It’s a really chilly day within the District of Columbia. The frigid temperatures have prompted the inauguration of Donald Trump and JD Vance to be moved into the US Capitol Rotunda.
However that’s not all that’s modified between at the present time and Trump’s inauguration eight years in the past.
Trump’s Electoral Faculty victory in 2016 shocked many, together with the winner himself, in line with a lot of his marketing campaign staffers.
Washington DC’s elected officers and political insiders, Democrats and Republicans alike, have been nonetheless reeling in January 2017 as Trump laid his hand on a Bible and solemnly swore to protect, shield, and defend the Structure of the US.
Now, in 2025, issues have modified significantly.
The Supreme Court docket has granted the president broad immunity from legal prosecution. Trump has vowed to actual retribution towards his political adversaries. Whereas his group was unprepared to imagine workplace the primary time, now his workers has reportedly ready greater than 100 government orders to be signed on Day 1. Organized resistance to Trump is muted this time round, the guardrails defending democracy are weaker, and many Democrats in Congress say they’re prepared to work with him.
At this time, Defined host Noel King spoke with Susan B. Glasser, workers author and a columnist for the New Yorker, about her recollections of Trump’s first inauguration and the way he’s being acquired in a different way this time. Glasser is the creator, with Peter Baker, her husband and the chief White Home correspondent for the New York Occasions, of the 2022 e book The Divider: Trump within the White Home, 2017-2021.
Beneath is an excerpt of their dialog, edited for size and readability. There’s way more within the full podcast, so hearken to At this time, Defined wherever you get your podcasts, together with Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
I’ve been to numerous completely different inaugurations right here in Washington, going again to Invoice Clinton’s. And 2016 was like nothing I’ve ever seen in Washington DC. It was virtually like an alien invasion.
The streets have been abandoned. Positively not the most important inauguration crowd ever in Washington. No person knew what to anticipate. It was simply completely a time of disorientation, by the way in which, for Republicans right here in addition to for Democrats. It was a way that something was attainable, that the wheels have been presumably coming off of the American system.
And I’ll always remember, I used to be at an inauguration watch celebration on the prime of a lodge right here in Washington that appears out over Pennsylvania Avenue the place the inaugural parade is. I used to be sitting there with a detailed pal and colleague of mine from Politico. And the second when Barack Obama’s helicopter flew off, it simply [felt], “We’re on our personal – that is actually occurring.”
It’s value noting that it might not have solely been Democrats feeling that on that day, Donald Trump being one thing new. Are you able to give us a little bit of a way of simply how anti-establishment a determine he was perceived on that Inauguration Day and who possibly he was making essentially the most nervous?
Yeah, for positive. It was Republicans in addition to Democrats who not solely didn’t know what to anticipate, however had a profound sense of disruption and concern about it.
Do not forget that Trump had been opposed by the overwhelming majority of his personal celebration within the Republican primaries when it comes to the institution sorts, the elected officers. And for a lot of of these elected Republicans right here in Washington, they seen this, accurately, I feel, as a type of a hostile takeover by an outsider of their very own celebration.
And keep in mind the well-known remark from George W. Bush, who was sitting on the platform in his position as former president for Trump’s first inauguration. He turned to Hillary Clinton, who was sitting subsequent to him in her position as a former first girl, not in her position because the defeated opponent of Donald Trump. And he mentioned to Hillary Clinton, “That was some bizarre shit,” referring to Donald Trump’s well-known “American carnage” inaugural handle. I later requested the 2 of them about that. And let’s simply say that they aren’t denying that that alternate occurred and that that was the expertise that they each felt of that second.
So eight years in the past, all the pieces was eerie and what the heck goes to occur, and the crowds should not out in the identical means that you just would possibly count on. In 2025, who’s popping out to help Donald Trump that wasn’t there final time? Who’s notable this 12 months?
Properly, there’s a large change.
To start with, we are able to speak in regards to the opposition to Trump or the shortage thereof. And that’s the opposite necessary level about 2016, is that instantly a resistance paradigm kicked in amongst Democrats, amongst individuals who have been upset and appalled and nervous about Trump’s victory. There was an virtually quick sense that we’ve acquired to withstand this, we’ve acquired to face as much as this. There was the Girls’s March, as you’ll recall, instantly after the Trump inauguration. It had big participation right here. And so there was a way of motion being taken, I might say, and that this was one thing that would or must be gotten via for the following 4 years.
I feel that that for me is the most important distinction now, eight years later. Not solely is there no such large public type of acts of resistance deliberate for the quick aftermath of Trump’s inauguration, however you’ve Democrats nonetheless embroiled in a sport of finger-pointing and blame sport amongst themselves about why they misplaced the election. You may have many enterprise leaders, institution Republicans, and different sorts of people that would have thought-about Trump anathema again in 2016, who should not solely overtly supporting him, however I feel they’ve come to the conclusion that that is the brand new regular not solely of the Republican Get together, however to a sure extent of the nation — that Trumpism is just not some one-off aberration, however an necessary issue for a very long time to return on this nation’s politics.
