US President Donald Trump overhears at a rally in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, June 15, 2020.
Doug Mills | NYTimes | Getty Images
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said on Friday that he will not be attending the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who will take charge within two weeks.
Trump is not the first outgoing president to skip the inauguration of his successor. According to the White House Historical Association, Presidents John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Johnson were not present at the president-to-be’s inauguration.
“To all who have asked, I’m not going to attend the January 20 inauguration,” Trump wrote in a tweet, the third message from his account since he was locked out of Twitter for 12 hours on Wednesday.
Biden’s victory was projected by all major news outlets in mid-November and confirmed by votes from the Electoral College in mid-December. The Republican president has falsely insisted that he won in a “landslide,” claiming his re-election was stolen by massive electoral fraud.
His refusal to accept the election results culminated in a deadly riot on Wednesday, when swarms of his supporters stormed the Capitol, derailing congressional procedures to count voters’ votes and confirm Biden’s victory in the Nov. 3 election.
Vice President Mike Pence is expected to attend Biden’s inauguration if invited, two people familiar with the matter told NBC News.
Trump’s decision not to attend Biden’s inauguration comes a day after he admitted the presidential election.
In a nearly three-minute video posted Thursday, Trump, without mentioning Biden by name, acknowledged that “a new administration will be inaugurated on January 20.”
“My focus now is on ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transfer of power,” the president said in his first address to the nation after the riot that killed five people, including a Capitol police officer.
“Now things need to be cooled and peace restored. We need to continue with America’s affairs,” Trump said of the pandemonium that took place at the Capitol.
“To those guilty of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country. And to those who break the law, you will pay,” Trump said.
At a rally outside the White House on Wednesday, Trump had encouraged thousands of supporters to march to the Capitol to protest what were historically ceremonial procedures.
While protesters besieged the Capitol, Trump, who had returned to the White House after his speech, told supporters in a tweeted video that “you must go home now.” The president stopped condemning the violence.
Pro-Trump supporters storm the Capitol after a meeting with President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Samuel Corum | Getty Images
After the violence that gripped Washington, the Pentagon and local Washington DC, officials played multiple rounds of the blame game on why National Guard troops were not immediately available to support the US Capitol Police.
Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, who has jurisdiction over the DC Guard, said on Thursday that law enforcement and defense officials had received conflicting information prior to the riot.
“There were estimates of 80,000, there were estimates around 20 to 25. So to go back to just the pure intelligence, it“ was across the board, ”McCarthy said when asked about crowd control preparations.
“It was very difficult to determine what you are dealing with,” he told reporters, adding that the Department of Defense relied on threat assessments from the police.