Well, President Trump returns to office tonight after overcoming significant challenges, including impeachments, criminal indictments and assassination attempts.

And he was surrounded at his inauguration by a very different Washington than it was eight years ago, with near-unanimous backing from the Republican Party, which is assumed control of every branch of government in the nation's capital.

But what does it mean for the president's ability to chart a new course and reshape the country's institutions, as he's promised?

I'm joined by our Washington, DC correspondent, Ben Hulac, to talk about all that and more.

Hey, Ben.

Good to see you on a big day.

I know you've been hopping around.

DC for us.

Let me ask you first your big takeaways from the inauguration speech.

Well, it was sort of classic Trump in many ways.

A lot of bluster and bragging and things that he likely can't deliver upon.

The notion that basically, when he's now president, things will be shiny and great and the world will be starkly different.

Every president inherits big global risks and threats and crises that they don't foresee.

And he is certainly no different in that category.

It was a landscape that he sketched in his and his remarks today.

Really similar to what we've heard in the past, similar to his first inauguration, that the country has been decimated by, so-called elites who are not in, in the best interest, not looking out for the best interests of the common man.

A lot of really refrains from his first inaugural and many campaign speeches he's given over the years.

That said, he comes back to the white House, as, president who won the popular vote.

He's got Republicans in control of both the House and the Senate and a conservative leaning majority on the Supreme Court.

How does that bode for him getting those initiatives done?

As you said, they are often harder than, promised.

But by all measures, he seems to have things on his side to do it right.

Certainly the courts are in favor of him in a way that they were not, stacked just from a statistical standpoint when he for it when he was president the first time.

And let's remember, three of the six conservative leaning Supreme Court justices were people he named for the Senate to confirm, and people the Senate ultimately obviously confirmed one of them.

Kavanaugh was the man who swore him in to be the 47th president of the United States today, just a few hours ago in Congress on the Hill.

I think it's a different story in the Senate.

Things are fairly cushy for Republicans.

They have a 53, 47 majority, and they can govern with some ease.

They don't need Democrats on a lot of votes, certainly not on confirmations for the Trump cabinet.

In the House, it's a totally different story, though.

They've effectively a two seat majority and getting through big pieces of legend legislation, substantive items, things like the debt ceiling tax bill, an immigration bill, all of which Republicans want is going to be threading the needle.

Let me just ask you about the unprecedented nature of today.

I mean, typically, we see this on the mall with, you know, thousands and thousands of people.

This was a much more intimate ceremony.

How is that meant?

For press like yourself and covering this, and the tone that it sets.

Right.

So the last time the, swearing in was held in the rotunda, as it was today, was Ronald Reagan swearing in inauguration, January of 1985, that, like, this was a fairly intimate affair.

The cameras don't quite capture how small the rotunda is in person.

You can walk across it and, I don't know, 15 seconds or so.

It's not a large room.

And, as a matter of access, I had signed up when the inauguration was going to be outside.

And for credentials, I pick those up Friday afternoon.

Just as the news had broken that the inauguration would be inside.

Hugh Lock for us in Washington, D.C.. Ben, thanks so much.

Of course.