It seems more than one new star may have been born on Inauguration Day. There was poet Amanda Gorman, who wowed crowds with her recitation of “The Hill We Climb.” And then there were Bernie Sanders’ wool mittens.

Over the last day, images of Sanders have dominated social media feeds as the Vermont senator has received the meme treatment for his appearance at President Biden’s swearing-in ceremony. Sanders was seen sitting in the bleachers, clad in a parka from Burton Snowboards, a Vermont-based outerwear brand, and his hands nestled inside a pair of brown and cream mittens made from repurposed wool.

The mittens were gifted to him by Jen Ellis, a second-grade teacher in Vermont. Ellis made them back in 2016, when she was making presents for her daughter’s teachers. Sanders’ daughter-in-law owned the preschool, which was Ellis’ connection to delivering a pair to the senator himself.

While performers such as Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez dazzled in their vibrant, high-fashion outfits on Wednesday, many viewers seemed to appreciate how Sanders’ winter garb felt like a breath of pandemic-appropriate realness.

In an interview with NPR’s All Things Considered, Ellis said the attention around the mittens actually started last winter when Sanders was on the campaign trail seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. She said she never expected them to garner such a big reaction, but she’s glad they’ve held up quite nicely.

Interview Highlights

Did you have any idea he would wear them so religiously? I mean, he has been spotted in them at several high-profile events.

I had absolutely no idea. I mean, this actually started about a year ago when he was wearing them on the campaign trail. And so there was some Twitter buzz then. … I’m so excited that he likes the mittens and he wants to wear them. They are practical and warm, and they look nice. And, yeah, I had no idea that this is what would happen.

Now, Vogue is talking about these mittens in the same paragraph as, like, haute couture fashion houses that designed inaugural outfits. So how does it feel to be mentioned alongside designers who have runway shows in Paris?

I think that’s lovely. I mean, I’m not very star-struck by fashion. I mean, I’m just sort of a normal-looking person. And I think that it’s really great that Bernie wore something that is accessible to normal people. People can’t afford those lovely outfits that everybody else wore, although they were nice to look at. It was nice to have a little piece of reality, you know, and of normal people in such a prominent event.

Now, as we said, your full-time job is as a second-grade teacher. And so do you think this burst of fame is going to make your students relate to you differently?

Well, a lot of them came in talking about it today. And I showed them a couple of little local clips from our local news people who had covered me yesterday. And they thought it was cool, you know, and I don’t think that they’ll view me any differently in the end. I still was bundling them up in snow pants and their own mittens and sending them out into the snowy day for recess just like half an hour ago.

This story was produced and edited for broadcast by Kat Lonsdorf and Courtney Dorning.

The morning after her powerful performance of “The Hill We Climb” at the inauguration of President Biden, poet Amanda Gorman hit another high point: She took the top two slots on Amazon’s bestseller list — for titles that won’t be out until the fall.

At No. 1 is her debut poetry collection, also called The Hill We Climb, and at No. 2 is a picture book called Change Sings: A Children’s Anthem, illustrated by Loren Long, both set to come out in September.

Gorman told NPR’s Steve Inskeep that she struggled with her inaugural poem at first, “because you don’t even really know the entry point in which to step into the murk.” But the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6 spurred her to finish. “I was like, ‘Well, this is something we need to talk about.’ “

The poem — which hit a range of notes from Scripture to Hamilton — drew widespread praise. NPR poetry critic Craig Morgan Teicher called it “beautiful,” and Gorman had this memorable Twitter exchange with Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda:

Gorman has some interestingly inaugural-themed company on the list. At No. 3 is Ambitious Girl, a picture book by Meena Harris, niece of the new vice president. Harris told NPR’s Michel Martin the book was inspired by her Aunt Kamala, who was criticized for being “too ambitious” on the campaign trail.

And just behind Ambitious Girl is former President Barack Obama’s memoir A Promised Land, one of the bestselling books of 2020 and still going strong in the new year.

President Biden.

That’s going to take some getting used to after these past four years.

The new president was sworn in Wednesday and made an inaugural address aimed at unity. Biden didn’t sugarcoat, however, the hurdles to bringing Americans together, and he leaned into the challenges the U.S. faces, as he sees it.

