Key Moments From Donald Trump's 2025 Inauguration

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re breaking down what President Donald J. Trump got up to on his first day back in office as the 47th American president.

Jan. 6 Rioters

The Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots will live on in political infamy. As soon as it became clear that Joe Biden had emerged victorious in the 2020 election, President Trump called on his supporters to storm the Capitol in violent protest. When the dust settled, over 1500 people found themselves charged with federal crimes, like disorderly conduct and unlawful entry. As such, Trump repeatedly vowed to come to the jailed rioters’ aid during his 2024 reelection campaign. On January 20th, 2025, four years after the initial attempted coup, Trump made good on his promise, granting sweeping clemency to Jan. 6 participants. These included Enrique Tarrio, former national chairman of the neo-fascist Proud Boys organization, and Stewart Rhodes, founder of the far-right militia group the Oath Keepers. Said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, “Donald Trump is ushering in a Golden Age for people that break the law and attempt to overthrow the government.”

The TikTok Ban

Chances are, no matter whether or not you actually use the app, you’re at least somewhat familiar with the nail-biting legal saga currently faced by TikTok. Labeled by President Trump as a national security risk during his first term, the 47th commander-in-chief has since reversed his position. Former president Biden followed in Trump’s initial footsteps, signing into law acts that first banned the app on government devices, then called for TikTok to be banned entirely unless sold by its parent company to an American firm. When Biden’s January 19th deadline wasn’t met by ByteDance (the Chinese corporation that owns TikTok), users panicked as the app went dark. Thankfully for TikTokers, Trump signed an executive order on his first day back in office, granting the app’s owners a 75-day extension to reach a mutually beneficial business decision. Trump has also claimed that the U.S. government will, at least for the moment, decline to enforce Biden’s previous legislation regarding use of TikTok on American soil.

Undoing the Biden Years

Don’t be fooled by Biden and Trump’s civility at the latter’s inauguration ceremony, or by Trump’s apparent friendliness with mortal enemy Barack Obama at Jimmy Carter’s funeral. The new president has made it abundantly clear that his administration will stand for the exact opposite of whatever it is Biden and Obama stood for. To that end, among the literal dozens of executive orders Trump signed on January 20th, almost 80 of them were specifically dedicated to reversing Biden-era policies. We’ll get into the specifics in a bit, but just to give you an example, Trump followed up on his 2023 pledge to reissue a first-term executive order that would “[restore] the president's authority to remove rogue bureaucrats.” According to Axios’ Avery Lotz, the executive order reestablishes “a new ‘Schedule F’ employment category for federal employees, increasing the president's power to oust civil servants who historically were shielded during changing administrations.”

Cracking Down On Immigration & the Border

President Trump pulled no punches on his first day, intending to deliver on his many campaign pledges to revitalize the American economy and stem the flow of illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border. True to his word, Trump almost immediately declared a national emergency at the border, “[ordering] the Pentagon to provide support for border wall construction, detention space, and migrant transportation, and [empowering] the secretary of Defense to send troops to the border as needed,” according to Reuters’ Ted Hesson and Alexandra Ulmer. The president also ordered former president Biden’s CBP One entry program shuttered — initially intended to make commercial trucking easier, the app was later transformed by Biden into the definitive method of booking asylum appointments for unauthorized migrants. Migrants with existing appointments were left high and dry, with their appointments cancelled and no further recourse available to them. Trump also clamped down on “birthright citizenship,” and broadened the scope of ICE’s abilities.

Swift Climate Action

In a number of cases, President Trump picked up where he left off in 2021, but this time, he’s learned from his previous mistakes and has a better understanding of the American government’s inner workings. For example, one of Trump’s first executive orders in 2017 ordered the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Climate Accords, but when Joe Biden took office in 2021, he almost immediately led the U.S. to rejoin. In yet another example of Trump revoking Biden-era policies, the new president once again pulled the country out of the international treaty. Other climate-focused executive orders removed limits placed on the American fossil fuel industry, and downplaying the clean energy sector. Said Trump as he signed the orders, “The United States will not sabotage its own industries while China pollutes with impunity. [...] When that stuff goes up in the air, it doesn’t stay there ... It floats into the United States of America after three and a half to five and a half days.”

Gender Identity & DEI

The ongoing “culture war” and “wokeism” represent arguably some of the most crucial issues that President Trump campaigned on. Early into his second term, Trump proved that he wasn’t kidding around, signing into effect executive orders that “aimed at preventing discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation,” according to the BBC. During his inaugural address, Trump stated unequivocally that “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.” Other executive orders took aim at perceived “woke” Biden policies, and dismantled diversity, equity, and inclusion programs within the federal government. Trump also signed an executive order which would see the U.S. withdrawing from the World Health Organization, increasing speculation that his administration would break with their recommendations regarding transgender rights.


Which of President Trump’s first-day executive orders surprised you the most? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!