An exultant Donald Trump vowed to act with “historic speed and force” upon his return to the White House on Monday, launching an avalanche of executive orders targeting illegal immigration, transgender rights and other right-wing priorities .
“We won, we won,” Trump said Sunday during a triumphant return to Washington, where he held a raucous “victory rally” with thousands of supporters at a downtown sports arena. “What a good feeling. We like to win, don’t we? We will make our country greater than ever.
The future 47th president delivered a typically rousing speech, a mix of boasts, misrepresentations and sweeping promises, that set the stage for his inauguration at noon Monday and the populist blitz that will follow.
“Starting tomorrow, I will act with historic speed and force and solve every crisis our country faces,” he said.
“Every sweeping and senseless executive order from the Biden administration will be repealed within hours of my swearing in. You will have a lot of fun watching TV. Someone said yesterday: don’t sign so many signatures in one day, but let’s spread it out over several weeks. I said, hell…no, we’re making them tomorrow.
Just as during his election campaign, Trump has placed illegal immigration front and center, painting a grim picture of the United States, a country with open borders, besieged by violent thugs released from foreign prisons as far away as the Congo. He released a video showing crimes allegedly committed by undocumented people.
“By the time the sun sets tomorrow, the invasion of our country will have ended,” he said. “The border security measures I will outline tomorrow in my inaugural address will be the most aggressive and broad-based effort the world has ever seen to restore our borders. »
Trump reiterated his campaign promise to launch the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, which would remove millions of immigrants — an operation of that scale would likely take years and be extremely expensive.
It was his first major speech in Washington since his speech on January 6, 2021, which preceded the storming of the US Capitol by an angry mob of his supporters. Trump said he would pardon many of the more than 1,500 people convicted or charged in connection with the attack, calling them “hostages.”
He said: “Tomorrow, everyone in this very big arena will be very happy with my decision regarding the J6 hostages. Very happy. I think you will be very, very happy.
The pre-inauguration rally was unlike anything a new president had held before. Thousands of people lined up outside Capital One Arena on a cold, gray and snowy day. Sweater slogans included “Make America great Again,” “Pro God, Pro Gun” and “Proud J6er” – a reference to January 6.
Trump walked down a flight of stairs as Lee Greenwood sang the campaign’s signature song God Bless the USA and the crowd roared in adulation, chanting “USA!” USA!” He stood on the red carpet under the basketball and ice hockey pennants, but the upper floor was virtually empty and promised to “take our country back.”
The president-elect said: “Tomorrow at noon, the curtain rises on four long years of American decline and we begin a brand new day of American strength and prosperity, dignity and pride. »
He then claimed the release of the Gaza hostages on Sunday and the return of TikTok for American consumers. “Starting today, TikTok is back,” he said, before falsely claiming he had “won the youth vote” through his support on the app. Trump increased his share of the youth vote in 2024, but still lost that demographic to Kamala Harris.
Trump said he would direct the military to build an “iron dome” missile defense system. He also pledged to “drive radical woke ideologies out of our military” and released a video intercutting scenes of bullying of a drill sergeant in the film Full Metal Jacket with clips of supposedly associated transgender individuals to the Biden-Harris administration.
Yelled by the crowd, Trump declared: “We will eliminate critical race theory and transgender insanity from schools…It will be done tomorrow.” We will prevent men from participating in women’s sports.
He said he planned to travel to Los Angeles on Friday to assess the damage caused by wildfires that have killed at least 27 people and burned California’s largest urban area in at least 40 years.
Trump further promised to reverse the “upclassification” of government documents, an apparent reference to his federal indictment for retaining classified documents after leaving office. He pledged to release classified documents relating to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
The rally included an appearance by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who spent $200 million to help Trump win the election and who leads a task force charged with cutting government spending.
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Cheered by the crowd, Musk said: “We look forward to making many changes. This victory is really a start. What matters going forward is making meaningful change…and laying the foundation for a strong America for centuries, forever. And make America great again.
Trump appeared to reference the “racehorse theory,” the idea that certain bloodlines produce superior offspring, while complimenting Musk and his young son who joined him on stage. “If you believe the racehorse theory, he has a nice, smart son,” Trump said of Musk.
The term, which Trump previously explained as meaning “fast horses breed fast horses,” refers to the breeding of racehorses. It was sometimes used by white supremacists, Nazis, and eugenicists to promote racial purity.
The rally also included a performance by musician Kid Rock and speeches by Hollywood actor Jon Voight as well as Trump’s sons, Eric and Don Jr, and granddaughter Kai.
Trump concluded his hour-long speech with a performance by the Village People, who sang YMCA, the anthem that closed nearly all of Trump’s campaign rallies. Trump swayed on stage, nodded and sang as they performed.
Maga loyalists welcomed Trump’s plans for the January 6 rioters. Felecia Hicks, 30, of McAlester, Oklahoma, said, “He needs to forgive them. My mother was there that day and could very well have been one of those falsely accused people.
“I believe it was the Capitol Police who instigated a lot of this and there were a lot of infiltrators who looked like Trump supporters who added to the chaos. Many people have been wrongly accused and have not received the justice they deserve.
Hicks, a special education teaching assistant who has supported Trump since 2016, said of his other plans: “He has to check our vaccines and eliminate red dyes and different things from our food. I believe he has to do a lot of different things and I wouldn’t want to be the one to prioritize what needs to be done first.
Reina Decapua, 52, of Carmel, Indiana, was attending her first Trump rally “because he’s going to be such a great president.” I like his politics. I like that he tells you what he thinks. He has a game of balls.
Trump’s priorities, she added, should be eliminating illegal immigrants, completing his southern border wall and maintaining his 2017 tax cuts.
Irving King, 49, of Washington, D.C., said he came to see wrestler Hulk Hogan, of whom he had been a fan since he was a child. “It makes sense that he would be a Trump supporter because he’s conservative,” he said. “Trump is on the right track because we need change. I hope it will make it a little easier for us to pay for our groceries and bills.
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