• Donald Trump is President of the United States. Again. His inaugural address Tuesday wasn’t quite as dark as the ‘American carnage’ speech he gave eight years ago. This time around, Trump promised the beginning of a “golden age of America” before reading off a laundry list of policies he plans to pursue during his presidency that will, almost certainly, not usher in a golden age. Standing behind Trump were some of the richest men in the world: Tech CEOs Sundar Pichai of Google, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and X’s Elon Musk. Longtime D.C. reporter and friend of the pod Todd Zwillich helps us break down Trump’s inauguration speech.
• Later in the show, Eugene Daniels, White House correspondent for Politico, walks us through the many executive orders Trump signed Tuesday.
• And in headlines: Joe Biden spent his final hours as president issuing a bunch of preemptive pardons for members of his family and Trump’s political enemies, Vivek Ramaswamy may leave DOGE, and China said it’s open to selling TikTok.

• Check out Eugene’s work – politico.com/staff/eugene-daniels
• Support victims of the fire – votesaveamerica.com/relief
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• What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast

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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Tuesday, January 21st. I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day. The show that’s very interested in obtaining Melania Trump’s inauguration hat. It appears to create a powerful force field that keeps Donald Trump at arm’s length. Where can I get one? [music break] On today’s show, President Biden says peace out, but not before signing a bunch of preemptive pardons for Trump’s political enemies. And Vivek Ramaswamy flames out at DOGE, to maybe run for governor of Ohio. All right. And we have a new president who’s also an old president, both in the literal meaning of the word old and in the way that this is unfortunately not the country’s first rodeo with this guy. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] The golden age of America begins right now. [cheers and applause] From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. 

Jane Coaston: He doesn’t sound very excited about it. Donald Trump delivered his inaugural address at the Capitol Rotunda and was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. At 78, he is the oldest man to be sworn in as president in U.S. history. His inauguration speech wasn’t quite the American carnage of his first address eight years ago, but he did spend a lot of time talking about how everything sucked before Monday because previous administrations had run the country into the ground. You know, minus the four years he was running the country. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] My recent election has a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and indeed their freedom. From this moment on, America’s decline is over. 

Jane Coaston: That’s right. As Trump would have us all believe, everything magically changed at noon Eastern time and sunlight poured over the entire world or something. And now he’ll get to work fixing all the country’s problems. Except there are no more problems because he’s president again. So to talk more about President Donald Trump’s second inauguration and what it says about his plans for a second term, I called up longtime Washington reporter and friend of the pad, Todd Zwillich. Todd, welcome back to What a Day. 

Todd Zwillich: Always a pleasure. 

Jane Coaston: So Trump has made a ton of promises like free IVF or ending the Ukraine war before even taking office, which he already hasn’t done. There’s no way he can keep them all. And I don’t think he really plans to. But we’ve also talked on this show about how deliverism, the concept of delivering on your campaign promises for your base to keep them happy maybe matters less than vibes now. Making your base feel like you’re delivering for them without actually having to do anything. What do you think? 

Todd Zwillich: I think these things inevitably are going to clash. There are a bunch of things that Donald Trump will be able to deliver on. You know, look, he is delivering on closing the border, ending asylum, remain in Mexico, naming drug cartels as terrorist organizations. All those things he is delivering. There are a bunch of other promises. It’s going to be really hard to deliver on. Things like tax free overtime. 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Todd Zwillich: No taxes on tips. That stuff costs hundreds of billions of dollars. And he’s got a Congress that is going to deliver on tax cuts for corporations and for the wealthy. They’re going to run up the deficit while they do it because they’re also going to increase defense spending. So another couple hundred I don’t know how many hundred billion dollars. I’m not sure. To do some deliverism on those things. There are a lot of casual low information or just sort of low engagement voters who probably said tax free tips yeah amazing. I make tips, tax free over time? That’s great. I get over time. Um. Delivering on that. It’s possible they can make choices to do it. It’s going to be really hard. And if and when they don’t do it, Donald Trump is not the one who’s going to pay the price. 

Jane Coaston: Let’s talk about the wealthy. Trump also made sure that the world’s richest tech oligarchs like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, and of course, his new best friend forever, Elon Musk were prominently seated next to Trump’s own family. They’re even sitting in front of Trump’s own cabinet picks, and Republican governors got shunted off to some overflow room. And it made for a wild split screen moment when Trump said this: 

[clip of President Donald Trump] As we gather today, our government confronts a crisis of trust. For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens, while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair. 

