Mere minutes after President Donald Trump called for a new political era for the nation during his inaugural address, he returned to excoriating his rivals in a speech at Emancipation Hall.
The president made explicit references to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, which he did not address after his swearing-in ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda. He also criticized former President Joe Biden for issuing preemptive pardons to former White House COVID-19 adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, members of the House Jan. 6 investigatory committee, and members of Biden’s family.
Trump’s comments marked a split-screen as Biden and former first lady Jill Biden departed the Capitol, and they were reminiscent of his bombastic campaign rallies.
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“I was going to talk about the J6 hostages, but you’ll be happy because it’s action, not words, that count. And you’re going to see a lot of action on the J6 hostages,” Trump told the crowd about a conversation with first lady Melania Trump, who urged him not to focus on the past.
“I was going to talk about the things that Joe did today with the pardons of people that were very, very guilty of very bad crimes, like the unselect committee of political thugs, where they literally, I mean, what they did is they destroyed and deleted all of the information, all of the hearings, practically not a thing left,” Trump continued.
The president slammed one of his biggest Democratic political foes during his first administration, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), over the Capitol attack.
“They deleted all the information on Nancy Pelosi, having turned down the offer of 10,000 soldiers,” Trump said. “You wouldn’t have needed 10,000. You could have had 500, and it would have stopped.”
“She rebuffed them,” Trump later said about his interactions with Pelosi. “She didn’t like it. No, she didn’t like it. Maybe she wanted it to happen, but she’s guilty as hell.”
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Trump also took a moment to slam Republicans who defied the GOP’s support of Trump in the lead-up to the 2024 election, including former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney and former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who served on the Jan. 6 select committee.
“Why are we doing this? Why are we trying to help a guy like Milley?” Trump asked the crowd. “Why are we helping Liz Cheney? I mean, Liz Cheney is a disaster. She’s a crying lunatic. Crying, crying, Adam Kinzinger.”
Trump claimed his advisers pressed him not to address his foes, but he chose to defy that advice during his comments at Emancipation Hall.
“They pardoned — what is it? Thirty-three murderers — absolute murderers, the worst murderers,” Trump said, returning to blasting Biden’s clemency spree before leaving the White House. “You know, when you get the death sentence in the United States, you have to be bad because they don’t give it much. And he pardoned almost everybody having a death sentence.”
Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 2,500 nonviolent drug offenders last week, and in December, he announced the commutation of 37 out of 40 inmates on federal death row.
Trump also took a moment to reiterate the false claim that the 2020 election was “rigged” against him.
“It was a rigged election,” Trump said, returning to his previous attacks against the 2020 election. “You know, the only thing good about it — it showed how bad they are.”
Yet Trump also touted his election victories, telling the crowd, “We won by numbers nobody has ever seen.”
The newly sworn-in president reverted to airing his election grievances against absentee ballots, specifically pointing to California’s election practices.
“Places like California, we did great, but when they send out like 38 million ballots, and no one knows where the hell they are sending them, then they come pouring back, the whole thing,” Trump said.
He then vowed to get “things cleaned up” and mentioned he was going to ask Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to get involved in helping to prevent election fraud.
“I’m going to ask the speaker to really get involved because I think we would have won the state of California. Because, you know, if you look at my numbers with Hispanics, we’re 56%. We were winning the Texas border that had never been won.”
Trump also claimed his 2016 rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “didn’t look too happy today” during his inauguration Monday afternoon. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton attended the inauguration but skipped the inaugural luncheon.
Before wrapping up his speech to the crowd, Trump said these public remarks were truer to his intentions than his inaugural speech.
“I think this is a better speech than I made upstairs,” Trump joked to Vice President J.D. Vance.
Vance, Trump quipped during his remarks, survived the transition and media scrutiny of going from an Ohio senator to his running mate.
“He took on everybody. He took on the meanest, I don’t want to use the word ‘corrupt’ because we’re into a new system. So, let’s wait till the corruption begins because it will,” Trump said. “But he took on some pretty mean people, and he handled it well.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told the Washington Examiner the remarks were part of the Trump persona and part of his appeal.
“This is typical Donald Trump — stream of consciousness. It’s always fun,” Cramer said.
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The North Dakota senator also claimed that Trump’s remarks to the overflow crowd in Emancipation Hall did not negate any of his previous remarks after being sworn in.
“Oh, nothing I heard did. It was additive — I guess, maybe I didn’t hear enough. I thought the speech in the rotunda was great,” he added. “I mean it was all themes that mattered most to the people that elected him. So, he’s just starting to fulfill promises on Day One.”
