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CNN Live Event/Special

The Inauguration Of Donald Trump. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired January 20, 2025 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[16:00:02]

ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Only 154 million voted in the past election. X is basically engaging with the same amount of people deciding to engage in our democracy. They have about a third of our population.

And whether you want to believe it or not, the algorithm is tilted. And so, we are really in -- talk about an information wave of who is going to be controlling the narrative. Donald Trump is going to be setting the narrative arc, but the way it's going to be distributed to the American people is why we hope Congress acts, and we look at something like TikTok, who knows what, you know, let alone being owned by the Chinese government.

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: I just wanted to say quickly that the pandemic divided us further and in large measure, that was because of misinformation, and, we face a situation now where as David mentioned, as Ashley mentioned, we are going to have a monopoly of information control by people who have an interest in not looking like they are stupid, in other words that they made a mistake and that they bet on the wrong course. They have an incentive to tell people the economy is better because of Trump, to tell people the reason that those hostages were released was simply because of Trump.

In other words, to reinforce the myth that Donald Trump wants to share, and I think that's dangerous because what are the countervailing sources of information, basically we're going to have. That's what I worried about.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: CNN's live coverage of the inauguration of Donald Trump continues right now.

(MUSIC)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome back. I'm Jake Tapper, and we are tracking all the events on this historic day, the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump, the 45th and 47th president of these United States. Right now, the luncheon just wrapped up on Capitol Hill for the president and the vice president. The president is now going to emancipation hall for the first honors ceremony involving members of the U.S. military.

He then heads to Capital One Arena after that, where were expecting remarks and also some executive orders. We are expecting him to be signing those and announcing what they are specifically in front of his myriad supporters in the Capital One Arena. They came here to Washington, D.C., hoping to watch the inauguration in the outdoors.

There was, of course, a forecast of dangerous weather. It has not turned out to actually be all that cold compared to previous inaugurations. Still, the president and his team heeded the advice being given to them.

Dana Bash and Abby Phillips are with me on this busy day.

And what are we expecting, Dana Bash, in terms of what these executive orders are about and what he's going to announce they are to his adoring fans?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, he's -- even in his inaugural address. He gave us a hint of what he says he's going to do. He's been doing it throughout the entire campaign that he ran, which is a whole series of executive orders on immigration.

First and foremost, he's going to do away with an asylum program that a lot of people are using right now that the Biden administration put into effect to use an app in order to get information on a court date. He's going to move the whole thing back to Mexico. Its called he called it the "Remain in Mexico" policy. That's just one example of many that he's going to do on immigration.

And then he's also going to put a series of executive orders in place with regarding federal workers, regarding American energy policy, largely in the short term, to overturn some of the executive orders that Joe Biden did.

So, I mean, you're doing you're seeing a lot of ping pong back and forth on a lot of these, of course, among the most controversial that he's going to do is what he signs for the January 6th criminals, those who have been convicted of criminals. We don't know how many of those sentences he will commute. Sounds like, according to Evan Perez and Paula Reid, he will commute some and just pardon those who he does not believe committed actual violent crimes.

TAPPER: Yeah. And, Abby, one of the things that Evan Perez and Paula Reid made clear is that Donald Trump is not only thinking of pardoning January 6th criminals who may be trespassed, but didn't commit acts of violence. He's actually thinking of commuting the sentences of people who did, who actually did commit violent acts.

We just don't know if that's going to include people who committed violent acts against a window versus somebody who committed a violent act against members of law enforcement, many of whom were severely wounded on that day.

[16:05:04]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. And, you know, I think that even trying to parse those distinctions actually is part of the Trump play here.

But really, what we should be talking about is the fact that the people who've been convicted have been adjudicated. They've either taken plea deals or they've been adjudicated in a court of law, and they've been adjudicated in a court of law of doing something that at the time, Republicans, many of whom are big supporters of Donald Trumps now, said he was responsible for lying to them and bringing them to the Capitol and instigating an insurrection.

And so even just this discussion about who should get pardoned and who shouldn't, I think is part of this process of Trump normalizing the idea of him circumventing the law around this specific event, which is at the core of his failure, even to this day, to acknowledge that he lost the last election, that he lied to his supporters, that he fomented an entire conspiracy that still lives on around that lie. And now he's going to pardon people for acting on it.

TAPPER: I'm told that the ceremony is about to begin, we should listen in.

(INAUDIBLE)

TAPPER: So this is the First Honors Ceremony that President Trump will participate in as 47th president of the United States. Normally, these activities take place outside. It's just the first time since, I guess, 1985, when Ronald Reagan brought his inaugural ceremonies indoors, that we've seen such a thing taking place inside.

BASH: And we have a list of the representatives clearly chosen for a reason by President Trump, including Butler County first responders from Butler, Pennsylvania. Those first responders obviously being among those clearly who were involved in the assassination attempt against Donald Trump back over the summer.

