AMY GOODMAN: President Donald Trump was sworn in Monday as the nation’s 47th president. The inauguration took place inside the U.S. Capitol, the same spot where Trump supporters staged an insurrection January 6th, 2021, in a violent attempt to keep him in power after he lost the 2020 race to Joe Biden. Hours after Monday’s inauguration, Trump granted “full, complete and unconditional” presidential pardons to over 1,500 people involved in the January 6th insurrection. He also commuted the sentences of 14 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, many of whom had been convicted of seditious conspiracy. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes had his 18-year sentence commuted. He was freed earlier today. Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio received a full pardon. He had been sentenced to 22 years in prison. Trump signed the pardons Monday night.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: So, this is January 6th, and these are the hostages, approximately 1,500, for a pardon. Full pardon.

REPORTER: Full pardon or a commutation, or both?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Full pardon. We have about six commutations in there, where we’re doing further research.

REPORTER: OK.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: So this is a big one. Anything you want to explain about this? We hope to get them — we hope they come out tonight, frankly.

AMY GOODMAN: The scope of Trump’s pardons surprised many in Washington. Just last week, nine days ago, Trump’s Vice President JD Vance told Fox News people who committed violence on January 6th shouldn’t be pardoned.

SEN. JD VANCE: If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned. And there’s a little bit of a gray area there, but we’re very much committed to seeing the equal administration of law. And there are a lot of people, we think, in the wake of January the 6th who were prosecuted unfairly. We need to rectify that.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Jeff Sharlet, journalist, author, professor of English and creative writing at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. His latest book, The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War.

Jeff Sharlet, take it from the top for us. Explain what just happened yesterday, the blanket pardon of 1,500, even though you have JD Vance — in fact, Trump himself — saying that they were going to weigh these one by one.

JEFF SHARLET: What it is is the worst-case scenario. And I think what you emphasized, the expansiveness of the pardon, the glee with which the pardon was issued, is striking. And I think it’s easy for people to say, “Well, he had been talking about this. We knew this was coming.” But it’s important to remember that the first lie of fascism is always its own inevitability. And we heard JD Vance wavering. And if you were following Trump on the campaign trail, there was always these nods. We now know, of course, that the nods were not to any actual belief that violence against police, that led to the death of police, was a problem. It was Trump feeling out how far he could go. And yesterday he shows he felt he can go all the way with this complete, total pardon and framing of what happened on January 6 as, in fact, a part of the sacred violence, the part of the noble myth of American history, one of his so-called liberation days.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jeff, the order begins with a roll call of heroes, calling out the leaders by name, 14 of them. Could you talk about that and what that signifies, in your view?

JEFF SHARLET: I read the executive order. You see me laughing, but it’s this sort of — again, how far will the fascism go? The 14 — it begins with a list of 14 names, men like Joe Biggs, Ethan Nordean, very — some of these guys on that list are very, very violent people. And these were the planners. These were the planners of a coup. These were the people who had the idea of overthrowing the United States government, or so the old conviction held.

But what’s notable is that number, 14. And perhaps it’s a coincidence that he chose only 14, but that is a clear echo and is being heard in white supremacist circles as an echo of the so-called 14 words. This is this kind of slogan about saving the future for white children that is kind of a motto of the far right. So, it’s a little bit like Elon Musk’s ”sieg heil” salute yesterday. You can argue over whether or not it was intentional. What I can’t help but notice is Elon Musk not saying it wasn’t intentional. And I haven’t seen any pushback from the White House to the neo-Nazis who are celebrating the 14 leaders, symbols to them of the 14 words.

AMY GOODMAN: Just to ask you something, before Juan asks another question, just on the ”sieg heil” salute, and you have Nadler and others, the congressmember saying this is a clear ”sieg heil” salute. There was a meme going around that shows him in that salute, his hand and his arm out. And it says, “You’re going to hear from people that Elon Musk did the Roman salute here. And that’s true. He’s done it before. But that’s not exculpatory. The Roman salute was adopted by Mussolini and Italian fascists. It was then adopted by Hitler and the Nazis.” Professor Sharlet?

JEFF SHARLET: It is true. And I think, in some ways, though, this is the kind of — the trap that’s being laid out for us. And I think it is — as ugly as the 14 words and this salute are, it’s important for us to focus on the content, not the cosplay. The reality is: Was that number 14 intentional or not? Was that salute meant as such or not? We can argue over that. That gives them a chance to deny it and to persuade some, “Well, this is all overstatement,” while we’re overlooking the fact of the pardon of 1,500 violent people who attacked the Capitol. You know, we had people bringing guns. We had people, explosive devices. Pardoned yesterday was a man who essentially attempted to tear a cop’s head off. He had the cop’s head trapped in a door, and their idea was to pull it off.

Now, look at what some of these people are saying today. Again, this is the content; this isn’t the cosplay. They’re saying, “First thing I’m doing now that I’m pardoned is” — because some of them are already out of jails — “I can get my guns back.” One prominent January 6er who was pardoned, a reporter for the far-right website TheBlaze, said, “Time for some ex parte communication” with the judge in his case. They are free to do that now. And so, 14, accident or not, it’s certainly being received as such. But what we can’t debate is that other number, 1,500.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the significance of Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, the jurisdiction that oversaw many of these cases, himself a January 6th activist?

JEFF SHARLET: Yeah, Ed Martin is now put in a legal position overseeing — the position that was sort of overseeing these cases. You know, it’s like the old Hair Club for Men: He’s not just the president, he’s a client. He was there. He gave a speech on January 5th. He talked about being there on January 6th. He was not charged with anything, but he did talk about being there. And he since became an activist, and not just an activist, a really ardent activist. In fact, he went to one of Trump’s resorts to present an award to one January 6er. You might have seen the pictures of him. This is a guy who liked to style himself with a Hitler mustache and a Hitler haircut, who blamed COVID-19 on a Jewish conspiracy. Ed Martin, now this now government official, described this man as an extraordinary leader, and this is the kind of person who we want to give awards.

But again, we look at — that’s the outrage. But we look at the content, not the cosplay. And we look at the structure of this executive order, combined with the executive order supposedly putting an end to weaponization of politics. You have one saying crimes that are committed on behalf of the leaders — and, you know, tasering a cop 'til he has a heart attack, this is not a gray area — are unprosecutable, and, in the other, saying we're going to go after those people who have prosecuted them. And it’s expanding. Already you’re seeing calls on the right for an investigation of politicians who weren’t preemptively pardoned by Joe Biden, for instance, D.C. Mayor, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, who they are accusing of now holding hostage those January 6ers who have not yet been released. And it’s gone right into this kind of sort of white power narrative: the Black mayor of a majority-Black city holding hostage their mostly white American heroes.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeff Sharlet, we want to thank you for being with us, journalist and author, professor of English and creative writing at Dartmouth College. His latest book, The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War.

When we come back, we look at Trump’s threat to retake the Panama Canal and to declare a national emergency at the southern border. Are we going to see detention camps and military bases around the country? Stay with us.