Donald Trump’s arduous journey back to the White House -- which slogged through four indictments, two impeachments and two assassination attempts – ends Monday on a frosty afternoon in Washington D.C. with the oath of office and then quickly transitions to the job of governing again.

The policies that the soon-to-be 47th American president promised would restore security, accountability, affordability and prosperity will be roaring into action on Inauguration Day with scores of executive orders, and even a few raids to round up dangerous illegal aliens.

But the billionaire businessman who relentlessly vowed to “Make America Great Again” also signaled he is navigating to make America fair again.

Fair to the working and middle Americans who voted him into office after four years of insufferable inflation. Fair to American businesses suffering from decades of lopsided advantages to China.

Fair to vaccine-resisting soldiers, female athletes, non-violent Jan. 6 protesters and pro-life activists whose lives were turned upside down by the Biden years’ failed experiment with far-left policies and lawfare.

Fair even to lawful immigrants who watched illegal aliens jump the line to American entry.

Over the weekend, Trump signaled his push to return America to a new “golden age” of greatness will also focus sharp attention on a new issue.

"Fairness“ an expected central theme

"You have to be treating people fairly,” Trump said in a far-reaching interview with NBC News that surveyed his vision for his second stint in Washington. “You can’t just say, ‘Oh, everything’s going to be wonderful.’ You know, we went through hell for four years with these people. And so, you know, something has to be done about it. ... You can’t have that happen, and we shouldn’t have that happen."

Expect fairness, along with unity, to be offered  as central themes in Trump’s inauguration speech and to be embedded as justifications for the record number of first-day executive actions Trump will sign Monday.

The returning chief executive will be greeted with a different dynamic than his first term. His team is far more seasoned in the ways of Washington that tripped him up as an outsider starting in 2017. Voters have soured on the far-left extremism exhibited during the Biden years with such policies as DEI and CRT to ESG and transgenderism.

And Americans at large are putting far more wind behind Trump’s back this time.

A poll over the weekend found 60% are optimistic about Trump’s second term, a major shift from the gloomy sentiments that ended the Biden presidency.

“This team, this is a different Donald Trump that is being sworn in than in 2017, and there’s a whole lot of experience that has come,” Sen. Ted Cruz told The Hill on Sunday.

“I think the first term, there were some mistakes in Cabinet nominees and some nominees that he came to regret because they were people that were not fighting with him to accomplish his agenda,” he added. “I think this, the current team of nominees, I think is really strong.”

Before the hard work launches in full, political experts reflected on just how improbable Trump’s return to power was. Written off for political death after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot fiasco, with two impeachments in his rear view mirror and four indictments on his horizon, the New York-grizzled politician launched his return to Washington in 2021 with little public support.

But he relentlessly fought his detractors in court, vanquished an impressive field of GOP challenges in the 2024 primaries and then sailed to a historic victory that Democrats couldn’t stop with lawfare or even a switcheroo atop their presidential ticket.

“I think he has inherited the ‘Comeback Kid’ moniker from Bill Clinton,” pollster and former Clinton adviser Mark Penn told the "John Solomon Reports" podcast. “We thought that that Bill Clinton came back. But Trump came back to him, I mean, from,  I lost count on how many impeachments, how many prosecutions, how many assassination attempts to come back and to win the popular vote and to be the voice of the people.

“It is an incredible comeback. I would have bet you 100 to one against it four years ago,” Penn added.

Trump’s comeback also came with political coattails, which handed him an all-GOP town with Congress fully, though narrowly, in Republican hands. It’s a journey that demoralized his opposition and emboldened his supporters to reach for massive change across America, starting with a more fortified border, more secure cities emptied of their violent illegal aliens and a smaller, cheaper government.

The blizzard of executive orders Trump plans to unleash Monday

Trump’s team descended on the Sunday talk show circuit to lay out their agenda. Border czar Tom Homan vowed mass deportations would begin this week although some plans changed with a leak about a planned raid in Chicago.

National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said the president-elect plans to immediately confront drug cartels and gangs that control significant portions of Mexico.

“We cannot have a situation where we have paramilitary gangs that are shooting down aircraft with heavy weapons, controlling 30 percent of our neighbor, Mexico, and controlling whole swaths of our border,” Waltz told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Trump aides also briefed Republican leaders in Congress on Sunday on the blizzard of executive orders Trump plans to unleash Monday.

The orders include those that would:

• Unlock energy pipelines and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling
• End the Democrats Green New Deal focus as well as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs across government;
• Slap tariffs on China and Mexico;
• Create tools for removing recalcitrant federal employees who won’t carry out Trump’s orders; and
• Give TikTok as much as 90 days to strike a deal to comply with the law passed by Congress requiring it to divest of its communist Chinese ownership.

“So we’ll be looking at the whole thing": Trump

Trump signaled fairness was at the heart of many orders, including giving TikTok more time to comply or leveling the playing field for American companies and workers with China. He also planned to issue pardons for some nonviolent Jan. 6 defendants, delivering on another campaign promise.

“People that were doing some bad things weren’t prosecuted and people that didn’t even walk into the building are in jail right now,” Trump told a news conference earlier this month at Mar-a-Lago. “So we’ll be looking at the whole thing. But I’ll be making major pardons.”