By Rep. John J. Duncan Jr.
The Knoxville Focus
January 30, 2025
It was entirely predictable and at times almost humorous to see the sour, partisan reaction by Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, and some in the national media to President Trump's inaugural address last week.
It was obvious that Biden, Harris and Mrs. Clinton are still bitter over Trump's two victories and it seemed very painful for them to have to listen to him advocate so many things that are so popular with the majority of the American people.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said the speech was "the darkest inaugural address ever" but to most people, there was nothing dark about Trump saying his administration would be "colorblind and merit-based."
Chris Hayes of MSNBC said the speech showed that Trump is like a "cult leader predicting different dates for the end of the world."
But the overwhelming majority of the people want a leader who will enforce our immigration laws and stop the flood of millions coming across our border illegally.
Jen Psaki, President Biden's former press secretary, said unlike previous inaugural addresses, Trump's was very "politicized."
But the overwhelming majority of the American people, I believe, were happy to hear how Trump will end the electric vehicle mandate and not force everyone to buy expensive, unreliable electric cars and trucks like Democrat politicians wanted.
And while Biden and Harris wanted to keep pouring billions of dollars down the rat hole in Ukraine, most Americans agreed with Trump when he said the government cannot manage even a simple domestic crisis "while at the same time stumbling into a continuing catalogue of catastrophic events abroad."
And the great majority especially agreed with Trump when he added: "We have a government that has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders but refuses to defend American borders, or more importantly, its own people."
When Trump criticized former House members Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and Liz Cheney (R-WY) in a second speech at the Capitol, Kinzinger said the president was "childish." All that did was show that Kinzinger can dish out criticism (as he often has toward Trump), but he can't take any in return.
Kinzinger is still bitter because the Republican Party in his congressional district condemned him for joining Nancy Pelosi's kangaroo court Jan. 6th Committee, and he blames Trump.
Almost every former Republican official who appears regularly on CNN or MSNBC is doing it for money and/or is mad at the Party because of some slight or for being turned down for some position.
Trump followed his speeches by signing many executive orders on his first day back in the White House. Executive orders, through most of our history, were mostly done to handle non-controversial, administrative matters. They were not supposed to be used to bypass Congress.
However, President Biden, or the power-mad people around him, used them on his first day to do all sorts of controversial and left-wing actions. So, many of Trump's new executive orders were to undo things Biden had done.
The executive order that I was most pleased about was Trump issuing pardons to over 1,500 J6 defendants, as they are called, and commute the sentences of about 14 others to time served.
Almost all these defendants were patriotic Americans who simply walked around the Capitol that day after going through doors held open for them by Capitol Police.
The Democratic J6 Committee covered up most of the films taken that day and refused to release them. It was only after Kevin McCarthy became speaker of the House and ordered the release of the films that the true story came out. People could then see how peaceful most of these people were and how the Democrats had so greatly exaggerated the events of that day for partisan political purposes.
The few who destroyed property or actually assaulted police should have been punished. But most were given very excessive sentences solely due to hatred for President Trump, and many were held in jail without trials longer than is usual even for people who have committed far more serious crimes.
Probably my strongest support group throughout my career has been by local law enforcement, and I liked all the Capitol Police. But the truth is that they had about the safest law enforcement jobs there were, and 99% of the time were just very nice, highly-paid tour guides.
President Trump will get strong pushback on everything he wants to do, but almost all items that were mentioned in his address are things the great majority want done.
This originally appeared on Knoxville Focus.