President Trump: ‘From this day forward it is going to be only America first’

The property mogul and television celebrity Donald J Trump was sworn in on Friday as the 45th president of the United States as he promised to pursue a “great national effort to rebuild this country and restore its promise for the American people.”

In an address to a large crowd gathered on the National Mall in Washington and tens of millions more watching at home and around the world, Mr Trump returned to the message of his outsider populist campaign that elected him to the White House, promising to take on the Washington establishment and work for ordinary Americans.

Mr Trump vowed that his presidency would be focused on helping struggling middle-class families, strengthen the US military and bolster the country’s borders.

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US president-elect Donald Trump kisses his wife Melania as he attends his inauguration on the Capitol in Washington. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters

“We are transferring power from Washington, DC and giving it back to you, the people,” he said. “Washington flourished but the people did not share in its wealth.”

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Mr Trump delivered his defiantly patriotic inaugural address framed around his long-running pledge to put America’s interests first after Chief Justice John Roberts administered the 35-word presidential oath of office.

The rain held off the ceremony at the US Capitol until Mr Trump started speaking.

“From this day forward a new vision will govern our land,” he said. “From this day forward it’s going to be only America First.”

The new Republican president took the pledge with his hand on his childhood bible and one president Abraham Lincoln used at his first inauguration in 1861.

Watching only feet away were his predecessor Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the Democrat he beat in an improbable presidential election win that stunned the US political classes.

He cast his election win as a victory for “forgotten” men and women who felt frustrated and left behind by their elected representatives.

“January 20th, 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again, Mr Trump said, standing in front of the West Face of the US Capitol.

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

Employing his characteristic hyperbole, the Manhattan businessman (70), the oldest man ever to be elected president for the first time, claimed that his victory was unprecedented in American and even world history.

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

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