Eight years ago, Donald Trump delivered an inaugural address that overshadowed the typical optimism and promises of unity with a dark portrait of national life.
His unapologetically populist and nationalistic speech installed the phrases “American Carnage” and “America First” into the presidential lexicon. It signaled how he would govern in his first term — and how the president-elect might govern in his second.
Here is a look back at Trump’s initial remarks and why they remain relevant ahead of his encore Monday.
Certainly, many presidents have held up their election as evidence of a new birth for democracy. But Trump went beyond rote celebrations of American voters:
“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. … The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.”
If anything, Trump has intensified his umbrage over eight years, even as he has tapped a Cabinet and West Wing replete with billionaires. In his first term, he also pushed a sweeping tax overhaul slanted to large corporations and the wealthiest households. But in 2024, he added plenty of promises for working-class voters suffering through inflation, notably his pledges to exempt tipped income and Social Security from taxes.
Trump made the requisite inaugural nods to national unity. But he spoke clearly to his supporters with language that elevated them, despite Hillary Clinton having led the national popular vote. In 2024, Trump won the popular vote, and he has since played up the idea that his win — clear but still competitive — was a mandate and even a “landslide.”
This line, punctuating Trump’s description of a dwindling nation, became shorthand for his 15-minute speech. A “different reality exists” than what is depicted in presidents’ usual national praise, Trump said:
“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.”
This previewed how Trump talked about the U.S. as “a failing nation” during the recent campaign. It’s a basic political and rhetorical task, of course, for politicians to set expectations. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was talking about the economic realities of the Great Depression when he said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Ronald Reagan talked of many “crises” because he took office after a decade marked by inflation, unemployment, climbing interest rates and global energy shortages.
Trump inherits what has been an inflationary economy — but also one that stabilized and grew under President Joe Biden after a global pandemic that began during Trump’s first term. And income gaps in America were widening before Trump or Biden became president.
This is Trump’s secondary motto, outranked only by “Make America Great Again.” Trump promised a renaissance in U.S. manufacturing — which expanded more under Biden than during Trump’s first term, notably in computer chip production. Trump imposed new tariffs and has promised steeper levies as he returns.
This was one of the more specific pledges as part of Trump’s ‘America First’ idea. But he was not successful in securing a major infrastructure package. Congress and Biden inked that deal instead, and they added more plans with the Inflation Reduction Act that Trump has blasted and that some Republicans are targeting for repeal.
Trump’s first speech was light on foreign policy. But this 2017 statement stands out with Trump in 2025 striking a more openly imperialistic tone. Since winning in November, he has talked about taking control of the Panama Canal and suggested that the U.S. should annex Canada and Greenland.
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