It doesn't matter whether or not he actually touched that Bible. At 12:01 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, the invisible power pulse rose from the battered volume to the five downright normal digits of Donald John Trump's right hand.
And it happened. Sitting a few feet away in the Capitol rotunda, I saw the moment the wokerati of the world had worked so hard to prevent.
I saw the resurrection of the man they despised and vilified – the second inauguration that so many believed was morally, politically, legally, and perhaps even biologically impossible.
By taking that oath – with Melania at his side in her blue skipper – Donald Trump became not only the 45th but also the 47th president and completed the most spectacular political comeback of all time.
His speech ranged from rising optimism to sheer bullishness of a kind that seemed like his opponents might be chewing the carpet.
He started with an almost singing softness. A golden age had begun, he announced, leaning over the stage and looking sideways at us.
“There is sunlight streaming all over the world,” he whispered, and as we looked up at the immense dome above us, we saw how obedient rays of sunlight seemed to break through the windows at that moment.
And then he gradually started to increase the volume of his boasting.
Donald Trump takes the oath of office with his wife Melania during his inauguration at the US Capitol in Washington
With America's tech titans behind him — some now considerably more reverent than they were — he proclaimed that the next four years would be the greatest in American history. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook – they all sat right behind Trump, as if to emphasize the new symbiosis between the president and America's super oligarchs. They all clapped.
To loud acclaim, he promised to crush inflation, drive out illegal immigrants, restore America's manufacturing industry and plant the Stars and Stripes on Mars.
Somehow, he would regain U.S. control of the Panama Canal—an announcement that was received rather poorly by the ex-presidents behind him.
He would break restrictions on US oil and gas and his message to the hydrocarbon industry was: drill baby, drill.
Again, this didn't seem to be a big deal with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
It sent his supporters into a frenzy of excitement.
Henceforth, he promised that only two genders would be recognized by the U.S. government: male and female. This again resulted in a standing ovation.
In fact, almost everything got a standing ovation – and it got to the point where I started to follow the example of one of the well-groomed young Trump kids before me, who only seemed to get to his feet on very special occasions.
Mr Trump, 78, kisses Melania, 53, who has become First Lady for the second time
As we neared the climax of the speech, Trump made a point about America – that it encourages its citizens to try to achieve the impossible. In America, unlike other countries, they can succeed.
“The impossible is what we do best,” he said, and to prove the point he naturally cited his own career: his astonishing political revival. When you look at the facts, it's hard to disagree.
This is a 78-year-old man who has numerous lawsuits filed against him, most of them annoying and all purely designed to keep him from voting. For four years he fought day in and day out to win back the presidency.
He has spoken at hundreds of rallies and public events, interweaving his monologues to the point of becoming hoarse from the effort. He has tweeted endlessly in his own inimitable voice.
He has approached groups that distrusted him – and gradually won them over.
Thanks to a phenomenal work ethic and a refusal to give up, he has become only the second man in history to serve two non-consecutive terms as president.
In November, he became the first Republican in two decades to win the popular vote.
Above all, he showed his courage when he missed death by a millimeter when a high-velocity bullet hit his ear during a rally in Pennsylvania.
Attending the inauguration were Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez with Amazon fiancée Jeff Bezos and a furiously texting Google CEO Sundar Pichai alongside Elon Musk.
Who among us would have the guts to stand up – as he did – and with a bloodied face urge his supporters to 'fight, fight, fight'?
Trump had concluded, he told us, that the Lord had intervened. In what must rank as one of the most alpha-male statements of all time, he said he was personally saved by God to make America great again.
No one disagreed with this extraordinary proposal. On the contrary, they gave him another standing ovation.
There were many people in that audience who believed that it was literally true: that Trump is now one of the great figures immortalized on the canvases and statues in the room.
Washington, Lincoln – and now Trump, a man sent to fulfill the manifest destiny of the United States.
It's hard to overstate the excitement and confidence generated in Washington by the second coming of Trump, this real estate agent turned reality TV star.
On Wall Street, Trump's optimism and confidence are communicating to the markets – and in the near future, US growth will surpass that of Britain and the rest of Europe.
But it's not just the rich who are turning to Trump – and it certainly wasn't the rich who showed up in large numbers near the Capitol yesterday, in minus-three temperatures, to wave their red Maga flags and catch a glimpse of their hero.
Musk is Trump's most important advisor, writes Boris Johnson. He is a proponent of clean transportation and believes that the US's electricity needs can be met by 100 square miles of solar panels
For hundreds of millions of Americans, the billionaire with the orange crest is a man who sees things as they do – and who shares their pain and fears. In addition, he is a man who can really get things done.
They believe he can defeat the drug cartels and solve the problem of illegal immigration.
They believe him when he says he can make America respected around the world.
This weekend they had another huge point of proof of Trump's effectiveness: the deal between Israel and Hamas, and the release of the first hostages.
No one here believes this would have happened without Trump's intervention.
And for millions of others – in the US and around the world – that speech will obviously have done nothing to allay their fears.
They will stick with his loose language about taking back Panama. They will be obsessed with his apparent indifference to global warming, and his encouragement of fossil fuels.
They will worry that by insisting on America's absolute right to free speech, he will somehow encourage a new and brutal culture of verbal aggression. Above all, they will be disturbed by his complete silence on the subject of Ukraine – Europe's biggest war in eighty years.
What does it mean? Will Trump abandon this completely innocent country – and hand victory to Putin?
Well, we'll see – but I remain firmly among the optimists.
Whatever Trump says about drilling, his top advisor is Elon Musk, who advocates clean transportation and believes the entire US electricity needs can be met by 100 square miles of solar panels.
Trump talks a lot about tariffs – but he did that last time, and he ended up striking a free trade deal with China.
The UK government should get its act together and come up with a similar free trade deal.
The Trump administration is ready in a way that Biden simply was not.
On Ukraine, I cannot believe for a second that Trump would allow America – and the West – to be humiliated by a capitulation to Vladimir Putin.
As the ceremony ended with cries of “USA, USA,” Trump pumped his fist and left — to sign 200 executive orders with his seismograph signature.
All human institutions need a leader, and the world is no exception. For better or worse, America is the leader of our planet, and things generally improve when that leadership is strong.
That strong leadership is what Trump is apparently determined to provide.
