It’s a very cold day in the District of Columbia. Freezing temperatures prompted the inauguration of Donald Trump and JD Vance Moved to the US Capitol Rotunda.
But not all has changed between this day eight years ago and Trump’s inauguration.
Trump won the Electoral College in 2016 Shocked manyAccording to the winner himself His campaign workers are many.
Elected officials and political insiders in Washington DC, Democrats and Republicans alike, are still reeling from January 2017 when Trump put his hands on a Bible and solemnly swore to preserve, protect and defend the United States Constitution.
Now, in 2025, things have changed significantly.
The Supreme Court has granted the President broad immunity from criminal prosecution. Trump did Promised exact revenge against his political opponents. Although his team was unprepared to take over the first time, now his staff is said to be more prepared than him 100 Executive Orders Day 1 will be signed. organized resistance With Trump this time muted, the railroads protecting democracy are vulnerable, and Many Democrats in Congress say They are willing to work with him.
Today, explained The host talks to Noel King Susan B. GlasserStaff writer and a columnist D The New YorkerAbout his memories of Trump’s first inauguration and how he was being received differently this time. Glasser’s author, Peter Baker, is her husband and chief White House correspondent The New York Times2022 of the book The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021.
Below is a portion of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s more in the full podcast, so take a listen Today, explained Wherever you get your podcast, incl Apple Podcasts, pandoraAnd Spotify.
Susan B. Glasser
I’ve been to various inaugurations here in Washington, going back to Bill Clinton. And 2016 was like nothing I’ve ever seen in Washington DC. It was almost like an alien invasion.
The streets were deserted. Certainly not the biggest debut crowd in Washington. No one knew what to expect. It was a time of utter disorientation, however, here for Republicans as well as Democrats. It was a sense that something was possible, that the wheels were perhaps coming off the American system.
And I’ll never forget, I was here in Washington at an inaugural watch party at the top of a hotel that overlooks Pennsylvania Avenue where the inaugural parade takes place. I was sitting there with a close friend and colleague of mine at Politico. And the moment when Barack Obama’s helicopter took offit’s just [felt]”We’re on our own — it’s really happening.”
Noel King
It’s worth noting that it’s not just the Democrats who think that, on that day, Donald Trump is something new. Can you give us a sense of how anti-establishment he was on that inauguration day and who he was most nervous about?
Susan B. Glasser
Yes, sure. It was Republicans as well as Democrats who not only didn’t know what to expect, but had a deep sense of disruption and anxiety about it.
Note that Trump was opposed in the Republican primaries by a large majority of his own party’s establishment-type, elected officials. And for many of the elected Republicans here in Washington, they rightly saw it, I think, as a kind of adverse possession by an outsider of their own party.
And remember the famous remark by George W. Bush, who sat on the platform for Trump’s first inauguration in his role as former president. He turned to Hillary Clinton, who sat next to him not as a defeated opponent of Donald Trump, but as a former first lady. And he told Hillary Clinton, “That was something weird shitRefers to Donald Trump’s famous “American carnage” inaugural address. I later asked them both about it. And let’s just say that they are not denying that the exchange happened and that the experience was felt by both of them at that moment.
Noel King
So eight years ago, everything was amazing and what was going to happen, and the crowds weren’t what you might expect. In 2025, who is coming to support Donald Trump in what was not the last time? Who is notable this year?
Susan B. Glasser
Well, there is a big change.
First, we can talk about Trump’s opposition, or lack thereof. And that’s the other important thing about 2016, is that immediately there was a paradigm shift among Democrats, who were upset and shocked and worried about Trump’s victory. Almost immediately there was the idea that we had to resist it, we had to stand against it. You remember the Women’s March right after Trump’s inauguration. There was massive participation. And so there was a sense of taking action, I would say, and it was something that could or had to be achieved over the next four years.
I think that’s the biggest difference for me now, eight years later. just no Any such massive public act of resistance Plans were made shortly after Trump was inaugurated, but you Democrats are still caught up in the finger-pointing and blame game among yourselves as to why they lost the election. You have a lot of business leaders, establishment Republicans and other types of people who would have considered Trump anathema in 2016, who not only publicly supported him, but I think they’ve come to the conclusion that this is just not the new normal. Of the Republican Party, but to a certain extent of the country, that Trumpism is not a singular aberration, but a significant factor in the politics of this country for a long time.
