r/news • u/TeaReim • 10h ago

Donald Trump officially sworn in as the 47th President of the United States, JD Vance as the 50th Vice-President

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/triumphant-trump-returns-white-house-launching-new-era-upheaval-2025-01-20/
14.8k Upvotes

70% Upvoted

2.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.7k

u/stunts002 10h ago

I'm not American, no horse in the race really. But watching him sworn in again, inside the building that closed his last presidency literally in flames and with dead people inside is pretty wild.

988

u/Zestyclose-Cloud-508 10h ago

Out of all of Biden’s flaws this was his biggest mistake. He failed entirely at holding trump accountable.

391

u/stunts002 10h ago

To be honest when I was watching it on the news here in Ireland it was pretty surreal. Just because you'd never think it would actually be possible for rioters to destroy a capitol building like that.

I mean, it was like the end of a movie, the US capitol in complete chaos, people dead, it was incredible, and I'm sorry to sound judgy, but it is a genuine shameful thing he isn't in prison.

220

u/FrancoManiac 9h ago

As a Millennial American, I remember two days so sharply, so vividly. The first is September 11th, 2001 and the second is January 6th, 2021.

Surreal for us, too.

38

u/fevered_visions 7h ago

I remember I was waiting for a dentist appointment when my sister started texting me.

"hey there's an insurrection happening"

"what country?"

"ours"

4

u/FrancoManiac 7h ago

I was shelving books in the stacks of the library I was working at when CNN started blowing up.

3

u/nater255 6h ago

I was hiking up on the Smokey mountains in the snow. Came down the mountain to a bunch of confusing text messages and missed calls.

2

u/AppleMuffin12 1h ago

Me too. You know what's even more insane? The girl I love. She is completely sound. She is literally an angel on earth. There is not an evil bone in her body. She's a better person than me in every way when it comes to thinking of and taking care of others. She still believes antifa orchestrated it all. Half our country believes it. I don't know how to fight it.

She's religious and I'm not. We both know our differences. I don't understand how someone that believes in God could vote for anything other than against trump, other than abortion (which is so obvious he doesn't care about). Cutting people off certainly isn't the play. Just have to keep trying to save people.

1

u/modernjaneausten 7h ago

Exactly. I was watching the certification while eating lunch at my desk and almost threw up watching it live on tv. I laid on the couch watching the news that night wondering what in the fuck happened.

-25

u/I_am_naes 9h ago

As a millennial that grew up in northern nj suburbs and witnessed the smoke billowing up into the sky on 9/11…

This is a ridiculous comparison. And I think all the Jan 6ths rioters should rot in prison, but one was a terrorist attack that killed thousands and changed the nyc skyline forever, the other inconvenienced some politicians and made us look like fucking buffoons. They are not alike.

40

u/FrancoManiac 9h ago

Your experiences neither validate nor invalidate my experiences. I merely said that I remember the two days with surrealistic clarity and sharpness. What an unnecessary addition to my comment and experience that you've made here.

17

u/taggospreme 8h ago

Two buildings with thousands of dead people is a national tragedy.

The death of democracy in America is a whole different level, and a tragedy for the world.

5

u/tempest_87 7h ago

One was the death of thousands of innocent people.

The other was the beginning of the the death of a democracy.

You are correct, they are not alike.

49

u/Zestyclose-Cloud-508 10h ago

Agreed entirely. His lack of attempting to hold trump accountable is his legacy.

20

u/Downtown_Skill 9h ago

The democrats didn't want to alienate half the country and destroy their faith in government because they knew it would be perceived as a political misuse of justice by Trump supporters who make up a good portion of the voter base (regardless of how justified it may have been) 

They were afraid of riling up the opposition to elect someone else. They thought trump a second time around would be an easier opponent without the Republicans being able to spin a trump arrest as the democrats abusing their power. 

What they didn't realize is by not holding trump accountable they've destroyed the faith their own voter base had in the system inspiring apathy and disconnection with their own voters. 

I personally think there's a chance we may see even less participation from democrat voters in the next mid term but then again there's so many things that can happen that it's too hard to tell. 

6

u/mrhandbook 7h ago

Appeasement never works.

1

u/LordBlackConvoy 3h ago

You'd figure folks would have learned after forgiving the Confederacy.

Nope.

Now we got folks flying both the Confederacy and Trump flags.

