Paul McGeough is chief foreign correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald.
Trump delivered a dark inaugural address in which he pledged fealty to all Americans but he made little overt attempt to soothe a nation still wounded from arguably the ugliest election season of modern times.
Donald Trump opted for the tone of his campaign rallies over anything presidential, casting this inauguration as more special than all that had gone before it.
Trump aides claim that as many as 200 draft executive orders are ready for the new President's signature.
"It really is a reality TV show."
Just days before Donald Trump's swearing in as American president, a news report has revealed the remarkable breadth of a joint investigation by no less than six US intelligence agencies of claims that Russia helped the Trump campaign – and of the credibility the agencies attach to information that Trump dismisses as 'crap'.
Struggling to get the usual A-list performers, Trump's inauguration planners are resorting to un-Trumplike expectations.
Sightings of the stereotypical ugly American usually are reported from abroad, but this
At best it's careless to call anyone a Nazi – but to liken all of the US intelligence agencies to Hitler's goons is to recklessly seek trouble.
It's an end-of-term ritual. The outgoing president glides from the peak of one success to the next, sketching a preferred draft of his own legacy and at the same time, daring historians to repudiate it.
There was anticipation about which Trump would appear before the hacks. Alas, those expecting the worst weren't disappointed.
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