Throughout the hour. We begin with what is by any measure aistoric event in the life of this nation. The inauguration of donald j. Trump as the president of the United States. An Inauguration Day that looked very different than what we saw for now former president obama eight years ago. The streets in this city where trump got just 4 of the vote. This image posted by vox shows the 2009 inauguration of now former president obama on the left and trumps inauguration on the right with far fewer spectators. The crowd estimated to be about onethird the size of obamas and while there were thousands upon thousands of jubilant trump supporters, it was i believe possible not to notice nearly empty bleachers along the route of the inaugural parade. There were also thousands of protesters, the vast majority of whom were peaceful although some windows got broken and limos smashed and lit on fire. They were there in larger numbers than eight years ago and there is a huge protest march still to come tomorrow. Also scenes of violence among the protesters i noted, some of whom clashed with police. We have reports of arrests in d. C. And in San Francisco which is one of many cities that at this hour or during the day are having their own marches. But the biggest difference on this Inauguration Day was tone. Compared to the optimism of president obama eight years ago, President Trump offered a far darker vision of america one awash in drugs, crime, and poverty. As the Washington Post graphic lists, words trump said for the first time in any inaugural address bleed, carnage, disrepair, sad, stolen, tombstones. This american carnage stops right here and stops right now. Meanwhile, President Trump is signing things as the president of the United States. This is video inside the oval office. Trump signing confirmation papers for defense secretary mattis, Homeland Security director kelly. Also according to White House PressSecretary Sean Spicer an executive order, and i quote here to ease the burden of obamacare pending repeal although we have literally no idea what that means. We are hoping for more details information. Joining me, lynn sweet, Washington Bureau chief of the chicago suntimess. Sabrina siddiqui and tim carner. You can see one of the inaugural balls on the left of your screen. We are expecting at some point this evening the president and first ladyill make an appearance at one of those balls. Lynn, i imagine youve covered a number of these and ive been to every one since 2000 and all the way through. What struck you today . What struck me today besides the small crowds, it was great, get on the subway, what struck me was in the speech itself certainly the lack of strong aspirational tone. What struck me was the inability it seems of trump to find any way of unifying people. This is number six for me, inauguration, i think since 97 and usually people go away saying well, i didnt vote for him but i kind of got something out of that speech. And i dont think unless you know, hes so much talk to his base, chris, i dont know how ive never been to an inauguration to answer your question most crisply where there was not a message to the people who did not vote for the new president. I have to say, it didnt surprise me for this reason, and i agree with this, it was similar to the rnc speech. I remember getting an early copy of the text of the rnc speech thinking this is his first opportunity, hes going to be the nominee, youve won the primary, thats a speech where you try to shift the rhetoric and it wasnt. It was it was much like his inauguration speech. This is what the vision is. The ending of the speech was similar to what he had. Right, thats the point. But if youre him, that worked. He wasnt speaking to you. No. Well, thats clear. And so but it wasnt e ideologic ideological. It wasless ideological than w or obama. This wasnt a conservative speech by any stretch of the imagination. It was nationalist. And it was populist. Which i would note is an ideology. You expected him at the end of the speech to say and everybody come over to the white house for a kegger. Yes, hence the andrew jackson. It was against washington so it wasnt for you but it was for those people in michigan and pennsylvania who were the swing voters. You have to remember that donald trupecifically said as a candidate that this is the Republican Party, not the consvative party. So as far as his republican critics in washington are concerned, this did very little to alleviate some of the reservations that they might have about how he might govern. Because it could very much represent the beginning of a dramatic shift within the Republican Party and also you have to remember, donald trump very much caters to perceptions and i think that this speech, as lynn said, it was intended for his supporters and it was very much an indictment of all of the people who were sitting on that stage with him because that is at that is what he campaigned on. No one should be surprised because we keep looking for this pivot and donald trump has made it clear theres going to be no pivot. What i think is interest sag s that there was not a drop of ryanism or pencism. In fact, very little about the almighty. Im serious. Inaugurations tend to get pretty about god and there was very little of that. There was i dont think the idea of freedom, even the word freedom, there are a lot of free markets, things like that. This was the full bannon nationalist populism. But i was looking for i understand in a speech like this we dont want policy or politics. I think for his own governing ability i would have thrown in something that just doesnt leave everybody as polarized now as they came. Now Kellyanne