Noel King
Tell us about the type of corporation. So we hear that Trump has big business behind him at this inauguration, at least symbolically. What kind of big businesses are we talking about and who represents them on Inauguration Day?
Susan B. Glasser
Trump’s participation in the inaugural committee, fundraising for that committee, is a really interesting difference that tells you about the level of acceptance from 2016 to today.
Since Trump’s election in November, you’ve seen many of America’s corporate leaders of blue chip corporations, certainly not exclusively associated with red America, announce $1 million contributions from corporations or CEOs personally or individually. Both of them. we are talking Companies like AppleFor example. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, is one of the people scheduled to attend Trump’s inauguration, who is said to have contributed $1 million.
And Tim Cook, he’s not a MAGA Twitterer like Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who has donated an extraordinary amount, a quarter of a billion dollars, to the effort to elect Donald Trump in 2024. Tim Cook is not a political donor. He seems to be going with the idea that you have to pay to keep the Trump administration going. And I was really struck by that. This is a huge difference from 2016.
The other big difference is that you’re not just giving to blue chip companies and mainstream Republican donors or even Democrats or ex-Democrats at Trump’s inauguration, but it’s almost a integrated message It’s being sent to America’s corporate elite, which means that if you don’t make at least $1 million for this inauguration, you don’t have a seat at the table in this future administration.
Noel King
And so what, these days, does support for Trump look like? Is it paying the opening? Or is there something else we should be looking for?
Susan B. Glasser
Well, I think that’s just a sort of tip-of-the-iceberg indicator. Donald Trump is certainly very concerned about public optics, public narrative. I imagine he is finally happy to see the parade of business leaders at Mar-a-Lago who have sought audiences with him since the election, who have made these public displays of giving to his inaugural committee. But it’s a reminder that there’s so much we can’t see that isn’t made public, that we journalists have to do a lot of digging and a lot of work to understand what else these business leaders are getting at.
First, Trump is appointing many wealthy individuals and business leaders to his cabinet. By any account, this is the wealthiest cabinet in American history, employing the most billionaires. So that’s one thing. What are the other potential conflicts of interest, the other business concerns that they might bring with them to this cabinet role, first of all?
Second, there is the question of the transparency, or lack thereof, of Trump’s own family interests and personal financial interests, which was also a major problem in his first administration.
And third, there is the kind of informal power that many in Trump’s orbit exercised in his first term and I expect they will exercise in his second term. And it’s very hard to track and not something we can find in a published form.
Noel King
What about elected democratic lawmakers? Are Democrats behaving this year in ways that are unexpected or different than last time?
Susan B. Glasser
Yeah, I mean, there’s an opening address Long tradition Much more ambitious and looking much higher with big picture goals and dreams and hopes for the country. Not Donald Trump.
First, he arrives in 2016 and it’s very, very dark for him Inaugural speechAmericans talk about murder, a huge break with the historical past.
So what will he do in 2020? He denied the election results that he had legitimately lost. It’s the first time in history, in American history, that’s happened. he sics are a violent crowd Among his supporters at the US Capitol on a day they are certifying Joe Biden’s victory and Trump’s defeat. He refused to attend the inauguration of his successor. These are We are torn with the past.
And so you can’t talk about what the Democrats are doing this year in anything other than the context of what Trump did four years ago. Even what you have there, the Democrats, are now much more of an establishment party, a party that says we’re here to stand up for the traditions and safeguards that exist in American democracy. So you have Joe Biden not only accepting Trump’s victory, but Kamala Harris accepting Trump’s victory, conceding defeat, planning. Attend the inaugurationBut they don’t see it as a celebration of America in the nonpartisan sense It is used.
I just saw that George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton are not planning to attend the traditional post-inauguration luncheon at the Capitol that usually, of course, they all attend. And it makes almost everything about how you react to Donald Trump a partisan test. That’s why my husband and I called our book about Trump’s first term “The Divider.” For him, everything is a contradiction. Everything is division. And it now applies to this tradition of American inaugurations.
