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President-elect Donald Trump plans to call a “revolution of common sense” when he addresses the nation for the first time since being sworn in for his second term, according to an excerpt of prepared remarks.

“I return to the presidency confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success,” Trump will also say, though an aide noted Trump could adlib and the remarks could change.

“A tide of change is sweeping the country. My message to Americans today is that it is time for us to once again act with courage, vigor and the vitality of history’s greatest civilization.”

Aides have said Trump’s speech will be less “American carnage” like 2017, but will reflect how differently he is viewing the presidency and his power this time around. One aide familiar with the speech described it as “unifying.”

The guest list at President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration and other events will include billionaires and political leaders.

Several former presidents are also expected to be in attendance.

Who will be there:

• Former President George W. Bush and Laura Bush will attend the inauguration, his office said, and sources familiar told CNN that former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton also will be there. Former President Barack Obama will also attend, although Michelle Obama will not.
• House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is a member of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies and “is going to all of the ceremonial events,” a person familiar with the plans told CNN.
• TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is expected to be at the inauguration and will be seated with other prominent guests, according to two sources familiar with the plans. The president-elect, who met with Chew at his Mar-a-Lago club in December, previously called for the app to be banned over national security concerns but reversed his position during the 2024 campaign.
• Tesla CEO and close Trump ally Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be at the inauguration, two sources familiar with the planning told CNN. The three are expected to be seated near Trump’s Cabinet nominees and other incoming administration officials, the sources said.

Notable absence:

• Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will not attend, a source familiar with her plans told CNN. Pelosi attended Trump’s first inauguration in 2017 when she was the top Democrat in the House.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping may not have personally accepted US President-elect Donald Trump’s invitation to his inauguration, but Beijing has taken the rare step of dispatching a top official to join the swearing-in ceremony in Washington.

Chinese Vice President Han Zheng is expected to attend today’s inauguration after meeting incoming US Vice President JD Vance Sunday, in a trip observers say is a significant – but potentially risky – goodwill gesture as Beijing looks to avert major friction with Trump and his incoming cabinet of China hawks.

While Han is the most senior Chinese official to attend a US inauguration, his position of vice president is largely symbolic within China’s political system. True authority lies with the ruling Communist Party’s powerful Politburo Standing Committee, from which Han retired in 2022.

But sending a high-profile official – and one who has previously represented Xi at international events including the coronation of Britain’s King Charles III – signals Beijing’s interest in a reset of fraught relations between the US and China, observers say.

Han’s arrival in the US follows a phone call between Xi and Trump on Friday, where the Chinese leader congratulated Trump on his reelection and called for a new start in relations.

Country music star Carrie Underwood will perform “America the Beautiful” at today’s inauguration, according to a copy of the program obtained by CNN and confirmed by a spokesperson for the inaugural committee.

Underwood said in a statement to CNN that she was honored to have been asked to perform and “humbled to answer the call.”

“I love our country and am honored to have been asked to sing at the Inauguration and to be a small part of this historic event,” Underwood said. “I am humbled to answer the call at a time when we must all come together in the spirit of unity and looking to the future.”

Other artists are also slated to perform at various events, according to the committee:

• Kid Rock, The Village People, Billy Ray Cyrus, Lee Greenwood and Liberty University’s Praise Choir will appear at Trump’s victory rally.
• Jason Aldean and rapper Nelly will perform at the Liberty Ball.
• At the Commander-in-Chief Ball, country band Rascal Flatts and country singer Parker McCollum will have performances.
• Gavin DeGraw is scheduled to play at the Starlight Ball.

President Joe Biden’s last official act as president will be attending the inauguration of his successor, a man he has repeatedly warned represents a fundamental threat to the future of this country.

Today, the 82-year-old president leaves public service, bound to retire to his home state of Delaware after a trip to California following his departure from Washington.

In a farewell speech from the Oval Office last week, Biden said his crucial legislative achievements will have long-reaching reverberations that outlast his presidency.

“I’m so proud of how much we’ve accomplished together for the American people,” Biden said, “and I wish the incoming administration success, because I want America to succeed.”

Still, the image of him relinquishing that office to same man he worked so hard to keep out could provide for one last defining moment of his presidency.

Take a look inside the “Eagles Nest,” a rental house near Capitol Hill that has become a meeting place for supporters of January 6 participants.

Throughout the 2024 campaign, President-elect Donald Trump vowed to seek retribution against his opponents and political enemies. Those who oppose Trump will be watching the opening hours of his second administration closely to see how quickly he carries out those threats.

