The Economist: “But there was nothing for those hoping to see a more pragmatic, moderate President Trump take office, or to hear him admit that the world is complex and less pliable than he pretended on the campaign trail. All populists are at heart conspiracy theorists, who pretend that easy solutions exist to society’s woes and have only not been tried to date because elites are wicked and deaf to the sturdy common-sense of decent, ordinary folk.”

“That was the Trump approach.”

“Interior Department officials have been ordered to shut down the organization’s official Twitter accounts indefinitely after the National Park Service shared tweets comparing attendance at President Trump’s inauguration against former President Obama’s,” Politico reports.

“The photos were seen as stark evidence that Trump’s prediction of an ‘unbelievable, perhaps record-setting turnout’ did not come to fruition.”

President Donald Trump has returned a bust of Winston Churchill to the Oval Office, “undoing former President Obama’s most contentious interior decorating decision,” Politico reports.

“The Churchill bust had become a source of huge Republican outcry through the Obama presidency, with critics charging that then-president was turning his back on history and insulting America’s strongest ally. There were claims that Obama had put it in storage or returned it to the British government as a metaphor for his changing worldview—but none of those were true. He had moved it to a different place in the White House, in the Treaty Room on the second floor, which is in the residence, out of public view.”

Jonathan Chait: “The presidency raises the stakes of Trump’s con game to a completely new level. In his inaugural address, Trump declared his fealty to the People, promising to unleash untold wealth to them that was being held by elites in Washington and by foreigners. ‘We will bring back our jobs,’ he said. ‘We will bring back our wealth.’ He promised to quash crime and ‘eradicate’ Islamic terrorism ‘from the face of the Earth.’ The grandiosity of these promises is necessary to get even the minority of the electorate that can tolerate Trump to overlook his overt grossness and corruption.”

“The methods of a skilled con artist have worked just barely well enough to deliver the presidency to Trump. But what happens when his grandiose promises fail to materialize? And when the aspects of his program that he never mentioned in his speech — tax cuts for the rich, stripping away health insurance from millions, massive graft — do take place? A con artist who always escaped his old victims and found new ones has reached the maximal limits of his strategy. What happens when the marks are demanding that the promises he made be redeemed, and there is nowhere for him to go, and he commands the powers of the state?”

Walter Shapiro: “The flamethrower has been passed to a new generation, an older generation, bristling with resentments yet faithful to themes of the 2016 campaign.”

“Donald J. Trump’s Inaugural Address was one for the ages. For decades to come — no matter how his presidency is remembered — the bluntness of his words on a grey and rainy Friday afternoon will be recalled as a turning point, a fork in the winding road of American democracy.”

George Will: “Twenty minutes into his presidency, Donald Trump, who is always claiming to have made, or to be about to make, astonishing history, had done so. Living down to expectations, he had delivered the most dreadful inaugural address in history.”

ProPublica: “At a news conference last week, now-President Donald Trump said he and his daughter, Ivanka, had signed paperwork relinquishing control of all Trump-branded companies. Next to him were stacks of papers in manila envelopes — documents he said transferred “complete and total control” of his businesses to his two sons and another longtime employee.”

“That hasn’t happened.”

“To transfer ownership of his biggest companies, Trump has to file a long list of documents in Florida, Delaware and New York. We asked officials in each of those states whether they have received the paperwork. As of 3:15 p.m. today, the officials said they have not.”

President Trump officially took over the @POTUS Twitter account and used a background featuring the inauguration, but not his. It was from Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009, Slate reports.

Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States at 12 pm ET.