And, of course, one of the members of the of the community of a first responder, a first responder who lost his life. And then there are other representatives from in and around the country.

There's the -- America's patriotic tractor, it says, from West Des Moines, Iowa. There are people coming from Tennessee, Michigan, and also a couple of places in New York, and his adopted home state of Florida.

PHILLIP: There's a big overflow crowd at the Capital One Arena that would have probably like to see some of this. I mean, normally where we are right now, this would be happening right outside of the White House, and there would be thousands of people in the stands watching all the pageantry.

Now there is not and there will be many, many fewer people witnessing it in person. But this is part of the tradition of American inaugurations that really displays the scope and the scale of the United States military and has symbolic meaning for the president of the United States. He gets a chance to honor the people who have significance to him politically and in other ways, as well.

COOPER: There are representatives here today from New York Military Academy Cornwall on Hudson, where Trump graduated from in 1964, also from Middletown High School. Their marching band and cheerleaders, J.D. Vance went to Middletown High School. That's not for this event were watching right now, but for the parade that is taking place inside the Capital One arena.

A lot of touches that are specifically personal to the president and vice president in terms of their childhoods and their upbringings. But this specifically is Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and the Merchant Marines.

BASH: It is interesting to see it in the emancipation hall, which is a relatively new area in the Capitol. It's in in part of the visitor center, which didn't exist, I don't know, a little more than a decade ago.

[16:10:05]

And it was it was built and I'm sure they're very thankful that it was. But it is. You're right, Abby, we're obviously looking at the screen as we should be, but the three of us are sitting over a very sunny. It is cold, but a very sunny White House where it could have been a very beautiful moment to have this kind of ceremony in front of the actual White House.

TAPPER: I do suspect this is the last day were going to have in this town for a long, long time where politics does not rear its head because everybody has been on their best behavior, except perhaps the president.

BASH: Yeah.

TAPPER: And -- and people have been singing the praises of Vice President J.D. Vance at that luncheon. And all the Democrats held their tongue when they sat at the table in the presidential room in the Capitol. And he signed those executive orders.

But President Trump is enacting a very aggressive agenda, as it is in many parts, the agenda that voters cast their ballots for in terms of a tougher border and tariffs. But it is also going to meet with some resistance on the Hill.

BASH: Yeah. And this is really a pomp and circumstance that you don't see that often in our country. I mean, I'm looking at this and I'm wondering if -- yes, of course, he is the commander in chief, as you said, there will be representatives. I was just mentioning the Army, but U.S. Marines, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Merchant Marines Academy, who are there.

But it's the kind of almost reviewing the troops symbolically that we've seen. And we still do see in other countries that don't have democracies. But this is -- this is more -- this is obviously very ceremonial and is a way to honor all of the divisions of the U.S. military who report once again to Donald Trump as commander in chief.

PHILLIP: There's plenty more day to come, plenty more opportunities for there to be partisanship that comes into this, especially as Trump starts to do as he promised, which is to get to work pretty much immediately.

He wanted this day to be significant in terms of the things that he is doing, not just the ceremonial parts he wanted to do the meat and potatoes of his promises and his agenda, and there is still quite a lot that they've promised that has not yet come officially, and well be expecting them in the coming hours.

TAPPER: The president is running, I don't know, roughly half an hour, 40 minutes late. The president was supposed to have arrived at about 3:38 p.m., roughly 20 minutes -- 30 minutes ago.

But as these things happen, one of the interesting things do you remember from in the earlier ceremony, Carrie Underwood was there was some sort of snafu with the music she was supposed to sing, the -- "America the Beautiful" with, with a musical accompaniment, and there was some mistake. And so she just ad-libbed. She just did an impromptu ad-lib and asked everybody to sing with her.

That does happen in 1961, which I think was the last time there was an address as long as the one the president gave. Robert Frost, who was there to read an inaugural poem, couldn't read the poem because the sunlight glare was so strong. And I guess the ink in his printer was so faint that he couldn't read the special poem he had written for JFK's, JFK's inauguration. So he just recited a different poem that he had written from memory.

I wouldn't say that's exactly what Carrie Underwood did today, but. But you got to you got to roll with the punches. And she certainly did.

BASH: That was very impressive.

PHILLIP: And she did. It was amazing. And it was actually very poignant because she asked everyone to sing along with her. And it was a nice moment, actually.

BASH: And I just want to say that, uh, just to be clear, what I was talking about with regard to the butler county first responders and so forth, I believe that's going to come a little bit later during what was supposed to be the actual parade, but now is going to be in the capital one arena.

TAPPER: Yeah, that was part of the parade.

Wolf Blitzer, over to you.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Jake, thanks very much. We've got a terrific panel here. We're going to assess what's going on. Very historic dramatic developments indeed.

And, John King, let me start with you. What's the biggest difference you anticipate between the first Trump administration and now the second Trump administration?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, number one, one of the mistakes Donald Trump himself has said he made, the first administration was putting people around him he really didn't know well, this is going to be team loyal. This is going to be team Trump. This is going to be you know, when he says jump, they are going to say, sir how high?

