By Todd Lassa
Welcome to a new America, something like the old America of 2017-21, itself a Make-America-the-‘50s again. Whether this makes you think of the1950s or the 1850s maybe depends on whether you’re celebrating this Monday as inauguration day or as Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The 45th president, Donald J. Trump, will be sworn in as the 47th president inside the Capitol Rotunda rather than outside on the Capitol steps, because of dangerously low temperatures expected for Monday. The move is a sort of make-America 1985 again. The last time the inauguration had to move indoors for weather was for President Ronald Reagan’s second one.
The new administration will begin quickly, as promised.
Incoming border czar (a non-cabinet level title the Trump campaign successfully tied to Vice President Kamala Harris) Tom Homan told Fox News’ Jesse Watters Friday that arrests and deportation of undocumented-/illegal (there’s that anti- vs. pro-MAGA yin/yang again) immigrants begin Tuesday.
Citing “four people familiar with the plan,” The Wall Street Journal reports that US Immigrations and Customs enforcement under the Trump administration will stage a large-scale immigration raid with 100 to 200 of its officers in Chicago after the new president begins his first full day. Trump has had a high-profile feud with Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson, according to the report.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration will quickly start slashing regulations across government “in a bonfire of red tape,” according to the WSJ, in a separate story. Congressional Republicans and DOGE want to cut 10 extant regulations for every new one.
--Monday 1/20/25