Donald Trump has been sworn in as the 47th President of the United States (POTUS). The 78-year-old made a rare comeback four years after he lost to Joe Biden.

Trump promised a blitz of immediate orders on immigration and the US culture wars as he caps his extraordinary comeback.

Republican Trump, 78, was a political outsider at his first inauguration in 2017, but as he takes the oath as the 47th US president he is surrounded by America’s wealthy and powerful.

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos and Google CEO Sundar Pichai all had prime seats in the Capitol alongside Trump’s cabinet members.

Musk, who bankrolled Trump’s election campaign to the tune of a quarter of a billion dollars and promotes far-right policies on the X social network, will lead a cost-cutting drive in the new administration.

While Trump refused to attend Biden’s 2021 inauguration after falsely claiming electoral fraud by the Democrat, this time Biden has been keen to restore a sense of tradition.

Biden was joining former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton at the Capitol. Former first ladies Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush were there but ex-first lady Michelle Obama stayed away.

– ‘American Decline’ –

Unusually for an inauguration where foreign leaders are normally not invited, Argentina’s hard-right president Javier Milei was attending, along with Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

The frigid weather has forced Trump’s inauguration indoors for the first time since Ronald Reagan’s in 1985, missing out on the customary massive crowds along the National Mall.

Behind the pomp and ceremony, the billionaire is kickstarting his nationalist, right-wing agenda with a barrage of around 100 executive orders undoing Biden’s legacy.

Trump will declare a national emergency at the Mexico border, give the US military a key role on the frontier, and end birthright citizenship, as he seeks clamp down on undocumented migrants, an official from his incoming administration said.

Trump has pledged to start immediate deportations of undocumented migrants.

He will also sign an order for the US government to recognize only two biological sexes and seek to eliminate federal government diversity programs as he takes office.

More to follow…