Jane Coaston: First and foremost, it’s always striking to me how Trump sounds so low energy when someone else wrote the speech. Like he could not be more bored. It is not possible for a person to be more bored. But also a lot of Americans think these very men, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, are the ones who are extracting power and wealth from citizens and are also directly responsible for the crisis of trust Trump mentions. But they’re front and center presence says a lot about who is going to have the president’s ear in his second term. And it’s not the working class. 

Todd Zwillich: The tacit message I got from that split screen or that combination screen, as you just described it, is who’s going to have the public’s ear or who at least Donald Trump thinks is going to have the public’s ear. What do I mean? Who did Trump place in that shot? We all know Donald Trump designs a shot. Whoever is in the shot is who he wants in the shot. All of the tech oligarchs, including Mark Zuckerberg that you described. Um. He’s he’s lying in that statement in a very complex and nuanced way, the one that you played. And I think the message is um we we now control what the public, especially the lower information public, will glean from that irony or from that disconnect. We control the message. We have increasing control over the algorithm. The CEO of TikTok America was also behind Trump. He wasn’t quite in the shot, but he was there. So was Zuckerberg.

Jane Coaston: And he was seated next to Tulsi Gabbard. 

Todd Zwillich: Right next to Tulsi Gabbard, the hopeful for Donald Trump, director of national intelligence. Imagine that. So the the the irony, even though it’s not very cool irony that I took away from that, is um, yes, these two things are completely disconnected. Yes, I can blame an up sucking of money uh from a corrupt establishment on my enemies and literally have the richest people in the world sitting behind me. And you can think that’s weird if you want to, but you may never, in fact, learn about it. 

Jane Coaston: And it was it was notable to me that former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, Goldman Sachs’ own and sort of the architect of the MAGA movement. He wasn’t even there. But while leading by press releases and social media may work for Trump, his model of politics has a risk for his party. First, Trump can’t run again, and so far, no one’s been able to successfully replicate his style of politics. And secondly, congressional Republicans will need to deliver some wins while they have majorities in both chambers, while those majorities are so thin and they all hate each other. What do you think? 

Todd Zwillich: I think that Donald Trump won’t have to worry about any of these things, as you mentioned. I think that um the promise of a Donald Trump without the insanity, Donald Trump without the rank bigotry and Donald Trump without the circus like atmosphere was supposed to be Ron DeSantis. So uh [laugh] it’s they haven’t found–

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Todd Zwillich: –that guy yet. How much will the deliverism part of that matter if they don’t deliver on so many of the things that you mentioned at the top, will Donald Trump’s public abandon him? The base of the Republican Party won’t. But Donald Trump got over the top, won the popular vote by something shy of two million because lots and lots of people, a lot of people who voted for Joe Biden in the past and may have voted for Barack Obama gave Trump a shot because of grocery prices or high prices or even immigration. Um. So it’s not all base next time. I don’t know where this goes in four years. I’m worried about the information environment. I’m worried about the converts and propagandists sitting behind Donald Trump during that speech. But I also know that that’s not the whole country, not the whole country is enveloped in these algorithms, not the whole country is quite on quite as online as you and I and Elon Musk to put us all in the same boat for a second. Uh. Sorry, Jane. But uh what that means is there are millions of voters out there who, if they don’t get tax free tips, if they don’t get I was promised tax free overtime. I was promised, you know, great things on day one. You might lose people. Now you might lose them to attrition to not voting at all. And if Democrats get smart, you might lose them to Democrats. Who knows? Midterms are in two years and the Republican House majority is two votes. 

Jane Coaston: Todd, thank you so much for being here. 

Todd Zwillich: Always a pleasure, Jane. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with longtime Washington reporter and friend of the pod, Todd Zwillich. [music break] After Trump’s speech, he headed to the inauguration parade at Capital One arena. Is there anything sadder than an inside parade? I’ll wait. That’s also where Trump signed the executive orders he previewed in his inaugural address, spanning everything from an immigration crackdown and expanding oil drilling to ending diversity programs and renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. And those he didn’t like pardons for the January 6th insurrectionists. He did talk about those later during his inside parade. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] And, you know, tonight I’m going to be signing on the J6 hostages pardons to get them out. And as soon as I leave, I’m going to the Oval Office and will be signing pardons for a lot of people, a lot of people. 

Jane Coaston: To walk us through the executive orders Trump signed on Monday and the ones he’s promised to sign. I spoke with Eugene Daniels. He’s a White House correspondent for Politico. Eugene, welcome to What a Day. 

Eugene Daniels: Thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: So. 

Eugene Daniels: What a day! [laugh]

Jane Coaston: What a day indeed. So a lot of people have been bracing themselves for executive orders Trump said he’d sign, to crack down on immigration. What orders did he actually put pen to paper on on Monday? 

