WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump took his second oath of office Jan. 20 as the 47th president of the United States, offering an agenda heavily foreshadowed by his campaign promises.

Speaking from inside the U.S. Capitol Rotunda because of the subfreezing temperatures, Trump said, “The golden age of America begins right now.”

He vowed to crack down on illegal immigration, increase domestic oil drilling, impose tariffs, rescind federal electric vehicle goals, declare that there are only two genders assigned at birth, rename Alaska’s Mount Denali back to Mount McKinley and end diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

“All of this will change starting today,” he said, “and it will change very quickly.”

Many of the promises in Trump’s inaugural address are among the 75 that PolitiFact will be tracking over the next four years in our MAGA-Meter.

Appearing in the Capitol’s Emancipation Hall shortly after his inaugural address, Trump offered more remarks in the stream-of-consciousness style familiar from his campaign rallies. He jabbed at familiar rivals, including the “unselect committee of political thugs” — a reference to the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol and received last-minute preemptive pardons from President Joe Biden. Trump chastised two members of that committee, calling former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., a “crying lunatic” and saying former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., was “always crying.”

Here are our fact-checks of Trump’s claims during his inaugural speech followed by claims during his subsequent remarks at Emancipation Hall.

Most economists say tariffs do not ‘enrich’ the country levying them

Arguing for his plan to enact tariffs, Trump said, “Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.”

Our reporting has found that most economists disagree that tariffs will “enrich” Americans, and real-world examples of tariffs working that way are rare. Consumers in the tariff-levying country often suffer in these deals because prices rise, they said.

“Tariffs artificially raise the cost of doing business, which depresses overall economic production in the form of lower gross domestic product, artificially higher prices, and fewer goods sold,” Boise State University political scientist Ross Burkhart, who studies trade policy, told PolitiFact in August. “For the consumer, this means a reduction in purchasing power.”

Tariffs also mean that producers pay more as prices rise for materials used to make products domestically. U.S. producers can expect retaliatory tariffs, which can also raise prices for U.S. consumers. Also, a decline in international competition hurts consumers by letting the remaining producers raise prices.

Trump’s false claims about federal disaster assistance

Trump criticized the Biden administration’s response to natural disasters, including Hurricane Helene in North Carolina in 2024 and the Los Angeles fires that started this month.

“Our country can no longer deliver basic services in times of emergency, as recently shown by the wonderful people of North Carolina,” referring to Hurricane Helene, Trump said. Trump added, “or, more recently, Los Angeles, where we are watching fires still tragically burn from weeks ago without even a token of defense.”

The Biden administration provided federal funding for both disasters.

In September, Biden declared a major disaster from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. That declaration makes available funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency Disaster Relief Fund.

On Dec. 21, 2024, former President Joe Biden averted a government shutdown by signing a federal spending bill that directed $29 billion to FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, part of a broader $100 billion package for disasters. This came after calls for increased funding after Hurricanes Helene and Milton struck the southeastern U.S. in September and October, respectively.

As of Dec. 9, 2024, FEMA obligated more than $292 million to reimburse government agencies in North Carolina for emergency response. (An obligation of funds is a promise to distribute funds.)

Biden on Jan. 8 also approved California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s request for a major disaster declaration, a move that makes federal resources, including money, available.

Trump misleads about ‘mandates’ for Green New Deal, electric vehicles

Trump misled when he said, “With my actions today, we will end the Green New Deal, and we will revoke the electric vehicle mandate.”

No “Green New Deal” is in effect. Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., introduced a 2019 resolution that offered a broad vision for responding to climate change, but it never became law. After Biden became president, Congress passed legislation, including the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, that advanced some climate policy goals. Trump cannot undo laws by executive order.

As of the evening of Jan. 20, we had not yet seen what Trump’s executive actions will bring. In 2024, Biden’s administration, building on a target set in its first year, issued a rule that 56% of all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the U.S. to be electric or hybrids by 2032.

Trump wrong that there was ‘record inflation’ under Biden

Trump said, “Next, I will direct all members of my Cabinet to marshal the vast powers at their disposal to defeat what was record inflation and rapidly bring down costs and prices.”

The highest year-over-year inflation rate on Biden’s watch was around 9% in summer 2022. That was the highest in about 40 years.

The highest sustained, year-over-year U.S. inflation rates were recorded in the 1970s and early 1980s, when the price increase sometimes ranged from 12% to 15%. For one year — 1946, after the U.S. won World War II — the overall year-over-year inflation rate exceeded 18%.

Trump repeats his evidence-free claim about migrants from prisons, mental institutions

Trump repeated the campaign claim that people “from prisons and mental institutions … illegally entered our country from all over the world.”

Pants on Fire. There is no evidence that countries are emptying their prisons, or that mental institutions are sending people to illegally migrate to the U.S.

Immigration officials arrested about 108,000 noncitizens with criminal convictions (whether in the U.S. or abroad) from fiscal years 2021 to 2024, federal data shows. That accounts for people stopped at and between ports of entry; not everyone was let in.