Conway gave an interview where she said well, i think this is going to be aspirational and all this. I could see where there were some attempts at it but it didnt even come close. I will say this to tims point. I do think it was effective to a certain you know, the idea of the bleakness that he paints the picture of. For people that feel like things are bleak, i think thats effective. Thats a michigan pennsylvania democrat. Thats not the washington, d. C. Democrat. I just have the big question here on that devote that everyone is using, lets listen to the whole thing. Everyones seizing on carnage, carnage. He said its going to end now. Now. And this is to me the big difference. How are you going to do it . When are you going to do it . I want to bring in republican strategist msnbc contributor wanted to talk to you about the Foreign Policy aspects of the speech because in som ways the most remarkably radical parts of the speech i think have to do with the way he talked about his vision for what the kind of International Order of trumpism looks like and it i think, and im curious what you think, a radical departure from where things are. An absolutely radical departure from the postcold war and the post world war ii consensus amongst democrats and republicans about the primacy of the United States as the guarantor of a liberal international rulesbased order that has largely preserved and kept the peace after the catastrophe that killed 80 Million People in the second world war. American Foreign Policy has always been values based and when he talks today about all nations have the right to pursue their interests as they see those interests, thats going to be greeted with cheers in beijing and moscow. That is their point when they push back about americas assertion of values across the world and so i think its a speech that sent shivers down the spine of our european allies and i think it was gratifying to some other leaders like Vladimir Putin for instance. Yeah, and you know i should say that theres a lot of people around the world who believe those American Values have been honored in the breach a lot. As a sort of addition to the context to that but youre totally right. I mean particularly tim, you mentioned this, the second inaugural of george w. Bush which was basically that as long as theres any person anywhere in the world who isnt free that americas goal is to liberate them. It was unbelievably sweeping. And i just remember listening to that second inaugural and thinking this was the most ideological speech id ever heard where bush was laying out this vision that came straight out of sort of washington, d. C. Think tank talking points and it wasnt the way americans felt. Americans dont feel oh, well, i want to make sure the saudis are living according to madisonn principles. And one of the things trump has done is hes taken this Republican Party, the ideology, a lot of which i subscribe to and said, nope, were not going to go there, were going to tie it to this populist thing. I thought todays speech reflected that populism, including the international level. Sabrina and then steve i want to come to you with another question. One of the compelling themes of Donald Trumps presidency will be the narrative he constructs around himself through the rhetoric you heard today and youll have mike pence behind the scenes and someone he appoints to his cabinet go a frern different way to keep somewhat of the republican orthodoxy in place. A lot of it has to do with donald trump, again, creating the perception he promised he would do. Creating the perception hes bringing back jobs so all he needs to the he is have media savvy. He needs to keep his supporters pacified through speeches. He went on the victory tour. Make them believe he is doing what he said he would do. We dont know the extent to which hell carry out a lot of what he promises. This connects to something lynn said about promises. He made a lot of promises today. In fact he said he was going to eradicate radical islamic terrorism from the face of the earth. Now, i went back and i looked at Barack Obamas twine inauguration. Whats interesting about that as a document is all the hope and change rhetoric, that was a very kind of cleareyed speech that was very much like its going to be really hard and we face a lot of challenges. It was an attempt to ratchet down almost explicitly expectations. Today donald trump promised the world. No, he sure did and, look, hes going to be held to measure on that. You know, three times in the last 100 years the president s party has won seats, gained seats in the first midterm election. Structurally the system is set up, usually that that incumbent party loses seats. We will not be too far from now talking about the midterm elections and all of this is down for the record now. I think one of the things is we functionally have three parties in washington. We have a trump party which is nationalist and populist, we have a Republican Party thats a conservative party and we have a Democratic Party and so the issues in the coalitions that we form around issues like infrastructure where republicans are spending a trillion dollars of infrastructure, the ideological pursuits of a paul ryan who wants to privatize medicare signed by trump so you have a Republican Congress not thats not going to be warm to Donald Trumps idea of the imposition of 35 tariffs on automobiles made outside of the country. This coalition will be very interesting to watch as it starts to functioning in a governing capacity. This is thats a great point, steve schmidt. Thank you for your time tonight. It was great to talk to you. It tees up perfectly the point i wanted to talk