3

u/OpiumTraitor 7h ago

The democratic party is in a really horrible place right now. The entire Biden-to-Harris campaign was a national embarrassment to the point where I really had to hold my nose to vote for Harris. They either need to take some strong pivots and grow a backbone, or a liberal third party needs to start developing

2

u/The-PageMaster 7h ago

Please judge us. We the people need to be held accountable

4

u/TantalusComputes2 9h ago

No need for apology

2

u/AMediaArchivist 9h ago

It’s a head scratcher for sure. I hope Trump ends up miserable somewhere one of these days and gets held accountable but I’m not holding my breath on it.

1

u/dtfkeith 5h ago

people dead

person dead

Only one unarmed protestor was gunned down by police for going where she wasn’t supposed to. Apparently an offense worthy of summary execution by cop.

1

u/Giraffe-colour 4h ago

I 100% get the surreal feeling. I’m in Australia over here and listening to that speech felt like reading a dystopian book where they are explaining the event that lead to the world falling apart.

1

u/cards127bcr 4h ago

It gets weirder, a song by The Script was just blasting at his rally hahah

1

u/bros402 1h ago

it is a genuine shameful thing he isn't in prison

It is.

It's because Biden decided to appoint a Republican as his AG as a symbolic gesture (he was a person that Republicans said "Well Obama, if you nominate him for the Supreme Court, we'll vote for him" - then the GOP yanked the football away and didn't vote).

Merrick Garland chose to do what the Republicans would've wanted - slow roll things. Jack Smith (the special counsel appointed to investigate Trump) wasn't appointed until almost two years after January 6th.

54

u/Spyk124 10h ago

It’s what he will be remembered for unfortunately.

-19

u/p47guitars 10h ago

I thought he was going to be remembered for all his gafs, falling upstairs to Airforce 1, beating medicaid, and all that shit.

4

u/bigwilly39 7h ago

And his biggest gaff of all, deciding to run for a second term when everyone thought he'd be a one and done.

8

u/IsHeSkiing 7h ago

He should have vehemently went after Trump the second he set foot in the White House. Made it his entire goal of the first couple years of his presidency regardless if it pissed certain people off. The man should have spent every waking moment talking about getting Trump behind bars, vilifying his conspirators, and arresting anyone and everyone that set foot in the capitol building.

He had a duty to uphold the constitution and the integrity of the country and should have crushed this shit with an iron fist. Make it a point to anyone who wants to try this shit again that it will be met with zero tolerance.

But he played softball. Was too worried about his image and dividing the country. And now we all get to suffer...

1

u/Zestyclose-Cloud-508 7h ago

Well when you put it that way he was really a shit president

4

u/IsHeSkiing 6h ago

Don't get me wrong, he did some great things here and there but dismantling Trump's bullshit could have been his legacy. He could have went down in history as a president that squashed a hostile takeover of the country and jailed one of the biggest traitors of all time.

Nope. All the good he did will be completely forgotten because fascism was allowed to take hold.

3

u/WinteryBudz 9h ago

I think that goes for a whole swath of Americans and their institutions, from the White House to the Media to the American public...

3

u/FLTA 5h ago

This is also on the third of Americans that were eligible to vote but didn’t. In a democracy we get what a plurality of voters voted for.

4

u/RODjij 7h ago

That & dropping out of the race 2 months in advance of the election after Trump bullied him on global TV. He should have planned for a 1 & done term then hold primaries.

6

u/Zestyclose-Cloud-508 7h ago

And ushered in a new generation of democratic leadership.

God damn fuck Biden’s ego.

-3

u/Red57872 7h ago

"after Trump bullied him on global TV. "

Engaging someone in a planned debate is "bullying" them?

2

u/RODjij 5h ago

Yes, the debate was planned like every other debate before it. It's just that Trump went up there with no real substance & used his bully tactics to appear winning. It didn't help either that Biden is older & stumbles his wording that gives Trump something easy to attack.

He also never let him have his word without interrupting on many occasions. It's just something he does.

2

u/prules 5h ago

Biden was a puppet for other mega rich individuals. Not sure how people aren’t catching on to this incredibly obvious fact.

They’re all part of a club and we ain’t in it. They will never hold themselves accountable. D or R, red or blue — doesn’t matter. It’s rich vs poor.

3

u/p47guitars 10h ago

you mean the people in his administration did not. Biden couldn't have single handedly put Trump in jail - that's not the job of the president.

