WASHINGTON (AP) — When President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office on Monday inside a tightly packed Capitol Rotunda, he will be surrounded by a very different Washington than he was eight years ago.
Then, when Trump gave a speech about “American carnage” on the inaugural stage in the rain, many congressional Republicans were silently prepared to push back on the most radical elements of his agenda and investigate his background.
Today, they are almost unanimously backing him. World leaders and corporate CEOs who once balked at Trump were scheduled to attend the ceremony, prepared to brave the bitter cold to publicly show their support before events were moved inside.
It is also a far different Washington from four years ago, when the stage built for Democrat Joe Biden’s inauguration had to be hastily repaired after an insurrection of Trump’s supporters just two weeks beforehand. The rioters tore pieces off the scaffolding to use as weapons against police who tried to stop them from breaking into the Capitol and halting the certification of Biden’s victory.
The Rotunda was packed then, too, as rioters violently rushed in after breaking through the main doors. They hung off statues, called out for lawmakers and battled police who were trying to push them out of the building.
Trump refused to attend Biden’s inauguration, and many Republicans thought his political career was over. But he came back stronger than ever — and brought Washington with him.
“It’s a party victory in the sense that there’s this new populist Republican Party,” said Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. “There’s no question that the enthusiasm level is much higher than it was eight years ago.”
Trump’s second inauguration will also be different because it will be held indoors, a last-minute change because of the frigid, windy weather. The platform on the West Front of the Capitol, built over many months, will stand unused and barren as he takes the oath inside.
Biden’s inauguration in 2020 was unusual, as well, held without the normal crowds because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Guests on the platform were spaced out instead of crowded in.
Cramer said he attended, but many other lawmakers did not, and he said it felt “weird” but also more intimate with fewer people. “I remember the big teleprompter, the giant screen TV that Joe Biden was reading off of, and just how few people that were out there listening to it,” he said.
Did he ever think Trump, mostly shunned by official Washington after the Jan. 6 attack, would be back at the Capitol taking the oath of office?
“It was a possibility that clearly always existed,” Cramer said.
South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds says that while Trump was an unknown in 2017, Washington Republicans now understand how he operates.
“They know he’s going to make statements and that he’s going to test the waters,” Rounds says. “But they also know that when it’s all said and done, he’ll take counsel and then he’ll make a decision.”
Despite the widespread support and unified power in Washington, Trump’s second presidency still faces obstacles — including a narrow majority in the House and different views within the party as he and Republican leaders eye massive bills to cut taxes, secure the border, deport immigrants and boost energy production.
An early test in December showed Trump’s limits after Congress rejected his push to add a debt limit increase to year-end spending legislation.
In his final hours as president, Biden issued a number of preemptive pardons. Among them, pardons to the members and staff of the Jan. 6 committee that investigated the attack, as well as the U.S. Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan police officers who testified before the House committee about that day.
For Democrats, the moment is fraught.
“I think it’s all the more clear this time around that the challenges that we face and the divisiveness of our nation, that it runs deep,” says Democrat Andy Kim of New Jersey, a freshman senator. “This is not just about one person in the Oval Office. This is not just about Trump. It isn’t just about Biden.”
Kim said he’s been mulling legislation that could win bipartisan support and help people come together — perhaps investments in civics education or a national service program as the country prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary.
Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, says he sees a difference in Trump’s Cabinet nominees, many of whom he believes were picked because they are loyal to him. His Cabinet eight years ago was more “well-respected, well-qualified people.”
King attended Trump’s first inauguration and said his most vivid memory was hearing him utter the words “American carnage.”
In contrast to hopeful inaugural speeches of the past, Trump said then that a “different reality exists” for many Americans trapped in poverty, for communities that lost factories, for schools that left “our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge” and “the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.”
“This American carnage stops right here and stops right now,” Trump said in his speech. He has repeated those themes throughout the last eight years.
“It was a very jarring moment,” King said.