He said of his political opponents last summer: “When this election is over … I would have every right to go after them.” He said that “sometimes revenge can be justified.”

Opponents of Trump, including the prosecutors who have investigated him, the lawmakers who have countered him, the political figures who have opposed him, and the news media that has covered him, will be closely watching how Trump handles his first day in office to determine whether those threats carry weight.

Trump’s first inaugural address in 2017 is remembered for its dark imagery of “American carnage.” But Trump has also shown that he can be conciliatory, if contradictory.

A brief call between President Joe Biden and Trump after the president-elect’s victory was described as “very friendly,” with Biden aides expressing surprise at Trump’s approach of deference and flattery. Trump has been spotted in seemingly friendly conversation with first lady Jill Biden and former President Barack Obama in the months since his victory and spoke highly of his meeting with Biden in the Oval Office after his election win.

But, at the same time, Trump has not shied away from his usual bellicose language toward the president, referring to him as “Crooked Joe Biden” on January 14.

The incoming first couple have launched a pair of meme coins in the leadup to president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Melania Trump launched her cryptocurrency $MELANIA in a social media post Sunday, sending her husband’s cryptocurrency $TRUMP, announced two days earlier, plummeting.

“The Official Melania Meme is live! You can buy $MELANIA now. https://melaniameme.com,” the future first lady wrote on X.

Meme coins are a type of highly volatile cryptocurrency inspired by popular internet or cultural trends. They carry no intrinsic value but can soar, or plummet, in price.

“My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE!” Trump wrote on X Friday. “It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW. Go to http://gettrumpmemes.com — Have Fun!”

Both coins are trading on the Solana blockchain. Trump’s meme coin skyrocketed over the weekend and was trading at more than $70 by Sunday afternoon, according to CoinGecko.

However, the president-elect’s coin nosedived to $40 after Melania revealed her own coin. It has since recovered some of those losses and was trading around $60 early Monday. $MELANIA was trading just over $12 early Monday, according to CoinGecko.

$TRUMP is the first cryptocurrency endorsed by the incoming president, who once trashed bitcoin as “based on thin air.”

Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser and federal partners have announced traffic and pedestrian restrictions that will go into effect early this morning ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Bowser first outlined the plan last week, preparing residents for high-visibility patrols, barriers and widespread road closures.

Residents and visitors can text DCINAUG to 888-777 to receive updates on inauguration-related impacts.

Temperatures for Donald Trump’s inauguration day may be the lowest since Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration.

Washington D.C. could see days without seeing a high temperature climb out of freezing this week.

Trump has described the conditions as “dangerous” and that he did not “want to see people hurt, or injured, in any way.”

“Therefore, I have ordered the Inauguration Address, in addition to prayers and other speeches, to be delivered in the United States Capitol Rotunda, as was used by Ronald Reagan in 1985, also because of very cold weather,” he said on Truth Social on Friday.

Capitol One Arena — not far from the National Mall, where crowds would normally gather to watch the ceremony — will be opened to view the inauguration, and Trump said he would stop by the arena after his swearing-in.

The relatively small area inside the US Capitol will deprive Trump of the overflowing crowd he’d have wanted on the Mall. It will also likely cause jockeying among dignitaries and lawmakers to be able to witness Trump’s swearing-in personally.

Concerns about Inauguration Day weather come with historical context. President William Henry Harrison is widely believed to have caught a cold during his 1841 inaugural ceremony, during which he gave a two-hour speech and wore no coat or hat. He later contracted pneumonia and died one month after his inauguration.

President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump will ride in the same limo to the Capitol today ahead of the inauguration, a source familiar tells CNN.

The two did not ride together four years ago when Trump famously skipped Biden’s swearing-in but will return to the same tradition that President Barack Obama afforded to Trump in 2017.

President-elect Donald Trump will quickly implement executive actions on immigration, energy policy and federal government operations to check off dozens of campaign policy priorities.

Trump on Sunday pledged to issue “close to 100” executive orders on his first day in office. Many of these orders will be designed to reverse or eliminate ones implemented by the Biden administration.

Stephen Miller, Trump’s incoming deputy chief of staff for policy, previewed some of those actions Sunday afternoon on a call with senior congressional Republicans.

These are some of the promised orders:

• Immigration action: Miller confirmed elements of a long-planned, sweeping suite of immigration actions would come in, including Trump invoking a national emergency at the border as a way to unlock funding from the Defense Department for the administration’s use.

