1 of 5 | President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a rally ahead of the 60th Presidential Inauguration at Capital One Arena, in Washington, DC, on Sunday. Photo by Leigh Vogel/UPI |
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Jan. 19 (UPI) — President elect Donald Trump told a crowd of supporters in Washington, D.C., Sunday afternoon that ‘four long years of American decline” will end,” and that nation will “begin a brand new day of American strength and prosperity and pride.”
Trump, speaking at a rally on the eve of his inauguration, that he would sign a flurry of measure repealing President Joe Biden‘s executive orders “within hours,” begin a long promised mass deportation effort, ban transgender athletes from competing in male sports, bolster investment in military spending, and tour the areas devastated by wildfires in California, all within his first week in office.
During a wide ranging and often acerbic address at the Capital One Arena, Trump said he will end Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs “all across the government” and said the country will return to “the merit system.”
He said he will launch a “mass deportation” effort that was a centerpiece of his campaign. It seeks to expel what Trump has repeatedly called “dangerous criminals.”
“We will not be invaded. We will not be occupied, we will not be overrun,” Trump said of his plans for the deportation plan, which he said will begin Monday “at noon.”
The incoming president claimed that more than half of the people who have crossed the U.S. border illegally have killed at least one person, but offered no proof to back up that statement, instead riding a wave of enthusiasm from the cheering crowd assembled at the rally, many wearing “Make America Great Again” hats and holding red and white signs emblazoned with “47.”
U.S. homeland security officials have said most migrants crossing the border are families trying to escape poverty, and illegal crossings have dropped to the lowest level in years, a non-partisan analysis of federal data shows.
Trump also promised to make public documents associated with the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., reversing what he called the over classification of government documents
“It’s all going to be released,” Trump declared.
He also said he will direct the U.S. military to continue work on an iron dome missile defense system, and change the philosophy of the personnel admitted into the U.S. armed forces.
“We will get wokeness the hell out of our military effective immediately and make it like it used to be,” Trump told the crowd.
The incoming president also called SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk on to the stage, who was accompanied by his son. Musk jumped and waved his arms as he had done at a previous rally and his son waved to the crowd.
“Looking forward to making a lot of changes,” Musk said. “This victory is the start, really.”
Musk and former GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy have been appointed by Trump to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency.
They have said they will cut two trillion dollars from the U.S. budget in the first year of the Trump administration, a figure economists have said is next to impossible without cutting deeply into essential government services.
“We have to be protective of our geniuses,” Trump said of Musk as the tech executive walked off the stage with his son trailing behind him.
The incoming president also said he will move to implement a 90-day reprieve on a ban on the popular social media app TikTok. Citing security concerns over the app’s ownership by the Chinese company ByteDance, Trump was critical of the platform during his first presidency and called it dangerous and threatening, but became more supportive of the app during his campaign for the White House this time around, crediting it with helping him with winning the 2024.
The company, whose app went dark late Saturday night, posted a poignant message on its homepage suggesting that “President Trump” would restore it once he took office.
The app, with more than 170 million users in the United States, crackled back to life Sunday morning after Trump said people deserve to see the inauguration.
During the Sunday rally speech, Trump also took credit for the budding ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, a deal for which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Trump’s transition team and the Biden administration team deserve equal credit. Trump added that if he had been president, the latest skirmish in the centuries-long battle between Israel and Hamas would have “never happened.”
Dangerously cold winter weather has forced officials to move Monday’s inaugural event indoors. Organizers said 200,000 people have tickets, but only 20,000 will fit in the arena. They have said people will be able to catch a glimpse of Trump’s motorcade as it travels along Pennsylvania Ave. in route to the event, but as of Sunday night additional plans for the event remained in flux.