Here are six takeaways from Biden’s inauguration:

1. A starkly different tone was set.

If there’s one thing that stood out most, it was the tone that Biden struck. Gone was the tension, defiance and grievance of Donald Trump. Instead, America saw a staid and humble President Biden. Instead of igniting flames of division, he was trying to take the temperature down.

“We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue,” Biden said. “Rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal. We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts. If we show a little tolerance and humility, and if we’re willing to stand in the other person’s shoes, as my mom would say, just for a moment stand in their shoes.”

For a significant portion of the country, Biden’s speech began a disburdenment of the daily anxiety and unpredictability of the Trump presidency. Some Republicans even praised his speech. For another large group of Americans, though, they are now worried about the direction the country will take.

Overall, as unusual as the day was because of the heavy security presence and the lack of crowds due to COVID-19 and threats, it seemed like Washington was headed for something of a return to normal.

For a day at least, the four years of whiplash had come to an end, which was summed up well in three very different scenes at the U.S. Capitol on the first three Wednesdays of this January: one of the Jan. 6 violence, one of Trump’s impeachment and then one of Biden’s inauguration.

2. Real unity will be tough to come by.

Trying to bridge the gap of hard feelings, Biden did something Trump rarely did — reach out to those who didn’t vote for him. And he wasn’t so naive as to talk about it in a way that showed he thinks it would be easy or happen at all.

“To all those who did not support us,” Biden said, “let me say this: Hear me out as we move forward. Take a measure of me and my heart. If you still disagree, so be it. That’s democracy. That’s America. The right to dissent peaceably within the guardrails of our republic is perhaps our nation’s greatest strength. Yet hear me clearly: Disagreement must not lead to disunion.”

Certainly, this was no Trump “American carnage” speech. But tone is one thing, and policy is another.

A return to “normal” may mean a return to the same old passive-aggressive polite gridlock mixed with partisan bickering. Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress, but only very narrowly. Biden will likely need Republicans for most of his major legislative agenda items, including his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan, a comprehensive immigration overhaul or almost anything else.

And it won’t solve the problem of the tens of millions of Trump supporters who are fed and believe a daily diet of false information — and who make up the base of the Republican Party.

3. Biden laid out his priorities.

Speaking of those priorities, Biden listed the policy approaches that he believes would lead to healing in America. They include addressing COVID-19, racial justice, climate change and domestic extremism, including white supremacy. He is the first president to address white supremacy in an inaugural address.

Biden did not shy away from any of those thorny issues. But you can bet that Republicans will find plenty to disagree with Democrats about in how to solve those issues. And what of unity then? More importantly, what of solving those issues when Biden runs into the congressional buzz saw of Republican opposition?

Biden is already wasting no time, signing lots of executive orders on COVID-19, climate change, racial justice, immigration and more.

But there’s only so far those executive orders can go.

4. Truth matters again.

When hearing of Trump’s falsehoods, exaggerations and lies, cynics and many Trump supporters dismissed the criticism that Trump faced with a version of an all-too-familiar retort: “Oh, come on. All politicians lie.”

Well, not like what was seen these past four years. Trump made more than 30,000 misleading claims in four years, according to The Washington Post. That’s an average of 20 per day.

What usually happens with a controversial claim is that a politician might take something with a kernel of truth and spin it up. Then it gets litigated in public and in the media, and if that elected official is found to be wrong, most adjust their language to fit within the bounds of acceptability. But Trump could not be shamed.

The news media has to hold leaders of all parties accountable. And Biden will make his fair share of inaccurate or exaggerated claims, and he should be called out on them. But there’s more of a chance now for public debates based on a shared set of facts, rather than “alternative” ones that never existed.

5. Inaugurations may have changed permanently.

Biden got out of the presidential limo and walked hand in hand with his wife, first lady Jill Biden, to the White House. For a brief moment, in a tight shot on television, it could have all looked like any other inauguration.

But it was not. The walk was drastically curtailed and more heavily guarded compared with past presidential inaugurations. And while there were some people on the street during the walk, there weren’t throngs of people lining the streets.

It’s very likely that inaugurations as we knew them have changed permanently. There may be a return of people to the National Mall and even a parade when the coronavirus pandemic finally clears.

But from here on out, these will likely be heavily fortified events.

