Hillary Clinton chuckled merrily when President Trump said he would rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” A phalanx of Proud Boys marched past partygoers streaming into the Canadian Embassy and chanted, “Are you ready to be the 51st state?” Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, shouted out to 1,500 revelers that “we were babies” in the first term but “now we can get stuff done like never before!”
Over two frigid days in Washington, there was a powerful sense of triumphalism, jubilation and gloating as Mr. Trump’s supporters poured into a fortresslike capital for his second inaugural. Temperatures and winds were so brutal that the swearing-in and Inaugural Address were moved inside.
But women still teetered on icy sidewalks in bare legs and stiletto heels on the way to packed hotel ballrooms. National Guardsmen manned streets blocked off with metal fencing and concrete barricades. The oligarchs assembled for a billionaires’ ball.
And “Y.M.C.A.,” one of Mr. Trump’s favorite songs, blared day and night from pedicabs.
Here are some pages from a reporter’s notebook.
Happy Canadians, for a While
The Canadians were elated. At a well-heated rooftop party on Monday morning at their embassy on Pennsylvania Avenue, word was out that Mr. Trump would not slap 25 percent tariffs on all goods from Canada and Mexico as he had threatened — at least on Day 1.
“There’s relief,” said Andrew Furey, the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, who was in town for the inaugural. And yet, there were those Proud Boys outside, trolling the embassy about Mr. Trump’s pay-attention-to-me call to make Canada America’s newest state.
“I’m not going to be threatened by a handful of — ahh,” Mr. Furey said, stopping at what kind of handful he meant. Finally, he came up with the anodyne “handful of people.” He said there was “zero chance” that Canada would ever be a 51st star on the American flag.
Update: Things did not look as rosy for the Canadians later in the day. On Monday night, Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office that he intended to enact those 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting on Feb. 1.
Only hours earlier, on a corner of the Canadian Embassy roof with a spectacular view of the Capitol, the premier of Prince Edward Island, Dennis King, was downing a Raspberry Point oyster, a specialty of his province. He said his country was trying not to poke the bear, Mr. Trump.
“We’re trying to be as Canadian and diplomatic as we can be,” Mr. King said. He also said, diplomatically, that “it’s hard to ignore the president because he has such a unique way of reaching people.”
Selfies With Megyn Kelly
Charlie Kirk did not appear at his black-tie party on Sunday night until well past 11, hours after it started. Then Mr. Kirk, the founder and president of Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump nonprofit that promotes conservatism to American youths, bounced onto the stage in a ballroom of mostly young people in sequins, Rapunzel hair and cowboy hats. Mr. Kirk’s onstage posse included Don Jr. and Kash Patel, Mr. Trump’s pick to be the F.B.I. director.
“Drill, baby, drill!” Mr. Kirk said to raucous cheers. He added that “I truly believe that this is God’s grace on our country, giving us another chance to fight and to flourish.” (Mr. Trump built on that theme in his Inaugural Address. “I was saved by God to make America great again,” he said, referring to the assassination attempt he survived in July.)
The party was at the Salamander Hotel, once known as the Mandarin Oriental, and the crowd of 1,500 amused themselves before Mr. Kirk arrived by taking selfies with Megyn Kelly, who spoke at Mr. Trump’s rally on Sunday and gleefully recounted that Jennifer Lopez’s endorsement of Kamala Harris for president in 2024 had failed. (“How happy are you that her candidate lost?” Ms. Kelly said. “It’s delightful!” The crowd roared.)
Kari Lake, the election denier and former television newscaster who is now Mr. Trump’s pick to run Voice of America, was at the Salamander Hotel, too. So was Alina Habba, a lawyer for Mr. Trump in his various legal battles who will serve as his presidential counselor.
Don Jr., in addition to telling the crowd what babies members of the Trump team were in 2016, used a favorite line in denying that they ever colluded with the Russians. “I can assure you, if you were in the campaign room in 2016, we couldn’t collude to order a cheeseburger,” he said, to laughter.
Mr. Patel said very little, or if he did, it was impossible to hear him. Then there was a live performance of “Y.M.C.A.” that included a founder of Village People. The crowd sang along enthusiastically, but shortly afterward there was a massive pileup at the coat check.
Not So Glamorous
Speaking of which, inaugurals are theoretically supposed to be glamorous. They no doubt are for the most important participants, like the president and the first lady. But for the thousands of supporters and nonbillionaire donors who come from around the country, there are long lines, frustrating waits in the cold and periods of chaos.
The coat check at the Salamander Hotel was still so backed up into the small hours of Monday that people took matters into their own hands and pushed past the claim table to fetch their own coats. Ubers were taking more than an hour to reach the hotel, in an out-of-the-way corner in Southwest Washington, if they made it at all. Taxis were effectively unavailable.
By Monday morning so many streets were blocked off in downtown Washington, even to pedestrians, that people came up against metal fencing at one street corner after another trying to reach their destinations. After Mr. Trump’s Inaugural Address, Larissa Kilber, 30, who said she worked in tech in San Francisco, was standing at a metal fence at Indiana Avenue and Seventh Street, with the National Mall blocked off on the other side.
She, her husband and two friends had tickets to sit in front of the Capitol for the address. But once it was moved inside, Ms. Kilber said, “we went to a bar to eat pizza and watch the whole ceremony with our fellow Americans.” She pronounced it “a beautiful day.”
Billionaires and Icing
There was exultation at Capital One Arena during a Sunday rally and at what was billed on Monday as an event to substitute for the inaugural parade. Both went on for hours, with speaker after speaker. On Monday, Mr. Trump theatrically signed executive orders at the arena late into the day.
On Sunday his younger son Eric Trump had been one of the speakers who denounced the opposition that stood in the way of his father’s pursuit of the White House. “They did everything they could to stop this movement, and they failed,” he said.
A truck driver who had come down from Philadelphia for the Sunday rally, Richard Lorah, loved every minute of it. “It was the icing on the cake,” he said afterward.
Later on Monday, while Mr. Trump was still signing executive orders in the arena, the billionaires’ ball had begun. Four billionaires — Mark Zuckerberg, Todd Ricketts, Miriam Adelson and Tilman Fertitta — hosted the black tie event at Mastro’s Steak House in downtown Washington.
