Sky’s US correspondents share their insights into Donald Trump’s inauguration address after he was sworn in as president for a second time. They also look at Trump’s crackdown on immigration.
Mark Stone, US correspondent, in Washington DC
Back in 2017, Donald Trump uttered the phrase American carnage. Was this a similar speech? Well there was certainly some American carnage in there.
It certainly had a feel of that 2017 speech. But this time I think with hope peppered into it, hope as he would see, that he can fix the nation. It was the speech of 2017 reformed, because he believes that this time he can deliver where he couldn’t deliver before.
Trump inauguration – Latest updates
He talked about effectively America being in chaos, being broken, being lawless, being leaderless, being corrupt. And that it was his job to fix it. And so he will.
What was striking for me was watching the body language of the people in the audience. Most of those in the Rotunda were supporters of Donald Trump. Clearly not all, but most, and there were many standing ovations. But two people certainly weren’t standing up for all but one part of his speech.
And that was the outgoing president Joe Biden and the outgoing vice president Kamala Harris. They stood on my count only once, when Donald Trump talked about the ceasefire in the Middle East. Donald Trump talked about it being all about bringing back common sense.
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He said he would sign an executive order, to bring back common sense. That prompted a laugh from Biden. Drill, baby, drill, he said.
The cartels in Mexico will be designated foreign terrorist organisations. What does that mean for those cartels? It changes the rules of engagement. It means potentially American forces could strike those cartels in Mexico. What would that then lead to? Troops on the southern border. American troops deployed to deal with immigration.
They are not trained to deal with immigration, but they will soon be deployed on the southern border.
So this speech, for a little over a majority of this country, was precisely what they wanted to hear. But for those people who didn’t vote for Donald Trump, there wasn’t much in the way of unity that they could see in that speech.
Martha Kelner, US correspondent, in Eagle Pass, Texas
Immigration was one of Donald Trump’s key signature messages during his election campaign. And what we’re expecting to see from him in signing a whole host of executive orders around immigration is also about optics.
It’s about showing his supporters that he’s going to make good on his promise to crack down on undocumented immigrants.
In Eagle Pass, a town in southern Texas, the border fence is being guarded by US Army soldiers, and just beyond the fence is a small grassy patch. Beyond that is the Rio Grande River. And then immediately on the other side of the river is the Mexican town of Piedras Negras.
Martha Kelner
‘Striking fear into immigrant communities’
Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, says the action that will be taken on immigration in the next few days is designed to create shock and awe that will begin with declaring, we believe, a state of national emergency on the thousands of miles of the southern border.
That will allow Donald Trump to bring more military and National Guard down here to protect this border. We also expect to see raids across the country to detain and then expel undocumented immigrants. And that’s something that’s striking fear into some in immigrant communities here.
A trader at a local market told me she has a friend who’s been here since she was two years old. She came here from Mexico. She’s in her mid-40s now. She’s worked and paid taxes here her whole working life. But she doesn’t have the right papers. She is now terrified that she’s going to be caught and sent back to Mexico.
So that is the landscape of fear in which some of these people in these communities are living at the moment. But certainly there are some people who believe this is a good thing.
They’re welcoming the return of Donald Trump to the White House. A man in a shop in Eagle Pass says he believes Donald Trump is going to crack down on illegal immigration and crack down on crime in the process.
We’re already seeing some of Donald Trump’s intended policies coming into effect here, in the United States and over the border in Mexico. There was a mobile phone application called the CBP One border app. It was a lifeline for many people seeking legal migration to the United States. Today that border app has been taken completely offline.
James Matthews, US correspondent, in Washington DC
It’s all about the show at the Capital One Arena for the inauguration parade – to show his supporters, the people who put him in office, that he’s going to deliver on his promises. And it’s all about that initial early momentum that he will want to use to define his early days, at least, as a salesman. He is selling the message up front, ramming it home that he is an agent of change.
And also highlighting it, because part of the benefit is it conceals the headlines that he wouldn’t necessarily want people to see. The pictures with the caption, “Convicted felon enters the White House for a second time”. That was always on the cards.
James Matthews
Trump ‘burned’ Biden
He is a forward-looking Donald Trump, which I suppose is something of a change. Although he did spend time looking back in that inauguration speech burning Joe Biden, who sat just a few yards away. I mean, it was the most awkward scene – you had one half of that fairly confined, intimate space occupied by his political enemies.
A microcosm, I think, of America’s division. Democrats who felt a sense of abject despair, as they listened to Donald Trump’s excoriating review of their record. And Joe Biden and Kamala Harris – to sit there listening to that can’t have been easy. It certainly looked very difficult for them.
Donald Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy. Pic: Reuters
Ramaswamy out
Also, Vivek Ramaswamy is no longer part of the government efficiency commission that Trump selected him to lead alongside fellow billionaire Elon Musk. Ramaswamy’s departure from the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) was confirmed hours after Mr Trump took office and Ramaswamy has signalled plans to run for governor of Ohio.
I suppose that’s the very essence of trimmed down efficiency. Get rid of one half of the team before the department even gets up and running. There was only one winner there frankly and that was an awkward fit, him and Elon Musk heading up the department.
Working with Elon Musk had to be a challenge for anybody, given the space that he will take up inside Team Trump. Vivek Ramaswamy challenged Donald Trump, and was critical. He wanted to be the Republican nominee. So there is history there.
And I just wonder if his card was marked early on. It would have been certainly marked when it came to a choice between Ramaswamy and Musk. If one of them was going to go, it was always going to be Ramaswamy.
The question I think now is how big is the team at the core of the US government? You’ve got Trump and you’ve got Musk, but who else? I’m not sure JD Vance features as an equal player in any kind of trio.
