Frankie Noguera ‘26
Intro:
It is tradition for the President of the United States of America to give an inaugural address right after the presidential oath of office. This tradition dates back to George Washington’s first inauguration in 1789. The inaugural address is an important speech that sets the tone for the new presidency, outlines the president’s vision for the country, and a reflection of the past that links every president to their predecessors.
On the 20th of January, Donald J. Trump was sworn into office as the 47th president of the United States of America. In this article we will look into President Trump’s Inaugural address using natural language processing (NLP). Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a subfield in artificial intelligence (AI) encompassing techniques that enable computers to work with human language. Within NLP some techniques I used to analyze the inaugural speech was sentiment analysis and tokenization for word frequency.
Starting off, President Trump used a total of 2,888 words in his inaugural address.
Let’s look at the chart of the top 30 most frequent words he used, along with this same data presented in a word cloud in the silhouette of President Trump.
Findings:
– President Trump’s most frequent words in his inauguration speech were American (21) and America (20).
– Although they are similar, one was regarding a noun, the other possible a noun or adjective
– The 4 most frequent words were all synonymous: country, nation, America, and American.
– The most frequent word outside the synonymous words of America was “Thank”; there was a sense of gratitude from President Trump.
– An interesting observation was “Panama.” Panama was mentioned several times when President Trump spoke about the Panama Canal and his criticism of the misuse the country of Panama has inflicted on the U.S. with its canal in recent years.
Next let’s look at the sentiment analysis on the address. Before explaining the sentiment analysis I want to say I used bing lexicon (data by researchers saying whether words are positive or negative) to separate the words by sentiment. I decided to disregard the neutral words to have a more concise analysis and a better approach for all to understand.
President Trump used a total of 93 positive words and 68 negative words.
Findings:
– Based off the bing lexicon csv, President Trump’s Address had a more positive sentiment words)
– To be more precise, the address was 57.76% positive (93 words) & 42.24% negative (68
– Positive words that stood out: admiration, ambitious, advantage, golden, beautiful
– Negative words that stood out: assassin, betrayal, fail, ashamed, angry
The analysis of President Trump’s 2025 inaugural address using NLP techniques revealed both quantitative and qualitative insights, supported by compelling visualizations. Based on the Bing lexicon, the speech demonstrated a predominantly positive sentiment, with 57.76% of the words classified as positive (93 words) and 42.24% as negative (68 words). Positive words like “admiration,” “ambitious,” “advantage,” “golden,” and “beautiful” conveyed an optimistic tone, while negative words such as “assassin,” “betrayal,” “fail,” “ashamed,” and “angry” highlighted challenges and critiques. This sentiment analysis underscored the nuanced balance of hope and criticism in the address.
The visualizations provide additional layers of insight. The bar chart depicting the top 30 most frequent words emphasized the speech’s focus on themes of patriotism and gratitude. Words like “American” (21 occurrences) and “America” (20 occurrences) dominated, alongside other synonymous terms such as “country” and “nation.” This alignment reflects a recurring emphasis on national identity. The prominence of “thank” further supports the tone of gratitude in the speech, aligning with the sentiment analysis findings.
The word cloud, shaped as a silhouette, creatively visualized the speech’s most common terms, reinforcing the key themes of the address. Words such as “nation,” “government,” and “great” stood out, effectively capturing the essence of the speech’s patriotic and optimistic narrative. The artistic presentation of the word cloud not only emphasized the frequency of these key terms but also provided a striking summary of the address’s focus areas.
A unique take away from the speech was the frequent mention of “Panama,” which stood out both in the word frequency chart and the word cloud. This reference highlighted President Trump’s criticism of Panama’s taxation policies and the misuse of the Panama Canal, showcasing a specific geopolitical focus amidst broader themes.
In conclusion, President Trump’s 2025 inaugural address reflected themes of nationalism, gratitude, and accountability. The sentiment analysis and visualizations together provided a comprehensive understanding of the address’s tone and focus. While the speech predominantly emphasized optimism and progress, it also addressed pressing challenges and critiques, creating a multifaceted narrative that resonated with the audience.
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