Donald Trump was sworn in yesterday as the 45th President of the United States during a historic transfer of power that encapsulates American democracy even in politically divisive times.
President Trump's speech hit on a lot of the themes he used during his campaign.
He said his presidency represents a "transfer of power" away from Washington and back to the American people.
"This moment is your moment, it belongs to you," he said, addressing Americans.
Trump, President Barack Obama and their families attended the inauguration ceremony at Capitol.
The traditions of the day began unfolding early yesterday morning. Trump and his family attended a private worship service at St. John's Church, known as the church of presidents. The Obamas greeted Trump and the new First Lady Melania Trump at the North Portico of the White House before hosting them for tea.
Obama left the White House for the final time as president, riding alongside Trump to Capitol Hill.
Earlier in the morning, Obama wrote a letter to Trump and left it on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, as outgoing presidents typically do for their successors. As Obama left the Oval Office for the final time, he was asked if he had any words for the American people. "Thank you," Obama said.
Trump took the oath of office on the West Front of the Capitol just before noon, swearing to preserve, protect and defend the US constitution.
That moment marked the culmination of a stunning upset victory in last year's bitter presidential election.
Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton also attended the ceremonies. Hillary Clinton, who Trump defeated in the November election, was also at the Capitol in a show of support for national unity and the peaceful transfer of presidential authority.
The customs and symbolism that played out -- from Trump's ride to the Capitol with Obama to the First Couple's dance at an inaugural ball -- are familiar. But the circumstances of this inauguration -- the 58th in the nation's history -- could hardly be more unconventional.
When the presidential primary season began nearly a year ago, few thought Trump could survive the battle for the Republican nomination -- much less beat Clinton to win the presidency. He became the oldest president sworn in for a first term and the first president with no previous diplomatic, political or military executive experience.
But his populist campaign deeply resonated with Americans who were fed up with Washington's political class and felt left behind in the globalizing economy. Yesterday morning, Trump heralded his inauguration in typical style -- with an early morning tweet after waking up in Blair House, the official government residence across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.
Trump began a day of ceremony by attending the traditional inauguration day worship service. When they arrived at the White House, Melania Trump brought a gift for the Obamas in a blue box wrapped in a bow, which the President handed into an aide before returning for a photo.
Trump took the oath of office, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, on two Bibles, one that he used as a child and the other used by Abraham Lincoln at his first inauguration.
But his inauguration was met with a sense of anxiety across the world.
The Germans are angry. The Chinese are downright furious. Leaders of NATO are nervous, while their counterparts at the European Union are alarmed.
Trumps remarks in a string of discursive and sometimes contradictory interviews have escalated tensions with China while also infuriating allies and institutions critical to America’s traditional leadership of the West.
No one knows where exactly he is headed — except that the one country he is not criticizing is Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. For now. And that he is an enthusiastic cheerleader of Brexit and an unaffiliated Britain. For now.
Trump’s unpredictability is perhaps his most predictable characteristic. The world is accustomed to his provocative Twitter messages, but is less clear about whether his remarks represent meaningful new policy guidelines, personal judgments or passing whims. In the interviews, Trump described the European Union as “basically a vehicle for Germany” and predicted that the bloc would probably see other countries follow Britain’s example and vote to leave.
Trump also said Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, had made a “catastrophic mistake” in allowing refugees to pour into Europe.
The barrage of inflammatory comments in joint interviews published Sunday and Monday in Britain and Germany elicited alarm and outrage in Europe, even as Merkel dryly characterized Trump’s positions as nothing new.
“They have been known for a while — my positions are also known,” Merkel said Monday in Berlin. “I think we Europeans have control of our destiny.”
Her clipped response came as officials and analysts struggled with how to interpret Trump’s remarks, as well as how to react to them.
For good measure, Trump had also infuriated China by using an interview on Friday with The Wall Street Journal to again question China’s longstanding One China policy. It holds that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the mainland.
On Monday, China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, said that anyone trying to use the status of Taiwan for negotiations would be “smashing their feet by lifting a rock” and would face broad and strong opposition from the Chinese government and people, as well as the international community. She added that “not everything in the world can be bargained or traded off.”
The English-language China Daily accused Trump of “playing with fire,” saying that if Taiwan became up for negotiation, as Trump suggested to The Journal, “Beijing will have no choice but to take off the gloves.”
In Africa, there is uncertainty over Trump's presidency, with many people predicting that it will likely lead to a reduction of US aid and trade with the continent.
TRUMP'S FINGER ON THE NUCLEAR BUTTON
It's a plain, bulging leather satchel, but inside it has the ominous power to unleash a nuclear Armageddon.
And yesterday it fell into Trump's control.
After he was sworn in as president, Trump inherited control of the "football," the briefcase that carries the procedures and communications equipment that allow the US leader to launch nuclear missiles.
The bag, aluminum-framed and weighing 20 kilograms goes everywhere he goes, carried by a military aid.
Trump also gets, with the satchel, the "biscuit" - a pocket-sized card with the codes the president needs to authenticate his command to launch a nuclear attack.
The football has been omnipresent with the leader of the world's most powerful nation since around 1963, according to Smithsonian magazine.
It has to stay close to the president, given that he will have less than five minutes to react before nuclear missiles launched at the US by an airstrike.
It is the president's sole decision, and he must input the codes in secure communications with a Pentagon command and control centre to launch US nuclear weapons.
"He doesn't have to check with anybody," vice president Dick Cheney said in 2008.
"He doesn't have to call the Congress. He doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in."
Given that the power accrued to him as soon as he was sworn in as president yesterday, Trump will have been briefed on the procedures of the football, which contains documents outlining his choices for an attack: how strong it should be and which targets to hit, for example.
A former White House military aide, Col. Buzz Patterson, compared the documents to a fast-food restaurant menu.
"It's like picking one out of Column A and two out of Column B," he said, according to Smithsonian.
Responsibility for US nuclear power was made an issue in the presidential election. President Barack Obama sassed Trump during the election campaign last year as too "erratic" to be entrusted with that power.
"If somebody can't handle a Twitter account, they can't handle the nuclear codes," Obama quipped.
Trump is indeed a newcomer to the issues of deterrence strategy, but in December he made clear his view that the US must maintain a powerful nuclear arsenal.
Responding to Russian President Vladimir Putin's statement that Moscow needs to strengthen its own nuclear force, Trump responded by tweet: "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes."
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