WHILE HUNDREDS OF thousands of US citizens marched in Chicago, Washington and New York against his election as US president – Donald Trump was at church.
President Donald Trump opened his first full day as president today at a national prayer service, the final piece of transition business for the nation’s new chief executive before a promised full-on shift into governing.
The interfaith service is a tradition for new presidents and is hosted by the Episcopal parish – but even the decision to hold a prayer session for President Trump sparked debate among Episcopalians opposed to his policies.
But Bishop Mariann Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington wrote in a blog post that while she shared “a sense of outrage at some of the president-elect’s words and actions” she felt an obligation to welcome all people without qualification, especially those who disagree and need to find a way to work together.
The dustup over the service marked another example of the backlash against Trump by religious leaders, artists, celebrities and others.
Meanwhile…
Wearing pink, pointy-eared “pussyhats” to mock their new president, hundreds of thousands of women massed in the nation’s capital to send Donald Trump an emphatic message that they won’t let his agenda go unchallenged over the next four years.
There were signs that the crowds in Washington could top those that turned out for Trump’s inauguration yesterday. City officials said organisers of the Women’s March on Washington more than doubled their original turnout estimate to 500,000 – meaning the crowd was too huge for them to lead.
Retired teacher Linda Lastella, 69, who came to Washington from Metuchen, New Jersey, said she had never marched before but felt the need to speak out when “many nations are experiencing this same kind of pullback and hateful, hateful attitudes.”
“It just seemed like we needed to make a very firm stand of where we were,” she said.
“We march today for the moral core of this nation, against which our new president is waging a war,” actress America Ferrera told the Washington crowd.
Our dignity, our character, our rights have all been under attack and a platform of hate and division assumed power yesterday. But the president is not America… We are America and we are here to stay.
Cher, in the nation’s capital, said Trump’s ascendance has people “more frightened maybe than they’re ever been.” In Park City, Utah, it was Charlize Theron leading demonstrators in a chant of “Love, not hate, makes America great.”
In New York, actresses Helen Mirren and Cynthia Nixon and Whoopi Goldberg joined a crowd of protesters marching to Trump’s local home.
The CIA and dismantling ObamaCare
After church, Trump planned to visit the CIA for a meeting with members of the nation’s intelligence community that could be fraught with tension.
Trump has sharply criticized top US intelligence officials over their conclusions that Russia interfered in the 2016 election on his behalf, as well as over leaks about classified briefings he received in the weeks before his he was sworn into office yesterday.
Trump has signaled an intention to make a quick and clean break from the Obama administration – and he hasn’t been slow to show he means business.
Before dancing with the new first lady at three inaugural balls last night, Trump signed an executive order aimed at former President Barack Obama’s health care law.
The order notes that Trump plans to seek the law’s “prompt repeal.” It allows the Health and Human Services Department and other federal agencies to delay implementing parts of the law that might impose a “fiscal burden” on states, health care providers, families or individuals.
He also plans on taking a regressive stance on climate change policies – much to the worry of environmentalists and other world leaders.
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