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The Inaugural Address -- by President Donald John Trump, January 20, 2017, transcript
The White House ^ | January 20, 2017 | President Donald J. Trump

Posted on 01/22/2017 11:32:53 AM PST by EveningStar

Chief Justice Roberts, President Carter, President Clinton, President Bush, President Obama, fellow Americans, and people of the world: thank you.

We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and to restore its promise for all of our people.

Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for years to come.

We will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But we will get the job done.

Every four years, we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power, and we are grateful to President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this transition. They have been magnificent.

Today’s ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one Administration to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People.

For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.

Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth.

Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed.

The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.

Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.

That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.

It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America.

This is your day. This is your celebration.

And this, the United States of America, is your country.

What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.

January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.

The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.

Everyone is listening to you now.

You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before.

At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens.

Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves.

These are the just and reasonable demands of a righteous public.

But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.

This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.

We are one nation – and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny.

The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans.

For many decades, we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry;

Subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military;

We've defended other nation’s borders while refusing to defend our own;

And spent trillions of dollars overseas while America's infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay.

We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has disappeared over the horizon.

One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions upon millions of American workers left behind.

The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed across the entire world.

But that is the past. And now we are looking only to the future.

We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power.

From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land.

From this moment on, it’s going to be America First.

Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families.

We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.

I will fight for you with every breath in my body – and I will never, ever let you down.

America will start winning again, winning like never before.

We will bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will bring back our wealth. And we will bring back our dreams.

We will build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and railways all across our wonderful nation.

We will get our people off of welfare and back to work – rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.

We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and Hire American.

We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world – but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.

We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to follow.

We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones – and unite the civilized world against Radical Islamic Terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the Earth.

At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.

When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.

The Bible tells us, “how good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity.”

We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity.

When America is united, America is totally unstoppable.

There should be no fear – we are protected, and we will always be protected.

We will be protected by the great men and women of our military and law enforcement and, most importantly, we are protected by God.

Finally, we must think big and dream even bigger.

In America, we understand that a nation is only living as long as it is striving.

We will no longer accept politicians who are all talk and no action – constantly complaining but never doing anything about it.

The time for empty talk is over.

Now arrives the hour of action.

Do not let anyone tell you it cannot be done. No challenge can match the heart and fight and spirit of America.

We will not fail. Our country will thrive and prosper again.

We stand at the birth of a new millennium, ready to unlock the mysteries of space, to free the Earth from the miseries of disease, and to harness the energies, industries and technologies of tomorrow.

A new national pride will stir our souls, lift our sights, and heal our divisions.

It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag.

And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky, they fill their heart with the same dreams, and they are infused with the breath of life by the same almighty Creator.

So to all Americans, in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, and from ocean to ocean, hear these words:

You will never be ignored again.

Your voice, your hopes, and your dreams, will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way.

Together, We Will Make America Strong Again.

We Will Make America Wealthy Again.

We Will Make America Proud Again.

We Will Make America Safe Again.

And, Yes, Together, We Will Make America Great Again. Thank you, God Bless You, And God Bless America.


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: americafirst; inauguraladdress; jobs; maga; prosperity; transcript; trump; trumpinaugural; unity
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1 posted on 01/22/2017 11:32:53 AM PST by EveningStar
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To: EveningStar

2 posted on 01/22/2017 11:36:26 AM PST by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: EveningStar
For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.

What a great speech!

3 posted on 01/22/2017 11:37:58 AM PST by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: EveningStar
Let's read the words of the Author of our Declaration of Independence and President of the U. S., Thomas Jefferson, in his 1801 Inaugural Address who laid out what might be considered to be "qualifications" for the American presidency:
(Excerpt, "Our Ageless Constitution," p. xiv, reformatted)
"Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation;

- entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them;

- enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man;

- acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter

—with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people?

- Still one thing more, fellow-citizens—a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

- This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

"About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you,

- it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations.

- Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political;

- peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none;

- the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies;

- the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad;

- a jealous care of the right of election by the people—a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided;

- absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism;

- a well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them;

- the supremacy of the civil over the military authority;

- economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened;

- the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith;

- encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid;

- the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason;

- freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected.

These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."

Then, we might consider the words of the man known as "the father of the Constitution" under which all government officials, elected and appointed, must serve:

Excerpt:
Excerpt "Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, “that Religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the Manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.”

"The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable; because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men: It is unalienable also; because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage, and such only, as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent both in order of time and degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe: And if a member of Civil Society, who enters into any subordinate Association, must always do it with a reservation of his duty to the general authority; much more must every man who becomes a member of any particular Civil Society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign. We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man’s right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society, and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance." - James Madison

Is there anywhere a clearer statement of the underlying principle of the U. S. Constitution's provisions and protections for "the People's" rights and liberties?

The very foundation of the Founders' Declaration of Independence from a "government-over-people" rule to one of a people's recognition of "overruling Providence" and "people-over-government" liberty was summarized in Jefferson's,

"The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them."
In our generation, have we not, at times, seen that "hand of force" unmasked at the same time as that same "hand" not only is reluctant to recognize Madison's "Creator," "the Governor of the Universe," and "Universal Sovereign," or Jefferson's "the God who gave us life," but utilizes that "hand of force" to deny public discourse to include those descriptions in its "politically-correct" discourse or teaching of the youth of America?

