day pledge", was the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Structurally, President Trump had the advantage of a Republican Party majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, but was unable to fulfill his major pledges in his first 100 days and had an approval rating around 40 percent, the lowest for any first-term president at this point in his tenure. Although he tried to make progress on one of his key economic policies—the dismantling of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act—his failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in the first 100 days was a major setback. None of the bills passed by Trump are considered to be "major bills"—based on a "longstanding political-science standard for 'major bills'". Trump signed 24 executive orders in his first 100 days, the most executive orders of any president since World War II.
caption: Outgoing President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office on November 10, 2016
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