about what happened on the governing side. Stuff already happened. I have a document here. And that distance between Bannon Trumpism and ryanism, pencism and what that means for what the government duds. Thats the liberty ball that you see on your left. Were expecting the president and the first lady of the United States of america to come in there and maybe say some words and dance and celebrate as the revellers are celebrating the 45th president of the United States sworn in today at noon. Lynn sweet, Sabrina Siddiqui and tim carney are too. Dont go anywhere. It is inauguration night. Thats the liberty ball youre seeing on the left. Footage from earlier today. The president and first lady when they got out of the motorcade, out of the limousine, the president ial motorcade and walked for a bit along that parade route and this is a live shot of the gorgeous nations capit capital. Tonight we are expecting the president and first lady will be showing up for a dance at some point. Obviously we got our eyes on that. Lots going on. Have lynn sweet, Sabrina Siddiqui and tim carney. I have the First Executive order signed by the president. This is minimizing the economic burden of the Affordable Care act and i should say it looks like a tremendously sweeping document so im going to quote one section for you that gives you a sense of it. To the maximum extent permitted by law, and that claus will be important secretary of hhs, heads of all other departments and agencies with authorities under the act shall exercise all authority and discretion of them fortowaive, defer, grant exemptions from or delay any provision of the requirement of the act that would impose a fiscal burden on a state or cost, fee, Regulatory Burden on families, health care providers, patient recipients, etc. , etc. The key thing about the paragraph is everything about to the maximum extent permitted by law is you can do whatever you want. The question is what does the law abide . This law had a thousand clauses that said the secretary shall, the secretary shall, the secretary shall. So some of that went through sort of more formal rule making process but some of that went through less extensive rule making process. Heres the thing because im reading this, too and the goal here is to you have the power, tim, now, if you were an executive and now remember theres no political appointees in place so im not sure who for the short term this is a good question. I cannot answer the question. Because the hhs secretary designate has not been confirmed. I should be clear. This is the First Executive order signed by the president of the United States. It has we are its text has been released. It was signed by the president in the oval office earlier today. It is titled minimize the economic burden of the Affordable Care act. Anything that deals with your critical health, safety, financial or National Security matters or the great one, it says here, for some other reason. Right. The point here is that this is, a, going to be litigated. B, this is the opening battle in what will be the first and biggest battle on the hill. The Affordable Care act. Before we get just so our listeners know. The bill as tim said being so complex that meant that the a lot of the regulations, most of them, the guts of it, was really subject to interpretation and rule making by the department of health and human services. It didnt even necessarily have to every dot and t crossed didnt get done by Congress Even with all those 4,000 pages. So this is a law where the guts are dealing with it are so much done by hhs and the regulations, thats why this is important. And so when you talk about litigation, you know, step one, lets get someone in there with the power to do something, whatever it is. I dont know who the head of the hhs is as of this moment. So nothing will happen today or tomorrow. Really people, there are people that think, great, i have a problem, this cant affect you in the next week or two. You have to get the people in place but moreover they have to still i think have some process eventually with you cant have waiver everything forever, right . And this is obviously with respect to the health dare law as you said, the biggest and most immediate debate confronting congress and i think that the challenge facing republicans in particular is after all these years and, of course, all these vows to repeal and replace obamacare there still isnt consensus within the party, within elected officials in washington on a path forward so you have one camp that is saying just repeal it entirely day one, that was the vow. You have the other camp saying repeal and have a twoyear process to come up with a replacement so it wouldnt immediately phase out. Then you have to third saying we shouldnt repeal it unless we have a replacement line up. And were still waiting for that replacement plan. The amount of work that the Obama Administration put into building any individual rule, thats the amount of work roughly it takes to dismantle it. So a lot of republicans hope and a lot of democrats fear that trump can undo it with a stroke of a pen, but no. It will take months. I would hate too leave here without this. What is this executive order going to do to to Insurance Market . If youre running an Insurance Company right now and youre trying to price policies, i dont think im glad that youre really worried about aetna and Blue Cross Blue Shield because they deserve our sympathy, too. I think what you deserve is an orderly transition to market. I am a health consumer. We all are with our policies. You nt want somebody to jack up your price because now they dont know what the future holds. The fear here and the dif