[16:15:05]

BLITZER: All right, hold on. Hold on a second, John. We're going to fix your mic, so our viewers in the United States and around the world can hear what you're actually saying.

I hope -- Jamie Gangel, I hope you're listening. I hope you can hear we can hear you.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Let me just tell you what John King said. Can you hear me? Because he was absolutely right.

He is going to be surrounded by team loyal. We've talked about there are no guardrails this time. There's no General Kelly, there's no General Mattis. He is surrounding himself with people who say yes. Or as John says, when he says jump, they say how high.

I think the other thing you can't forget is he knows the routine. He's done this before. When I spoke to high officials and staffers in Trump 1.0, they said to me the first six months he was a little nervous. He was hesitant. He wasn't sure what he could really do and couldn't do.

He now knows what -- what he can do. And I think he's confident. I think he's going to be aggressive. And there is a new player in town and that is Elon Musk, who is going to be front and center.

BLITZER: We're showing our viewers live pictures from Capitol Hill. We see the leadership beginning to walk in, and President Trump will be walking in momentarily for this next event in which he will be honored after becoming president of the United States once again earlier today. It's a -- these are all very, very important dramatic developments that are unfolding, very colorful and very historic, Jamie, as well, when we see the president of the United States being honored in this way with music and words.

GANGEL: Now, one of the things that I was thinking about today is some of this is very normal in that we are watching a transition of power, a peaceful transition of power. We did not notably see that four years ago. Donald Trump did not show up. He got on air force one early and headed down to Florida.

So, in one sense, this is very normal in the ceremony, in the pomp and circumstance.

BLITZER: And here he comes, the president of the United States and the first lady there walking in right now -- John.

(INAUDIBLE)

KING: -- Jamie's point, this is our tradition. These are the pictures. These are the images not only for the people, for the people in the world. This is a peaceful transfer of power.

So America does this is our beacon to the world of what our democracy is supposed to look like. Yet today is also a day of contradictions, right? We have our -- we have our traditions and we have our questions.

This is a president who had a very interesting relationship with the military on his way out, especially in the latter half of his first term.

And he just said today that he plans on using the United States military to help with his plan at the southern border.

There are ways in which that can work in a normal way. It's been done before. There are ways in which some people have talked about that would raise --

BLITZER: All right, this is a ceremony looks like its about to begin.

Let's listen in briefly.

(FIRST HONORS CEREMONY)

[16:27:18]

TAPPER: All right. As the president leaves the Capitol after his First Honors Ceremony as 47th president, he is now going to head over to Capital One Arena will -- where he will greet supporters. There are tens of thousands of them who have come to Washington, D.C., many of them watching the events inside the Capital One Arena since the event was relocated inside because of the forecast of extreme weather.

And he will there at Capital One Arena, sign some executive orders talking to his supporters about what he is doing, his agenda for this country. Let's go things -- let's send things over now to CNN's Erin Burnett, who is at Capital One Arena.

Erin -- Erin, what's -- what's the scene like there where you are?

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Well, Jake, so right now everybody was watching exactly what you and wolf were talking about. The review of the troops, and they were very engaged. It's been a couple of hours here. There was a full program that was anticipated to finish, and then the president would come.

And obviously, he's been so delayed. There was a period in between where they were waiting, and then everyone was fully engaged with that, of course. And that is where we are, Kasie, because now they know everyone in this room knows as they're watching this, they know he's coming here afterwards, but fully engaged right now in watching this pumping up on the big screen here.

KASIE HUNT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. And there was a point where they seemed to be chanting "audio" when this audio was not up on these pictures. They clearly are very engaged, wanting to be able to watch the program. And I'll say for any of them who've been to a Trump rally, him showing up very late and then them having to wait for quite some time is not necessarily an unusual experience.

Presidents, of course, if you cover a president closely, they'll have a schedule, right? George W. Bush was a morning person, for example. Donald Trump is an evening person. He tends to run late. Bush ran on time, et cetera. They have sort of these facets of their personality.

But as we've been discussing, I mean, this really does have this rally feel and of course, walking around behind the scenes, you can see the lucky few. Not all is my understanding of the people who were invited to play or participate in the inaugural parade are actually going to be able to participate in the more limited one, at least not according to Congressman Ryan Zinke of Montana, who I talked to this morning and lamented that the group from Montana was going to be unable to perform.

But behind the scenes here, you can, of course, see high school marching bands, people from all over the country kind of gathering, trying getting themselves together as they prepare for what, considering the venue may look more like an Olympic opening ceremony than your typical inaugural parade.

BURNETT: Absolutely, you see that dais, and, of course, the president will be coming there. But here with this, there is, as I think Dana was saying a moment ago, something so somber and profound about watching this, everybody, no matter your political persuasion or your feeling about this day, watching those troops is something that is moving for all Americans.