Eugene Daniels: So with immigration um tasking the military with border enforcement was one of them. Designating cartels and gangs as terrorist groups was another. Um. He declared a national emergency at the southern border, ordered the Department of Defense to be more heavily involved, tasking officials from there to deploy additional troops to the border. He shut down asylum and refugee um admissions. And that’s just like just uh some in the immigration category, right. He rolled back 78 Biden era executive actions, um 1500 pardons for January 6th rioters. Um. Left the [?] Paris climate accords, left the WTO, and is trying to figure out a way to get rid of birthright citizenship. 

Jane Coaston: Let let’s get into that for a second, because I know it sounds like a really basic question, but what can an executive order do or not do? Like the Constitution is very clear on the issue of birthright citizenship. It’s come up at the Supreme Court a couple of times. So what does an executive order stating that birthright citizenship is over for children of undocumented immigrants actually do? 

Eugene Daniels: Yeah, that’s the thing about executive orders. A lot of them are just signals, right? So now he can say that he worked to get rid of birthright citizenship. And so everyone that is a MAGA fan, someone who is already predisposed to believing everything that he says is kind of going to assume that he got rid of birthright citizenship. It is obviously, as you said, not that easy. It is in the Constitution. The thing that is really interesting about the way that Donald Trump and his team think about this, that’s the opposite of how most presidents have thought about it in the past, is that he is willing to call people’s bluff. Right? He’s willing to call the bluff of the Supreme Court to say, I dare you to take down this executive order that I that I signed. I dare you to do so. Other presidents wouldn’t do something like that because they would say it’s settled law. It’s in it in it’s in the Constitution. That’s not something that he seems to care about at all. I was talking to someone over the weekend who’s been in touch with DOJ now DOJ officials under the Trump administration, and they said that they’re going to be pushing the limits, going to be at the edge of of all of the things. And these EO’s are a perfect example of how they’re trying to do that. 

Jane Coaston: What else did he sign that stood out to you? I know we’ve talked about a couple of different things. What did you see that was particularly interesting? 

Eugene Daniels: Yeah, I mean, the pardons were really interesting. We knew that those were coming. It’s a long list, right? Commuting some of the sentences of some of the folks who have already been sentenced. I also think the kind of talking about there are two genders, right? That’s something that is a culture war fight that the Trump folks have been trying to go back and forth with. I was in the rotunda on Monday when he talked about that in his inaugural address. And so he is clearly signaling over and over to the people that voted for him the things that I talked about and that I promised you guys, I’m going to try and do that. And it changes a lot of the way a lot of a small part of the population operates, right? We know that trans and non-binary folk aren’t this humongous population in the country, right? They make up a small subset of queer folks. Right. But it it stays in the minds of a lot of people and it gives them kind of an enemy, right? It gives them someone to be upset at. Um. And this is one of those things that that um Donald Trump is very good at, is giving his folks someone to be angry with. 

Jane Coaston: We’re going to take a quick break, but we’ll have more of my conversation with Politico White House correspondent Eugene Daniels after some ads. If you like the show, make sure to subscribe. Leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts. Watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. 

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Jane Coaston: Let’s get back to my conversation with Eugene Daniels, White House correspondent for Politico. One of the things, though, I remember from the first Trump administration was the chaos of executive orders or tweets, for that matter, that were basically left to a bunch of other people to figure out how to put into place. Somebody else is going to have to figure out how to ask the Supreme Court, please, can you change the Constitution? Or like somebody else is going to have to do that. Is this all happening again? Are we just doing 2017 bizarro weirdness again? 

Eugene Daniels: 2017, probably some of the things again, I will say this is more organized than it was before, right? These aren’t just tweets or Xs or whatever post. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Eugene Daniels: Social post Truth Socials that that he’s sending out there, these this tranche is has been kind of well thought out of for for the Trump people. Well discussed at the very least even as they were being announced. Uh. You know, there’s someone that’s standing next to him as he’s signing and saying which ones he signing. And Trump knew exactly which ones they were. The guy just kind of says one sentence. um and Trump could go into more of it. So it’s a little bit more organized. But yeah, other people are going to have to figure this out, right? The lawyers within the administration are going to have to fight this as soon as lawsuits happen, which three two one probably already. [laughter] You are going to see um the Trump administration have to defend a lot of these things, birthright citizenship, I would assume, being kind of at the top of that list. And like the Supreme Court can’t change the Constitution. Right. There’s a we have a process. Some–

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Eugene Daniels: If we all go back to, you know, the you know, I’m just a bill on Capitol Hill days when we were kids, but the process doesn’t matter to Trump on some of these things. It is signaling to his folks that he’s doing the things that he promised. And then if it doesn’t end up happening at the end, he tried. 

