Donald Trump arrived in Washington on Saturday evening for a reception in one of his golf courses, launching four days of festivities the culmination of which will be his inauguration on Monday as the 47th president of the United States.
Before arriving with his wife Melania and their son Barron from their stronghold of Mar-a-Lago, Florida, he promised he would sign a number « record » presidential decrees “immediately after” his swearing-in at the Capitol in the federal capital.
In a telephone interview with the NBC News channel, the Republican billionaire, already president from 2017 to 2021 and who achieved a resounding return to the top, spoke of a “range of at least” around a hundred of these decrees, prerogatives of the executive power.
Expulsion of millions of illegal immigrants, increase in customs duties against Mexican and Canadian neighbors and Chinese rival, deregulation in energy and climate, pardons for his supporters of the assault on the Capitol in January 2021: Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to undo what the government of his enemy, Democratic President Joe Biden, has built, who will leave power Monday at noon.
“As soon as I take the oath of office, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history”he assured during the campaign for his re-election on November 5.
Expulsion of illegal immigrants
The expulsion of illegal immigrants – who number around 11 million in a country of around 340 million inhabitants – “will start very, very quickly”repeated the tribune on Saturday.
But he refused to “say in which cities because things are changing”.
One of his right-hand men, Tom Homan, hostile to immigration and named « tsar » for border protection, spoke Friday on Fox News about police operations, starting Tuesday, to arrest and expel undocumented immigrants in Chicago, a Democratic megalopolis.
But this former director of the federal agency for border and immigration control (ICE) under the first Trump mandate backtracked Saturday evening in the Washington Post: no “decision has not yet been made”even if, “we will arrest people all over the country”.
With the wind rising against the second Trump administration, thousands of people – including many women – demonstrated on Saturday in Washington, under a fine cold rain.
Susan Dutwells, who came from Florida with her daughter, said her ” fear “ and its ” anger “ in the face of the conservative’s return to far-right rhetoric.
“People’s March”
This “people’s march” was organized by groups defending public freedoms and social rights, including the team of “women’s marches” of January 21, 2017 which brought together hundreds of thousands of people in Washington, the day after Mr. Trump’s first inauguration.
Eight years later, on January 20, he will become the 47th American president, culminating in four days of festivities, disrupted however by polar cold (between -12°C and -6°C).
It is therefore inside the Capitol, under its rotunda, and not outside, on its steps, that Donald Trump will take the oath.
“I think we made the right decision (…) It would have represented a risk for many people”the 78-year-old man justified on NBC News.
He gave a first reception on Saturday evening, with fireworks, in one of his golf courses in Virginia, a state bordering the federal capital.
Donald Trump is expected Sunday morning at the Arlington military cemetery, just on the other side of the Potomac which waters Washington, before a meeting in a large sports hall and in concert with his supporters, the Capital One Arena.
It is in this 20,000-seat enclosure that his inauguration will be broadcast, before he joins the public for a speech.
The new president will then participate in three galas, among the ten parties planned in town on Monday evening.
The four days of festivities will end Tuesday morning at the Washington Cathedral.