President-Elect Donald Trump walks to the stage at his victory rally at the Capital One Arena on Jan. 19, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Trump will be sworn in as the 47th U.S. president on January 20. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump rallied a packed arena Sunday in the nation’s capital ahead of his inauguration Monday, heralding an era of “the Trump effect” and vowing to “act with historic speed and strength and fix every single crisis facing our country.”
Shortly after his swearing-in, Trump is expected to issue pardons for rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, whom he said are “J6 hostages.” Trump also plans a barrage of executive orders curtailing immigration and undoing Biden’s energy policies.
The victory rally, streamed live on C-SPAN from the Capital One Arena in downtown Washington, D.C., featured live music from Kid Rock, Lee Greenwood and, at the conclusion, a surreal performance of the 1978 disco hit “YMCA” by the Village People, as Trump danced along with them. Trump often played the song at his campaign rallies.
Assorted incoming administration officials and celebrities delivered speeches that railed against transgender people, DEI initiatives and immigration at the U.S. southern border. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance was not among the speakers.
Trump spoke for just over an hour, repeating his campaign trail themes about fictional cannibal Hannibal Lecter, SpaceX rockets, an “invasion” of migrants and “transgender insanity.”
He also promised to declassify records related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, and claimed that Apple CEO Tim Cook told him Sunday about “a massive investment in the United States because of our big election win.”
“I’m thrilled to be back with so many friends, supporters and true American patriots on the eve of taking back our country,” Trump told a cheering crowd in the arena, which has a capacity of about 20,000.
On Monday it will also host Trump supporters who held tickets to sit in the audience at the Capitol before the ceremony was moved inside due to forecasts of low temperatures, as well as an inauguration parade on Monday afternoon.
Trump touted the return Sunday of the popular app TikTok and the “epic ceasefire agreement” between Israel and Hamas.
The incoming president said war in the Middle East would not have happened had the 2020 election not been “rigged” — a false claim he’s repeated over the last four years.
Trump and Vance will be sworn in Monday indoors in the Capitol rotunda. The four-year term for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris ends at noon, as stipulated in the Constitution’s 20th Amendment.
Emergency declaration
Among the executive orders Trump plans will be an emergency declaration on the U.S.-Mexico border, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
“You’re going to see executive orders that are going to make you extremely happy, lots of them,” he told rallygoers. “By the time the sun sets tomorrow evening, the invasion of our borders will have come to a halt.”
Trump later told the crowd: “Somebody said yesterday, ‘Sir, don’t sign so many in one day. Let’s do it over a period of weeks.’ I said, ‘Like hell we’re going to do it over weeks.’”
Also on his list of day-one executive orders is extending the deadline for TikTok to find a new owner, a mandate set forth in a bipartisan law last year. Without an extension, companies that distribute or maintain TikTok will face fines up to $5,000 per user on the popular video platform app.
The order will “confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform hours ahead of the rally.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was expected to sit on the dais Monday during Trump’s inauguration, but seating arrangements for the indoor ceremony remained unclear.
Trump invited tech billionaire Elon Musk to the stage with him Sunday. The mogul he’s tasked with making recommendations to cut trillions in federal spending told the crowd “we’re looking forward to making a lot of changes.”
Speakers vilify ‘radical left,’ Harris
A parade of speakers introduced the president-elect. Trump’s son Eric, standing alongside his wife Lara and their two children, declared “The bullsh-t ends right now.”
Stephen Miller, incoming White House deputy chief of staff for policy, touted “ending the border invasion, sending the illegals home and taking America back,” and ridding children’s playgrounds of “piles of needles.”
Miller denied the very existence of transgender people.
“We’re not going to let the radical left indoctrinate our children into believing there’s 435 genders because President Trump knows there are men and there are women, and it is not up to you whether you’re a man or a woman. That’s a decision that’s made by God, and it can’t be changed,” Miller said.
There are an estimated 2 million transgender people in the U.S., according to the Human Rights Campaign. Gender dysphoria — defined as psychological distress resulting from incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and current gender identity — is widely recognized by the medical community. Transgender youth experience disparate health outcomes and increased stigmatization and suicidal behavior, according to a 2024 report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Right-wing media personality Megyn Kelly delivered remarks during which for several minutes she slammed singer and actress Jennifer Lopez and media magnate Oprah Winfrey for their support of Harris during the 2024 election.
“But of course the fakest person involved on that side of the aisle was the woman at the top, Kamala Harris herself,” Kelly said.
The former Fox News host said the vice president used a “fake Jamaican accent, her fake Eastern European accent, her fake Spanish accent. It was like spending the day at Joe Biden’s southern border nonstop, right?”
Similar criticisms were made repeatedly by Republicans during the campaign and a Fox News reporter in September pressed White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about Harris’ accent. “The question is just insane,” said Jean-Pierre, saying Americans cared more about the economy, health care and lowering costs, HuffPost reported.
Jab at media
The rally kicked off with a prayer from a duo dubbed “Girls Gone Bible” followed moments later by a musical set from Kid Rock.
In a video message to his “rock ‘n roll patriots,” Trump told the crowd “Let’s make America rock again” as Kid Rock launched into his new song “We the People” that featured the chorus line “Let’s Go Brandon.” “Brandon” was the name used by Trump supporters to insult Biden.
While performing his 1999 hit “Bawitdaba,” Kid Rock ad-libbed “The mainstream media can suck my” — without finishing the sentence.
Prior to the rally, Trump and Vance participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. They also visited three graves of servicemembers who were killed in the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Several of Trump’s Cabinet nominees attended the ceremony, including Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who’s been tapped as secretary of state; Fox News TV host Pete Hegseth, the nominee for secretary of defense; and current and former U.S. representatives Elise Stefanik and Tulsi Gabbard, nominees for ambassador to the United Nations and director of national intelligence.