• Drug cartels: Trump will designate a series of drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and direct his administration to reinstate his first-term Migrant Protection Protocol policy, which is more commonly referred to as “Remain in Mexico.”

• Changes to federal government operation: Trump will sign executive orders rescinding federal government diversity, equity and inclusion policies, Miller told the lawmakers, as well as actions to remove specific gender-related executive orders put in place by President Joe Biden. An executive order, known as Schedule F, that would curtail or eliminate job protections for federal workers, will be a goal of Trump’s in his first hours in office.

President-elect Donald Trump took a victory lap on Sunday night, telling his supporters at a campaign-style rally that his first day in office will come with a flurry of executive actions to fulfill his 2024 campaign promises.

The president-elect’s comments came at the Capital One Arena in Washington, where supporters and incoming administration officials gathered for a final celebration of his win over Vice President Kamala Harris before Trump is sworn in at noon Monday.

Here are the key things to know:

• “It’s all going to be released”: Trump pledged to release all the classified records connected to the assassinations of former President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy and the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., as well as “other topics of great public interest.”

• “TikTok is back”: Trump took credit for TikTok coming back online hours after the app shut itself down in response to a new law banning it in the US. “As of today, TikTok is back,” Trump said, as he bragged about how many of his young supporters used the app owned by a Chinese company.

• “Fun watching television tomorrow”: Trump previewed an aggressive push to implement executive actions on his first day in office, telling the crowd he’d rebuffed advisers who urged him to space out signing them over a period of weeks, rather than immediately after his inauguration.

• “Epic ceasefire agreement”: Though President Joe Biden is still in office, Trump claimed credit for a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas to free Israeli hostages, claiming that “this agreement could only have happened as a result of our historic victory in November.”

• “We will rebuild Los Angeles”: Trump said he will visit California on Friday to survey the damage caused by devastating wildfires that have killed at least 27 people.

Read more about what he said, and a CNN fact check of his claims that night.

CNN will be providing live coverage of Donald Trump’s second inauguration throughout Monday.

Special live coverage begins at 7 a.m. ET and carries on through the ceremony, oath of office and inaugural balls in the evening.

CNN’s special coverage will also stream live on CNN, CNN-connected TV and mobile apps, and on CNN.com. It will also stream live on Max for Max subscribers.

CNN reporters, anchors and contributors will also take part in a live chat during the swearing-in, and the CNN app will feature a custom livestream featuring on-the-ground reporting, live updates, in-depth analysis and images.

A number of President-elect Donald Trump’s choices for his Cabinet appeared before Senate committees last week for confirmation hearings, where they were quizzed about their positions and how they would carry out their roles.

Those who have already had hearings include:

• Pete Hegseth, defense secretary pick
• Pam Bondi, attorney general pick
• Kristi Noem, homeland security secretary pick
• Doug Burgum, interior secretary pick
• Scott Bessent, treasury secretary pick

Here’s who else Trump has chosen to fill key roles in the administration:

Donald Trump’s public swearing-in ceremony will be held in US Capitol Rotunda after it was moved inside due to dangerously cold temperatures.

This will be the second time the ceremony will be held at this location, with the first being Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985.

Previously, the presidential oath of office has been taken 75 times in a variety of locations, including all four of Barack Obama’s swearing-in ceremonies in 2009 and 2013.

Not including this year’s inauguration, the oath of office has been administered at the following locations:

• US Capitol (57 occasions): Including, most commonly, the East Portico 34 times.
• Old Brick Capitol: The site of the current Supreme Court Building is where James Monroe took the oath in 1817 while the Capitol was being rebuilt after the war of 1812.
• White House (8 occasions): The East Room hosted two of those instances. Others include the Blue Room, the Cabinet Room and the Map Room.
• Washington, DC, not in the Capitol or the White House (2 occasions): John Tyler in 1841 took his oath at Brown’s Hotel after the death of William Henry Harrison, and Andrew Johnson in 1865 was sworn in at the Kirkwood Hotel after the death of Abraham Lincoln.
• Outside of Washington, DC (7 occasions): Early presidents George Washington and John Adams were sworn in in New York City and Philadelphia. Presidents Chester A. Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and Lyndon B. Johnson took their oaths in other cities after the deaths of their predecessors.

As Donald Trump prepares to officially take over the presidency, President Joe Biden had a message to Americans in his last days in office.

After four years in the White House — and a half-century in Washington — Biden gave a farewell address from the Oval Office. Sitting behind the Resolute Desk on Wednesday, the one-term Democratic leader used a 19-minute address to frame his 4-year presidency on his own terms — and to appeal for a brand of politics that he sees as rapidly disappearing.

Biden used the bulk of his time to issue a final warning about the path he sees the nation following, one he cautioned could erode the institutions he’s spent more than 50 years revering.

Here are some of the key lines from the speech:

• Burgeoning oligarchy: Biden warned of a developing “oligarchy” in America as he stressed the importance of holding the ultra-wealthy to the same expectations as the working- and middle-class citizens. He did not name the subjects of his warning, but his targets seemed clear: Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who’s about to have a clear line to the White House.
• Social media and tech companies: Biden pointed to social media as he reflected on the things that concern him as his presidency comes to a close. “Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling, editors are disappearing,” he said. He also warned about the “profound possibilities and risks” that come with artificial intelligence.
• His accomplishments: He ticked through many of his accomplishments, though chose not to expand on them in detail during his final appearance before the American people. Instead, he urged patience as his record is assessed, suggesting history could view him differently than polls.
• Democracy: Biden hailed the democratic institutions that underpin the United States of America and encouraged people to stay engaged. The theme of democracy vs. autocracy has been the underlying current of Biden’s presidency and his wider message to Americans. Amid a time of widespread dissatisfaction with government institutions, Biden said the system set up by the founders remains the best system of government.

Vice President-elect JD Vance has said that the Trump administration is going to “bring justice back to the American people.”

“We are going to make America great again and Donald J. Trump is going to be the president– In about 14 hours, Donald J. Trump is going to be the president because, because we worked our asses off. We never gave up hope in our fellow citizens. We never stopped working for it and we are going to bring justice back to the American people tomorrow,” Vance said at the Turning Point organization’s inaugural eve ball.

Just after midnight Monday, Vance joined Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk and Donald Trump Jr. on stage after the Village People wrapped up their performance that ended with “YMCA,” a staple song at Trump rallies. Vance, Trump Jr. and Kirk all did the “YMCA.”

The MAGA-studded party was attended by incoming Trump administration officials including Trump’s border czar Tom Homan and FBI director nominee Kash Patel.

Trump-allied members of Congress, including Republican Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma and Representatives Andy Biggs, Eli Crane, and Anna Paulina Luna were also in attendance.

Several celebrities – UFC fighter Conor McGregor, model Amber Rose, actor Zachary Levi and celebrity chef Paula Deen – were also spotted at the MAGA event.

Around 12 hours after shutting itself down in the United States, TikTok is back for many users almost like it never left, attributing its return to a move by President-elect Donald Trump to save the app.

TikTok welcomed users back with a notification that said: “Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!”

The whiplash move to bring the app back comes after TikTok became unusable for Americans late Saturday night. Users who tried to open the app at that time were met with a message saying it was offline and asking users to “stay tuned.”

“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now,” TikTok’s message read in part. The app was also unavailable on the Apple and Google Play stores, along with Lemon8 and CapCut, which are also owned by TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance.

Early on Sunday, Trump said he would issue an executive order following his inauguration on Monday to delay enforcement of the divest-or-ban law. And within hours, access to TikTok’s app and webpage began to return for US users.

TikTok CEO Shou Chew is expected to be seated prominently at the incoming president’s inauguration.

Pope Francis has criticized US President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to deport immigrants as a “disgrace.”

The pontiff was asked in an interview about the incoming Trump administration’s plans to expel undocumented immigrants through an aggressive slate of immigration executive orders by the incoming president.

“If it is true, it will be a disgrace, because it makes the poor wretches who have nothing to pay the unpaid bill. It won’t do. This is not the way to solve things,” Francis said Sunday.

The Pope has made advocacy for migrants a key part of his papacy, insisting they should be welcomed and integrated into societies.

It’s also a topic which resonates personally with Francis. In his new autobiography, the Pope recalled how his paternal grandparents and father had planned to sail in 1927 on the Principessa Mafalda from Italy to Argentina, which sank with the loss of many lives, but ended up making a later crossing.

Francis has signaled that he is ready to take a critical approach to the new Trump administration with his appointment of Cardinal Robert McElroy as the next Archbishop of Washington, DC.

McElroy has described mass deportations of immigrants as “incompatible with Catholic doctrine.”

On Sunday, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, also criticized the deportation plans. In 2016, Francis suggested then-presidential candidate Trump was “not Christian” for his anti-immigration views.