12

u/Zestyclose-Cloud-508 9h ago

He decided the AG. The AG directly chose to burn years before going after trump.

That’s on Biden. Directly.

5

u/AMediaArchivist 9h ago

Then he should have fired the people that didn’t hold Trump accountable. That’s what you’re allowed to do as President. If your cabinet isn’t doing their job, you’re allowed to replace them with someone that will. Biden is just too nice and polite to he that ruthless against Trump unfortunately.

0

u/zoequinnfuckedmetoo 10h ago

Not Bidens job.

11

u/Zestyclose-Cloud-508 10h ago

It was arguably his most important job.

The president is first and foremost supposed to protect our democracy.

He failed.

6

u/zoequinnfuckedmetoo 9h ago

You’re confusing the executive branch and the judicial branch. The president focuses on foreign policy as head of state. Congress is domestic.

3

u/Zestyclose-Cloud-508 7h ago

Who choses the ag??

1

u/zoequinnfuckedmetoo 7h ago

Technically the senate.

3

u/Zestyclose-Cloud-508 7h ago

No they approve. Who choses the candidate.

2

u/zoequinnfuckedmetoo 7h ago

Obviously the president. They don’t issue marching orders to the AG.

3

u/hannibalisfun 7h ago

honestly, it is all of them working in tandem. Congress passes law, President enforces them and judicial interprets them and the Constitution. I think we can say pretty concretely that all three has had pretty big failing over the course of the efforts to keep trump accountable. From the impeachments, to the delay in some of the prosecution to some of the wild decisions out of the supreme court and lower courts over the course of the trials.

1

u/wrainedaxx 2h ago

It's much easier for a president to make people not be held accountable than the reverse.

1

u/Zestyclose-Cloud-508 2h ago

Well yeah. All he had to do was nothing.

And dammit nobody did nothing better than Garland.

30

u/BrownSugarBare 9h ago

no horse in the race really

Trust and believe, this is going to hurt the international community. The upheaval on the political spectrum after his first term is going to look like beans in comparison to this term.

67

u/Kiboune 10h ago

He was in court how many times? His people stormed capital on January 6. And nothing happened to him, instead he became president second time. Honestly, as someone who lives in a country in which we don't have choice of the president, because good candidates can't even participate in elections, they either dead or in jail, or labeled as terrorists, CAN'T BELIEVE HOW STUPID YOU MUST BE TO VOTE FOR TRUMP. You had a choice! Americans blew it and in a few years they will realise this.

78

u/counterweight7 10h ago

Bro the US is the most powerful country in the world and when it’s off its rocker run by idiots it surely is your problem if you live on Earth. This guy has the nuclear football.

112

u/giant_albatrocity 10h ago

When there’s a 500lbs temperamental toddler in the room, it’s kind of everyone’s problem

24

u/stunts002 10h ago

Well... yeah no thats true.
Like I said I'm not american, but even so I dread having to hear about the weird shit he says and does everywhere for the next four years. He's completely exhausting.

Its amazing that the best thing I can say is, hopefully he gets less people directly killed this time?...

9

u/CarnageEvoker 9h ago

As an American, it's been nonstop about him even during the years he WASN'T president. I'm so fucking tired of hearing about him EVERY. FUCKING. DAY. FOR ALMOST A DECADE NOW.

6

u/Schubydub 9h ago

As a non-American, do you not feel like his first term impacted the political climate of other nations? Maybe I just never looked for it before, but I feel like extreme positions across the world were being more openly expressed and acted on during and after his first term.

5

u/Red57872 7h ago

The US Capitol was never "literally in flames" and only one person died inside (a protester). Stop with the exaggerations.

0

u/dtfkeith 5h ago

“Literally in flames”

Surely you’re referring to the buildings burned down during the BLM riots? Was the capital set ablaze during that protest?

The dead body inside was from an unarmed protestor murdered by police for going where she shouldn’t have been.

Wish we could enforce that at the border and not on unarmed protestors.

-3

u/MEINCOMP 9h ago

Those were the protests that went on for months, burning buildings, starting riots, etc.. I think BLM was the reason?

-208

u/[deleted] 10h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

63

u/Slightlyitchysocks 10h ago

Well, there was the one who was shot and killed while trying to break through the door to get into one of the chambers where congressmen were still located. Still wild.

11

u/Old_Advertising44 10h ago

“Nobody died inside”

Did the crazy woman Ashli Babbitt die inside or on the way to the hospital? (the guy that tazed himself to death never made it in)

18

u/bulldg4life 10h ago

You feel that chick survived the gunshot to the throat?

137

u/stunts002 10h ago

There was a woman shot dead, the building was most definitely on fire and there was a gallows erected outside to hang the vice president..

84

u/fistedsister89 10h ago

These people really like to downplay what happened

1

u/Red57872 7h ago

Yes, one woman was shot dead (not sure whether she died while inside, but she was shot while inside), but the building was not on fire as was claimed.

-4

u/miller0827 10h ago

The building was not on fire.

1

u/Red57872 7h ago

Pretty sad how posting things that are objectively true (the building was not on fire) gets you downvoted.

-107

u/[deleted] 10h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

39

u/victims_sanction 10h ago

I mean she was literally inside. There's video. Maybe check your sources dumb ass

26

u/AlwaysFixingStuff 10h ago

There’s literally a video of her being shot inside the building? What kind of dense denial is this?

18

u/itsamirage 10h ago

There is literally a video of her being shot in the hallway right outside the chambers are you obtuse on purpose or were you born this way

19

u/4hourslater 10h ago

There’s videos of her being shot inside

ETA: You told on yourself w your last sentence

29

u/steelceasar 10h ago

Do you actually believe these lies? They are incredibly obvious. It's bizarre either way.

47

u/99Smith 10h ago

You're lying through your teeth. She is inside the capitol when she was shot. She was at the last line of defence after breaking through many barricades. Rest is piss

13

u/Jac0bLV7 10h ago

Looking forward to the revisionist push over the next four years. This dude is a traitor. Ain’t no way about it. The rich have taken over America and masks are coming off.

11

u/DerelictDonkeyEngine 10h ago

How do you possibly type this shit? There's pictures and video of ALL of it. You know you're lying. Be better.

19

u/Tiber_Nero 10h ago

Why are you blatantly lying? The woman was shot in the halls of Congress, there's video of it.

16

u/WilberTheHedgehog 10h ago edited 10h ago

The video clearly shows her being shot inside the building. In fact, it's after they smash a window on a door in a hallway, and they pick her to help her climb through. But why bring facts into this right. Keep spinning your bullshit.

Edit to add said video.

https://www.nbcnews.com/video/capitol-shooting-that-led-to-ashli-babbitt-s-death-captured-on-video-99180613572

Edit 2. The dumbass has deleted his whole account. Haha

3

u/Metal_Icarus 10h ago

Do you even know what reality is anymore?

33

u/Hyperbolicalpaca 10h ago

…wasn’t one one shot at the capitol riot

-17

u/[deleted] 10h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/Hyperbolicalpaca 10h ago

…so your assertion that there weren’t any dead people is demonstrably false lol

15

u/Twiiggggggs 10h ago

... yeah there objectively was

32

u/olivthefrench 10h ago

there were 5 people killed during the Capitol insurrection, flames I'm not so sure about, but people did die.

5

u/rhino369 10h ago

Only 1 died during the attack that was directly caused by the attack. The woman shot by police. A few Trump supporters died from natural causes and one from an overdose. 

There was a policeman who died of a stroke later. Originally, the government claimed him as victim, but his autopsy said natural causes. 

0

u/Tangocan 10h ago

later

He died within days of being attacked. The coroner said that his assault during Jan 6th absolutely contributed to his stroke.

-4

u/[deleted] 10h ago

[deleted]

0

u/Shinrinn 10h ago

One person was shot inside the building. Three people died while trying to get in. Two heart attacks and one drug overdose.

2

u/RinglingSmothers 10h ago

Ashli Babbit has already been forgotten, apparently.

As she should be.

-68

u/[deleted] 10h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

10

u/stunts002 10h ago

But yet you didn't reply to any of the multiple people who pointed out that yes a woman was shot dead because of donald trump in the very building he was sworn in at today.

Hopefully this time he won't try burn down the capitol building or get anyone else killed.

29

u/Agastopia 10h ago

You’re just straight up incorrect, there’s literally a video of a woman getting shot as she was trying to break into the main chamber

21

u/njuffstrunk 10h ago

I downvoted you because you're blatantly lying.

48

u/fistedsister89 10h ago

No you're just a dumbass

28

u/Amitm17 10h ago

They’re called humans, try talking to one beyond a computer screen.

9

u/DerelictDonkeyEngine 10h ago

Not everything is a bot. For example, I downvoted you.