6. The presidency is overwhelming — for anyone.

Despite his decades serving as a senator in Washington and even his eight years as vice president, Biden was clearly moved by the reality of his new position.

Trump even appeared cowed Wednesday by leaving it. On Trump’s exit from the White House, he stopped to talk to reporters. He looked back a few times at the place he would be leaving behind — and even thanked the media.

After walking up to the White House, Biden stood for a moment and looked out from the front portico. He then hugged his wife and held the embrace. They took it in, then turned and with their family walked into their home for the next four years.

The newly inaugurated Biden administration wasted no time in taking two major steps to dismantle much criticized Trump-era immigration policies in their first day in office.

The Department of Homeland Security announced that starting Thursday, it would pause deportations for certain non-citizens in the U.S. for 100 days and would stop new enrollments in the Migrant Protection Protocols policy, also known as the “remain in Mexico” program.

Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary David Pekoske said the U.S. “faces significant operational challenges at the southwest border as it is confronting the most serious global public health crisis in a century.”

Pausing some enforcement measures gives the agency breathing room as the DHS plans to fully review current programs and U.S. immigration policies, Pekoske said in a memo issued late Wednesday.

Pekoske’s memo directed DHS sub-agencies Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services “to review and reset enforcement policies and set interim policies for civil enforcement while the Department develops its final priorities.”

The department aims to focus its resources “where they are most needed,” Pekoske said. In light of the serious challenges at the southern border, DHS must “surge resources” to the area to ensure “safe, legal and orderly” immigrant processing.

‘Remain in Mexico’ ends

The Trump administration’s controversial “remain in Mexico” policy requiring asylum seekers trying to enter the U.S. from the southern border to wait in Mexico for American court hearings will be suspended.

The program has led to roughly 60,000 migrants getting sent back across the border since MPP was first implemented in January 2019. Tens of thousands of people are still stuck in Mexico, awaiting their court hearings, and living in unsanitary and potentially dangerous situations. The policy has placed enormous strain on Mexico, even more so during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thousands more migrants from Latin America have pushed their way toward Mexico in recent days. Some have told journalists that they are making their way north because they expect it to be easier to enter the U.S. under the Biden administration. Others say the economic situation and violence in Honduras has made remaining there untenable. The increase in migrants, however, promises even more stress on Mexico and the U.S. immigration system.

On Sunday, Guatemalan security forces confronted a caravan of migrants from Honduras. Guatemalan security forces in the country’s southwest attempted to block thousands of Honduran migrants from heading north towards Mexico and the U.S. border. Some migrants have been able to skirt security forces by moving off of the main roads, according to officials in Guatemala. Mexico, however, has implemented their own strict border security forces, making crossing into the country difficult for many travelers.

Guillermo Díaz, Guatemala’s top immigration official, said at least 7,000-8,000 Hondurans had crossed into Guatemala in an “irregular” manner.

Legalization path limited

Karen Tumlin, founder of the Justice Action Center, an organization providing legal aid to immigrants, called the step to end MPP “huge.”

Tumlin wrote on Twitter that, “It confirms the Biden-Harris commitment to restoring dignity to our asylum system. Here’s to the next, critical steps to remedy the inhumane impacts of this shameful program.”

However, immigration hard-liners such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform are already set to oppose the Biden administration’s immigration plan.

“We hope fervently that when it comes to dealing with immigration, the new administration will seek to find common sense policies that not only serve to enhance the economic recovery from COVID, but provide lasting security and prosperity for the country,” said Dan Stein, president of FAIR, a day before Biden’s inauguration. “President Biden must protect American jobs and not capitulate to special interests pushing radical policies that put Americans last,”

During the moratorium on MPP, current COVID-19 non-essential travel restrictions — both at the border and in the region — remain in place. But it is unclear what will happen to migrants already enrolled in MPP.

The DHS said, “All current MPP participants should remain where they are, pending further official information from U.S. government officials.”

Biden’s administration is also moving forward on large scale changes to U.S. immigration policy. He sent a new immigration bill to Congress on Wednesday.

However, under the proposed changes, immigrants currently outside the U.S. — likely those still awaiting their court hearings in Mexico and the migrants on their way from Honduras and Guatemala — will not be eligible for legal status.