Inform us in regards to the kinds of firms. So we hear that large enterprise is getting behind Trump, at the very least symbolically, on this inauguration. What varieties of huge enterprise are we speaking about and who represents them on Inauguration Day?
The participation in Trump’s inaugural committee, the fundraising for that committee, is a extremely putting distinction that tells you in regards to the degree of acceptance from 2016 to in the present day.
Since Trump’s election in November, you’ve seen a lot of America’s company leaders of many blue chip firms, actually ones that aren’t related completely with crimson America, chipping in and saying $1 million contributions both from the company or from the CEO personally or from each of them. We’re speaking firms like Apple, for instance. Tim Prepare dinner, the CEO of Apple, is reported to be one of many folks who’s going to look at Trump’s inauguration, who gave a $1 million contribution.
And Tim Prepare dinner, he’s not a MAGA tweeter like Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who’s donated a rare quantity, one thing like 1 / 4 of a billion {dollars}, to the trouble to elect Donald Trump in 2024. Tim Prepare dinner is just not a political donor. He appears to be going together with the concept you must pay to have entry to the Trump administration going ahead. And I’ve been actually struck by that. That’s an enormous distinction from 2016.
The opposite large distinction is just not solely are you seeing blue chip firms and mainstream Republican donors and even Democrats or former Democrats giving to Trump’s inauguration, nevertheless it’s virtually prefer it’s a concerted message that’s being despatched to America’s company elite, which is that in the event you don’t pony up at the very least $1 million for this inauguration, you shouldn’t have a seat on the desk on this future administration.
And so is that what, on at the present time, help for Trump appears to be like like? Is it giving cash to the inauguration? Or is there anything that we ought to be in search of?
Properly, I feel that’s only a type of a tip-of-the-iceberg indicator. Donald Trump, after all, could be very, very involved in regards to the public optics, the general public narrative. I think about that it pleases him to no finish in Mar-a-Lago to see the parade of enterprise leaders who’ve sought an viewers with him for the reason that election, who’ve made these very public shows of giving to his inaugural committee. However that could be a reminder that there’s a lot that we don’t see that’s not publicly disclosed, that we journalists should do numerous digging and numerous exhausting work to know the character of what else these enterprise leaders are getting.
To start with, Trump is appointing many very rich people and enterprise leaders to his Cupboard. By any reckoning, it’s the wealthiest Cupboard with essentially the most billionaires ever appointed in American historical past. In order that’s one factor. What are the opposite attainable conflicts of pursuits, different enterprise considerations that they may deliver with them into these cupboard roles, to start with?
Second of all, there’s the query of the transparency, or lack thereof, of Trump’s family pursuits and private monetary pursuits, which was an enormous difficulty in his first administration as properly.
And third, there’s the type of unofficial energy that a lot of these in Trump’s orbit exercised in his first time period and that I count on them to train in a second time period as properly. And that’s very exhausting to trace and isn’t one thing that we are able to discover on a disclosure kind.
What about elected Democratic lawmakers? Are the Democrats behaving this 12 months in methods which are sudden or completely different from final time?
Yeah, I imply, inaugural addresses have a protracted custom of being way more aspirational and really excessive altitude trying on the large image targets and desires and hopes for the nation. Not Donald Trump.
First, he is available in in 2016 and he has this very, very darkish inaugural handle, talks about American carnage, big break with historic previous.
Then in 2020, what does he do? He denies the outcomes of the election that he legitimately misplaced. That’s the primary time in historical past, in all of American historical past, that has occurred. He sics a violent mob of his supporters on the US Capitol on the day after they’re certifying Joe Biden’s win and Trump’s defeat. He refuses to attend the inauguration of his successor. These are ruptures with our previous.
And so you’ll be able to’t talk about what Democrats are doing this 12 months in something aside from the context of what Trump did 4 years in the past. Even there what you’ve is Democrats, they’re way more proper now an institutionalist celebration, a celebration about saying we’re right here to face up for the traditions and the guardrails that exist in American democracy. So you’ve Joe Biden not solely accepting Trump’s victory, Kamala Harris accepting Trump’s victory, conceding defeat, planning to attend the inauguration, however they’re not seeing this because the celebration of America in a nonpartisan sense that it was once.
I simply noticed that George W Bush, Barack Obama, and Invoice Clinton should not planning on attending the standard post-inaugural luncheon on the Capitol that usually, after all, all of them do attend. And this speaks to Donald Trump turning virtually all the pieces right into a partisan take a look at of the way you react to him. That’s the rationale why my husband and I known as our e book about Trump’s first time period “The Divider.” For him, all the pieces is a confrontation. Every thing is a division. And that now applies to this custom of American inaugurations.