I Callista and I were very fortunate to have the opportunity to be in the rotunda when President Trump was sworn in and gave his inauguration address. It was a remarkable speech. As I listened to it, I thought, you know, this may be the most revolutionary speech ever given by an American president as part of being sworn in. I went back the next day and began reading Jefferson’s two inaugural addresses, Andrew Jackson’s first inaugural and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first inaugural. Those were clearly the most bold inaugural addresses prior to Trump, and it was just very clear that the Trump address was dramatically bolder. It was bolder about culture. It was bolder about the economy. It was bolder about politics. It was bolder about reshaping the government, and it was much bolder about foreign policy and the changes that are coming. I think President Trump believes, and he said this in his speech, that his life had been saved by what I thought at the time was absolutely a miracle,

because God had a mission for him that frankly, reminded me of two movies Callista and I had made one about Ronald Reagan and the other about Pope John Paul the second. And when the two of them got together, they had both survived assassination attempts, and they talked about, you know, why did God spare us? And they concluded it was for the purpose of defeating the Soviet Union, and that they would become allies to do that. Well, similarly, I think it’s fair to say that President Trump believes that his life had been spared in miraculous ways so that he really could make America great again. He outlined very dramatic changes going back to classic American principles, the work ethic merit, the whole notion of being an American, the things that had historically in his lifetime defined America. He also went back to the economics of Ronald Reagan, dramatic growth, lower taxes, less regulations, and he outlined a tariff policy that was a return to the world of William McKinley arguing that foreigners should pay the taxes, not Americans, a policy which at one time had been very, very popular. He also came back and said that we were going to change government in very fundamental ways. And finally, he’s explained a very pro American view of the world that would break up the kind of internationalism which had come to dominate, even though it was greatly to America’s disadvantage. I thought it was a remarkable speech. I would encourage you to get a copy of it, read it, think about what he’s trying to tell us, and then watch as he follows that speech and actually implements those enormous changes i.