Following his official inauguration address in the Capitol Rotunda surrounded by members of Congress, family, and his donors, President Trump went downstairs to address supporters in the overflow room, where he delivered a “better” speech that included complaints about Congresswoman Liz Cheney, “rigged” elections, and President Biden’s pardons for family members and death row inmates.

Mr. Trump, Vice President Vance, Speaker Johnson, and their spouses all walked from the second floor of the Capitol, where the Rotunda is located, down to the congressional visitor center after the swearing-in ceremony and inaugural address to where hundreds of Trump supporters were gathered to watch the Rotunda event on jumbotrons. 

Mr. Trump reveled in being off script after the earlier address for which he used a telepromter. 

“You’re a younger, far more beautiful audience than I just spoke to!” Mr. Trump said to loud applause from the overflow room. The overflow area, stationed in Emancipation Hall in the visitor center, was packed with supporters, while the Rotunda was outfitted with members of Congress of both parties. 

The 47th president told his new audience point-blank that he would get to talk to them about some “controversial” things that his wife and staff allegedly didn’t want him including in his official Rotunda inaugural address. 

“I did have a couple of things to say that were extremely controversial, and between [Vice President] JD [Vance] and Melania and anybody else that heard—‘Please, sir! It’s such a beautiful, unifying speech! Please, sir, don’t say these things!’” Mr. Trump recounted. “I said, I’m telling you it’s gonna play great. They said, ‘For this group it’s gonna play great,’” Mr. Trump added, referring to the crowd in the Capitol. 

Mr. Trump’s second speech, which lasted for 33 minutes, was actually longer than his official inaugural address, which lasted for about 29 minutes. 

On his way out the door, Mr. Biden decided to pardon a number of officials and family members, including his siblings and their spouses, the members and staff of the January 6 Committee, and a former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, General Mark Milley. 

“I was going to talk about the J6 hostages, but you’ll be happy because … it’s action — not words — that count, and you’re gonna see a lot of action. … I was going to talk about the things that Joe [Biden] did today with the pardons with the people that were very, very guilty of very bad crimes, like the ‘UnSelect Committee’ of political thugs,” Mr. Trump explained, referring to the January 6 Select Committee and its vice chairwoman, Congresswoman Liz Cheney. 

“Why are we helping Liz Cheney? I mean Liz Cheney — she’s a disaster,” Mr. Trump said. “Crying Adam Kinzinger. He’s a super-cryer. He’s always crying,” the president added, referring to another GOP member of the January 6 Committee. 

Mr. Trump riffed on another one of his favorite subjects: claiming he won states, but they did not count due to “voter fraud.” Like in 2017 when he blamed his popular vote loss to Senator Clinton due to millions of illegal immigrants voting in California, Mr. Trump claimed that California may, in fact, have been stolen from him by Vice President Harris this past year, and said he may ask Mr. Johnson to look into it. 

“I think when we get things cleaned up and we get back to a little bit of normalcy, I’m gonna ask the speaker to really get involved because I think we would’ve won the state of California because, if you look at my numbers with Hispanics, we’re at 56 percent. We won the Texas border that had never been won,” Mr. Trump said before gesturing to Governor Abbott, who was sitting in the front row.