Claims about Chinese control of the Panama Canal

Trump, who repeated his goal of taking back control of the Panama Canal, misled about the canal’s operations.

“And above all, China is operating the Panama Canal,” Trump said.

That’s false.

The Republic of Panama has owned and administered the Panama Canal since Dec. 31, 1999, when Panama took over full operation.

The Panama Canal Authority, an autonomous government entity, governed by an 11-member board of directors, manages the waterway.

China does have influence in the canal. Three defense experts who did fieldwork in Panama — Carla Martinez Machain of the University at Buffalo, Michael A. Allen of Boise State University and Michael E. Flynn of Kansas State University — wrote in a Jan. 13 article that Trump’s Dec. 25, 2024, claim that Chinese soldiers are operating the canal was false. However, the experts wrote that Chinese companies do have a stake in the waterway.

“Currently, the Panama Ports Company — a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports — manages the Balboa and Cristóbal ports that serve as the entry and exit ways to the canal. The company recently renewed the lease to manage these ports until 2047.”

However, the experts added, “While these ports are managed by the Hong Kong firm, authority over the ports and the canal is still maintained by the Panama Canal Authority, an agency of the Panamanian government.”

Trump inflates US death toll from building of the Panama Canal

Trump bolstered his argument that the United States should control the Panama Canal by saying the U.S. “lost 38,000 lives” during its construction.

That is higher than the official death toll. It’s possible that Trump added up numbers from efforts over decades to build the canal, including by the French starting in 1881.

“Over the span of more than three decades, at least 25,000 workers died in the construction of the Panama Canal,” author Christopher Klein wrote in a 2023 History.com article.

We found similar numbers posted in other articles about the death toll recorded by the U.S. and the death toll for the French.

Trump’s comments at Emancipation Hall

In his second speech of the day, Trump revived claims about the transfer of presidential power in 2021, pointing at then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for inadequate security on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump said he had offered 10,000 soldiers to Pelosi before Jan. 6 but “she didn’t like it.” Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, Anthony Ornato, told the committee he recalled other White House officials saying Trump suggested having 10,000 National Guard troops, but he didn’t say Trump gave an order for that many troops.

Trump also repeated familiar grievances, such as the falsehood that the 2020 election was “rigged.” Here, we fact-check a few other claims from his Emancipation Hall speech:

Trump exaggerates price jump for apples

“But you know, how many times can you say that an apple has doubled in cost,” Trump said. “I’d say it and I hit it hard.”

Even at their peak in prices, apples did not cost twice what they did when Biden took office in January 2021.

Apple prices today are almost exactly the same as they were at the beginning and the end of Biden’s tenure, producer price index data shows. (This statistic is an index pegged to 100, not a measurement in dollars and cents.)

During Biden’s presidency, apple prices did rise, along with the prices of many groceries and other consumer products. But even at their short-lived peak, in February 2023, apple prices were about 1.4 times higher than when Biden took office, not twice as much.

Trump conflates pardons with commutations in false claim about murderers

Alluding to former Biden, Trump said that “they pardoned” 33 murderers.

Two days before Christmas 2024, Biden said he was commuting — not pardoning — the sentences of 37 of the 40 people who faced federal death sentences for such crimes as killing police officers and military service members, killing people in bank robberies or killing guards or prisoners in federal prisons.

By commuting their sentences, they will spend life in prison rather than face the death penalty. Commutation is not the same as a pardon. A commutation of sentence reduces the sentence but does not erase the conviction. A pardon is the president’s forgiveness.

“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said in a Dec. 23, 2024, statement. But he added, “I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”

Biden’s action adhered to a moratorium on federal death sentences that his administration announced in 2021. We rated Biden’s promise to eliminate the federal death penalty as a Compromise on our Biden Promise Tracker.

Other Inauguration Day fact-checking

Trump didn’t put his hand on the Bible when he was sworn in. He’s still the president.

Shortly after Trump took the oath of office, people started to claim that he never put his left hand on the Bible.

That’s true — but it doesn’t mean that he’s not the president.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts began administering the oath to Trump and told him to raise his right hand before first lady Melania Trump, who was holding the Bible, reached Trump’s side. Video and images of the ceremony show that Trump repeated the oath but never moved his left hand onto the Bible.

Although presidents and other members of government have historically sworn the oath on a Bible, the Constitution doesn’t require it. 

America is asking: Why is this the 60th inauguration?

As Trump prepared to be sworn in as the nation’s 47th president (he was already the 45th), social media users asked why this swearing-in counted as the nation’s 60th inauguration.

All elected presidents are sworn in for their first term, and sworn in a second time if they win a second term. (Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated four times before a constitutional amendment set the presidential limit at two terms.)

Every vice president elevated to the presidency unexpectedly, such as after a president’s death, is sworn in. However, this doesn’t count as an inauguration because it occurs as soon as possible after the office becomes vacant, not with regularly scheduled inaugural pageantry.

Starting with 1789, when George Washington took the oath, there have been 60 inaugurations, at four-year intervals.

PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

These fact checks were originally published by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute.