Trump appeals to young voters in pre-inauguration rally

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump — the oldest man to win the presidency —  offered himself Sunday as a champion of the youth, saying that decades from now, his youngest supporters would hail him as one of the greatest to call the White House home.

“Someday, 30 years from now, 40 years from now, 50 years from now, some of these young people are going to say, ‘I remember Donald Trump, he did a good job,’” Trump asserted here during a pre-inaugural rally at Capital One Arena.

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Trump, who will be sworn in for a second time Monday, attributed the strides he made with younger voters in part to his newfound support of TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media company he once favored putting out of business but that he has more recently embraced. 

On Sunday, Trump announced that one of his first moves upon returning to office will be to sign an executive order that delays a ban on TikTok that was upheld last week by the Supreme Court. The announcement followed a brief interruption to TikTok’s availability in the U.S.

“As of today, TikTok is back,” Trump said, drawing a huge cheer from the audience.

Trump’s rally was framed as a supersized victory lap. A parade of Trump-friendly figures took the stage before him, including Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White, conservative media star Megyn Kelly and Stephen Miller, the anti-immigration firebrand and incoming White House deputy chief of staff.

Supporters filled all but the upper level of the arena, which seats 20,000 during sporting events and had hundreds more seats arranged on the floor. Campaign slogans — “Trump Will Fix It,” among others — scrolled across the scoreboards as warm-up speakers took the stage.

“Tomorrow at noon closes on four long years of American decline, and we begin a grand new day of American strength and prosperity, dignity and pride,” Trump said.

Trump promised a swift flurry of executive orders meant to undo actions taken by outgoing President Joe Biden. He also alluded to how his return to power has accelerated a course correction among big tech and other business executives who once had treated him warily while endorsing progressive corporate governance policies that drew ridicule among his MAGA base. 

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg have in recent weeks made moves to align their companies and themselves more closely with Trump’s values. Both accepted invitations to attend Monday’s inauguration ceremony. From the stage, Trump name-dropped Tim Cook, the Apple CEO with whom he recently met with and, according to Trump, spoke again with Sunday.

“Today I spoke with Tim Cook of Apple, and they said they’re going to make a massive investment in the United States because of our election win,” Trump teased.

With forecasts of dangerously cold weather moving Monday’s inauguration ceremony indoors, the rally served as a spiritual release point for the thousands of Trump supporters and other Republicans in Washington this week. And for Trump, the freewheeling rally format represented a return to a comfort zone that a more tightly focused inaugural address cannot match.

Kid Rock, the Trump ally and rock star, performed a brief set — including “We the People,” a song that includes the lyric “Let’s go, Brandon,” a phrase that in recent years emerged as an anti-Biden meme in place of a vulgar taunt of the outgoing Democratic president.

Trump family members also addressed the audience. After Eric and Lara Trump led their two young children in the pledge of allegiance, Eric Trump offered some PG-13-rated fare.

“The nonsense ends. The bulls— ends,” Eric Trump said, previewing his father’s second term.

And Elon Musk, the billionaire Tesla CEO and owner of the social media site X who is leading a Trump-championed effort to cut federal spending, briefly joined Trump on stage. 

“We’re looking forward to making a lot of changes,” Musk said. “This victory is the start, really. What matters going forward is to actually make significant changes.”

Missing from Sunday’s program was Vice President-elect JD Vance, who had been scheduled to speak before Trump. But Vance had to be elsewhere at a hard and set time. After earlier delays in the rally programming, Vance left the arena before addressing the crowd to get where he needed to be and ensure Trump was able to deliver his remarks on time, two sources familiar with the logistics said.

Trump appeared to be confused about his running mate’s whereabouts — “wherever the hell he is,” he said at one point during his speech.

Trump’s remarks were otherwise peppered with the topics that often animate him and his crowds, from pardoning supporters who were convicted of crimes following the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol to his hopes for the Musk-led “Department of Government Efficiency” advisory commission.

The president-elect pledged at one point to declassify records pertaining to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother and former attorney general Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., as well as other records of national interest. Trump sought to declassify all of the records related to the elder Kennedy brother’s 1963 assassination during his first term but was not able to do so.

He also assured that everyone in the arena would be “very happy” with his choice of whether to pardon those convicted of crimes following the Capitol riot, calling those convicts the “J6 hostages.” Trump then immediately transitioned to praising Ted Leonsis, owner of Washington’s professional hockey team, the Capitals, and pro basketball’s Wizards and Mystics, for his assistance with the rally and for his attendance Sunday.

“Their team is doing very well,” Trump said of the Capitals, before singling out the team’s star winger. “And [Alexander] Ovechkin is a great player.”