Jane Coaston: Eugene, on what a day indeed, thanks for being here. 

Eugene Daniels: Thank you so much. And what a day tomorrow will be. And the next day. And the next day. For a little while.

Jane Coaston: What a days. [laughter That was my conversation with Eugene Daniels, White House correspondent for Politico. [music break] Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] I’m not going to discuss it now. I think it was unfortunate that he did that. We won’t discuss it now. There’s plenty of time to discuss it. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, plenty of time. Like the next four years unfortunately. President Joe Biden took advantage of his executive power in the final moments of his presidency and preemptively pardoned former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley. Former public health official Dr. Anthony Fauci, and members of the House special committee that investigated the January 6th insurrection, including former Representative Liz Cheney. Trump has threatened to go after his political opponents and those trying to hold him accountable for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. In the past, he’s called Cheney a, quote, “deranged person.” And during an event in Arizona, Trump also said, quote, “She is a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with the rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her.” That is a real quote from the man who is now our president. In a statement on Twitter, Biden defended the pardon, saying, quote, “These public servants have served our nation with honor and distinction and do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions.” Trump mentioned the move in his rambling post-inauguration speech. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Why are we trying to help a guy like Milley? Why are we doing, Milley, he was pardoned. What he said. Terrible what he said. Why are we helping some of the people? Why are we helping Liz Cheney? I mean, Liz Cheney is a disaster. She’s a crying lunatic. 

Jane Coaston: Biden also pardoned several members of his family and a final batch of clemency decisions. The White House announced those pardons 20 minutes before Trump took his oath of office. Biden said they were made out of fear his family would be prosecuted unfairly by the new administration. Biden said, quote, “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.” Yet then he welcomed Trump back to the White House. That’s some wild cognitive dissonance. 

[clip of unnamed speaker] The nomination of the great Senator Marco Rubio from the state of Florida is confirmed. 

Jane Coaston: Trump’s minions in the Senate are working quickly to advance his Cabinet picks. Marco Rubio was confirmed as secretary of state Monday in a unanimous vote. His nomination was the first to be approved after Trump’s inauguration. Senate committees voted to advanced four other Trump picks on Monday. The Senate Intelligence Committee advanced John Ratcliffe’s nomination to lead the CIA. The panel voted 14 to three in favor of Ratcliffe. All three no votes were cast by Democrats. And Pete Hegseth’s defense secretary nomination was approved to go to the Senate floor. Every Republican on the committee voted in Hegseth’s favor, while every Democrat voted against him. Hmm. I wonder why. Nominations for Kristi Noem, Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security and Russell Vought, the nominee for White House budget director were also advanced. Vivek Ramaswamy is reportedly planning on leaving the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE, for short. President Trump tapped Ramaswamy to lead the new department with tech billionaire Elon Musk last year. Musk and Ramaswamy had big plans for how to cut federal spending, even though the department isn’t a real government entity. Ramaswamy is reportedly peacing out because he’s gearing up to launch a gubernatorial bid in his home state of Ohio next week. But Politico reported that DOGE, Musk in particular, wanted Ramaswamy gone. Tensions between the two were already high ahead of Inauguration Day. Ramaswamy and Musk’s Twitter beef about H-1b visas last year was a big point of contention. And as a native Ohioan, I can tell you. No one flees D.C. for the warm embrace of Columbus, unless they have to. Musk will now lead DOGE solo and he’s got his work cut out for him because his department was sued just minutes after Trump was sworn in. I’m not kidding. At least three federal lawsuits were filed against DOGE on Monday. China said on Monday that it’s open to selling TikTok, which would allow the social media company to keep its U.S. market of more than 170 million users. TikTok is already back online after it went dark over the weekend. But Congress’s ban on the app, which requires TikTok to cut ties with its Chinese parent company, Bytedance, is still on the books. The Chinese government initially said it would not allow Bytedance to sell TikTok to a foreign buyer. Monday’s reversal is good news for folks like tech billionaire Frank McCourt, who has shown interest in buying the platform. Trump signed an executive order on Monday granting Bytedance a 90 day extension to sell. And that’s the news. 

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Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review, ask me for random facts about William McKinley and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading and not just about how William McKinley loved tariffs, believed he wasn’t a great public speaker and campaigned on his own front porch having people come visit him at his house every day except Sundays to just hang out like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston and don’t even get me started on the Spanish-American War. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily Fohr. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]

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