Inauguration Day came and went in Washington on Monday — frigid, theatrical and as polarizing as the presidential campaign that led up to it. With President Joe Biden out and President Donald Trump back in the White House, the day was a mix of the good, the bad and the truly obscene, and maybe not in the order you’d assume.
The good:
- A peaceful transfer of power. It was hard to imagine on Jan. 6, 2021, that Washington could ever go back to “normal” again. But there Biden and Trump were Monday morning, performing the rituals essential to the peaceful transfer of power between democratically elected leaders. “Welcome home,” Biden said to Trump as he walked up the steps of the White House on Monday for the first time since he left in defeat in 2021. That Biden and every living former president watched on as Trump was sworn in did not mean they were giving up their own politics or agreeing with Trump’s. Instead, it meant they were doing what American democracy requires. For Biden, that meant giving Trump the dignified handover that Trump refused to give him.
- Press access is back. Trump may call the press “fake news,” but he sure does like to talk to the media. And on Monday afternoon, the newly reinstalled president signed a slew of executive orders for 45 minutes sitting at the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. As he signed them, he explained his thinking for each one, all while fielding a volley of questions from the assembled White House press pool. While Trump said enough to give any press secretary a heart attack, it was a lengthy give-and-take that Biden never did in office. Love or hate what he said, nobody can say Trump’s actions were secretive or behind closed doors. They were broadcast live for the whole world to see, literally.
- Cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and other policy changes. Some policy changes Trump ushered in Monday were long overdue. Among them was his decision to designate Mexican and other Latin American drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.” The order said that cartels “threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere,” which is entirely true. They also traffic in children along with dangerous drugs. Any efforts to address the worsening violence and danger to American and Latin American citizens is welcome news.
The bad:
- The pardons. On his way out the door, Biden issued a series of preemptive pardons for people he said have committed no crimes, including many members of his own family, whom Trump had threatened to jail. Hours later, Trump issued pardons and commutations for more than 1,500 people charged or convicted of crimes during the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6. Among those walking out of prison Monday night were people convicted of seditious conspiracy and assaulting Capitol police officers. Trump can try to erase history all he wants, but there’s no erasing the horrific images we all saw that day, nor the permanent damage to the people who were there. The Biden and Trump pardons were different in magnitude, but together, they added up to an abuse of the power to pardon that clearly needs to be reined in.
- The names. Move over “freedom fries.” It’s time to start calling the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” Also, Alaska’s Mt. Denali will be called “Mt. McKinley” again, a name change that Alaska’s Sen. Lisa Murkowski called “an awful, awful idea.” Both of those changes were among the executive orders Trump signed Monday to “honor American greatness.” Another executive order directed that Trump be alerted personally if any new federal buildings stray from “classical design”; Why any of this was worth his time on Day 1 is anyone’s guess.
The truly obscene
- The CEOs. There was a time very recently when it was unseemly for an elected official to be seen as too cozy with corporate leaders and billionaires. But there, in a single pew of St. John’s Church for a pre-inauguration prayer service Monday sat Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Apple CEO Tim Cook. Behind them was Google chief Sundar Pichai, while way up front sat the world’s richest man, and Trump’s newest sidekick, Elon Musk. Later at the swearing in, the CEOs all stood together just behind Trump’s family, but, tellingly, ahead of his incoming Cabinet. Meanwhile, Republican governors like Brian Kemp were sent to the overflow viewing area. What were the tech titans all doing there? Try asking TikTok CEO Shou Chew, whose Mar-a-Lago meeting with Trump recently persuaded him to reverse his own earlier national security concerns about the Chinese social media app. Of course, Chew was also at the inauguration, too.
- The TikTok flip-flop. Speaking of TikTok, Trump’s decision to sign an executive order to reverse the law that banned the app on Sunday illustrates why the tech CEO’s presence at the inauguration was so troubling. The app gives the Chinese military access to 170 million Americans’ data, from their contact lists to their physical locations, and opens up a direct portal for Chinese propaganda and influence. But the president said Monday he’s now open to “a deal” with the company. “Remember, TikTok is largely about kids, young kids,” Trump said Monday. “If China is going to get information about young kids out of it, to be honest, I think we have bigger problems than that.” I could not disagree more.
The president issued dozens more executive orders, many with sweeping and still-to-be-tested legality. Sorting out the good, the bad and the ugly among them, and all of the president’s actions, will be our challenge for the next four years.
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