4 posted on 01/22/2017 11:40:29 AM PST by loveliberty2
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To: EveningStar
From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this moment on, it’s going to be America First. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families.

And all the insiders, traitors and D.C. disciples of deceit were sitting right behind him.


5 posted on 01/22/2017 11:41:42 AM PST by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: dragnet2

Loved it!!! Great speech!!! Inspired new. Blows my mind that others can hear it and do not hear anything remotely what I heard.


6 posted on 01/22/2017 11:41:50 AM PST by Notasoccermom
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To: EveningStar
A direct message to the elites in Washington DC from the American people.

I initially did not think it was that good of a speech until I actually read it and gave it thought. And it dawned on myself that it WAS a direct message to the DC crowd through him, from the American people.

7 posted on 01/22/2017 11:44:33 AM PST by crz
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To: loveliberty2
Replace above link for source of quotations with, here
8 posted on 01/22/2017 11:45:02 AM PST by loveliberty2
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To: EveningStar

Please, oh please President Trump, get your cabinet members to investigate the corruption, deliberate slowdown of work and outright radical opposition to conservatives within the Federal agencies. Therein is your number one problem causing all of the other problems in the nation.


9 posted on 01/22/2017 11:45:35 AM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin (Freedom is the freedom to discipline yourself so others don't have to do it for you.)
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To: dragnet2

Trump has stepped into a World Historic moment which demands a real reform, if he can’t handle it the darkness and destruction will be back.

IMHO he has as good a chance as anyone else.


10 posted on 01/22/2017 11:45:56 AM PST by arrogantsob (Check out "CHAOS AND MAYHEM" at Amazon.com.)
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To: dragnet2

Trump has stepped into a World Historic moment which demands a real reform, if he can’t handle it the darkness and destruction will be back.

IMHO he has as good a chance as anyone else.


11 posted on 01/22/2017 11:45:56 AM PST by arrogantsob (Check out "CHAOS AND MAYHEM" at Amazon.com.)
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To: Notasoccermom

Many are hearing it through the long-imposed “progressive” and tyrannical mindset.


12 posted on 01/22/2017 11:46:44 AM PST by loveliberty2
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To: dragnet2

. . . and interesting that he did not acknowledge his opponent Hillary.

He should have said, ‘President Clinton and Cankles’ . . .


13 posted on 01/22/2017 11:48:05 AM PST by Pilgrim's Progress (http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/BYTOPICS/tabid/335/Default.aspx D)
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To: dragnet2; loveliberty2; Notasoccermom; crz; All
Related thread: Trump's inaugural address is the shortest in 40 years
14 posted on 01/22/2017 11:48:10 AM PST by EveningStar
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To: EveningStar

Inauguration: Trump references self three times.

Obama’s last speech: He referenced self close 75 times.

Obama referenced himself in relation to problems.

Trump addresses our citizens in relation to problems.


15 posted on 01/22/2017 11:50:00 AM PST by DoughtyOne (Obama, Clinton, McStain, and Graham, with people like this, who needs enemies?)
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To: Notasoccermom

The media recoiled after that speech. When they switched back to the media anchors, they were caught stunned and gawking at the cameras .

What a great speech. And one has to ask themselves, why is the opposition so angry about a leader wanting to support his own country and it’s own people?


16 posted on 01/22/2017 11:50:55 AM PST by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: dragnet2
“..why is the opposition so angry about a leader wanting to support his own country and it’s own people?...”

That should be the response from everyone, every GOP’er who gets asked about the speech , every GOP supporting talking head. Everyone !

Make the person asking the question explain what's wrong with an American leader wanting to support his own country & people? Make them answer that first before any other discussion! No wondering off into theoretical nuances, make them answer that question first or interview or discussion of the topic is over!

17 posted on 01/22/2017 11:56:05 AM PST by Reily
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To: EveningStar
Buchanan your rebellious runs for the Presidency in 1992 and 1996 have been vindicated. Congratulations President Trump.

Today’s acolytes of the Global Economy have discovered nothing new; they have simply rewritten the rules of trade to conform to their ideology and to benefit themselves at the expense of their country and their countrymen.

Better the occasional sins of a government acting of a spirit of charity than the constant omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference. So it has been said. America’s elites, smug and arrogant masters of the “world’s last superpower”, are frozen in the ice of their own ideology. And the steam is building beneath.” P 15 The Great Betrayal 1998.

Note the book is some 20 years ago "And the steam is building beneath" is in one of Pat’s prophetic books. Note also, reference to the ‘elites’. The steam has broken through. Congratulations President Trump. Make America Great Again.

18 posted on 01/22/2017 12:21:37 PM PST by ex-snook (The one true God sent Jesus here to show us the way.)
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To: DollyCali

ping


19 posted on 01/22/2017 1:03:50 PM PST by EveningStar
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To: Reily

Yep, the opposition’s position seems pretty darn clear.


20 posted on 01/22/2017 1:09:09 PM PST by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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