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TWO MONTHS (AND countless tweets) after his election, the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump finally takes place today.
The official transition of power will take place at noon (5pm Irish time). Trump will take over as the most powerful political figure in the world, and Barack Obama and family will swiftly depart Washington by helicopter.
The ceremony has been overshadowed by numerous Trump-based controversies in the months since his shock election win. More recently, the incoming US president and his supporters have been involved in a spat with high-profile congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, who, alongside a number of other Democrats, plans to boycott today’s events.
So just who is attending the swearing-in? How will the day play out? And, after all those high-profile musicians turned down a chance to play at the event, who’s providing the entertainment?
In keeping with tradition, all former presidents who are well enough to attend will be at the inauguration ceremony, which begins on the west front of the Capitol building from 9.30am (2.30pm in Ireland).
Democrats Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton will line up alongside Republican George W Bush; George HW Bush, who is in frail health, won’t be present.
Trump’s election opponent Hillary Clinton will also be there – as will members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, diplomats and (of course) tens of thousands of members of the public.
More than two dozen Democratic lawmakers have now said they won’t attend Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration - the vast majority of them in protest at Trump’s attack on civil rights icon John Lewis and others.
Trump lashed out at Lewis last weekend after the longtime congressman said he was skipping the ceremony because he sees the New York businessman’s election as illegitimate.
“Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results,” Trump said on Twitter.
Known for his decades of work in the civil rights movement, Lewis, 76, marched with Martin Luther King at the August 1963 rally in Washington at which King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.
Trump’s team made known in recent months that it had reached out to a number of top musicians including Elton John, Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and country legend Garth Brooks.
They declined an invitation – as did Welsh singer Charlotte Church, who took to Twitter last week to slam Trump’s team for not doing some simple research, before asking her.
The most famous performers at Trump’s inaugural festivities will be Toby Keith and Lee Greenwood, country singers with forthright patriotic anthems, and emerging 16-year-old soprano Jackie Evancho, a former America’s Got Talent contestant. Evancho will sing the national anthem.
The Rockettes, the all-female dance troupe known for their high kicks and popular shows in New York, will also perform – although management gave members the right not to take part after objections.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir have been booked too – although one member quit the group last month after news of their planned appearance emerged, saying she’d rather not appear to endorse Trump’s “tyranny and fascism”.
Briefly:
Trump, Pence and their families are expected to attend services at St John’s Episcopal Church, just steps from the White House, in the morning.
Afterwards the Obamas will welcome Trump and his wife Melania to the White House for morning tea. The two couples will then travel together to the Capitol by motorcade.
9:30am (2.30pm in Ireland): Inauguration ceremony begins with musical performances.
11:30am (4.30pm): Opening remarks. Religious leaders will offer the invocation and readings.
Pence will be sworn in by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Noon (5pm): Trump will recite the oath of office, administered by US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
He will use president Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration Bible, as well as the Bible that Trump’s mother gave to him at his Sunday school graduation in 1955.
Afterward, Trump will deliver his inaugural address.
12:30pm (5.30pm): Ceremony ends. Trump and Pence attend the Congressional Lunch in the Capitol.
3pm to 5pm (8pm to 10pm): Inaugural parade. The newly minted president and vice-president make their way 2.4km along Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House, trailed by some 8,000 parade participants. They will include members of all US military branches, as well as high school and university marching bands, equestrian corps, emergency services staff, veterans groups and even a tractor brigade.
7pm to 11pm (midnight-4am): Trump, Pence and their wives will make appearances at three official inaugural balls, two of which will be held at the Walter E. Washington convention centre and the other at the National Building Museum. A number of semi-official and unofficial balls also will take place throughout the city.
On pretty much any rolling news channel – if you’re not near a TV, you can watch a live feed of Sky’s coverage via Youtube here, for instance.
If you’re looking for an Irish view on proceedings, an RTÉ News special begins from 4.15pm, and will be followed straight away by Nuacht and Six One.
“This is a president-elect who is just anxious to get back to work,” Tom Barrack, a longtime friend of Trump and chairman of the inaugural committee, told CBS this week.
Trump will focus on “issues that unite us,” Barack said, adding that the divisions that arose in the US during the campaign would “vanish”.
As for who’s writing it? One Donald J Trump, apparently.
Two senior transition officials told CNN this week that Trump had followed through on a pledge he made to guests at his Florida estate last month that he planned to pen the speech personally.
It’s a departure from how he operated on the campaign, when he either delivered remarks off-the-cuff or read speeches written by adviser Stephen Miller. As CNN reported, it’s unclear how much involvement Miller has had in fine-tuning the address.
Depends who you ask – but NBC Washington has collated the numbers, and says that the various agencies with roles organising the inauguration ceremony are preparing for between 700,000 and 900,000 people.
Barack Obama is widely regarded to have broken the record for crowd size at his first inauguration back in 2009 when an estimated 1.8 people packed the National Mall and surrounding areas.
Yes. There’ll also be tens of thousands of protesters in Washington today and over the weekend. According to the Washington Times, permits have been granted for 23 demonstrations in the city – a massive jump on the number granted in previous years.
From the paper:
Leading the Friday protests is the ANSWER Coalition, which has three permits for #InaugurateTheResistance events that could draw more than 20,000 activists. The main protest, featuring music and DJs, falls along the parade route at the Navy Memorial.
A Women’s March on Washington, scheduled for tomorrow, is expected to attract as many as 200,000 people. By contrast, between 25,000 and 30,000 people protested at Richard Nixon’s second inauguration.
An interactive map of the location of each protest is available at Mic.com.
The Obamas will be heading for the far side of the country as soon as today’s ceremony comes to an end.
The outgoing president, in keeping with custom, will be allowed one final trip aboard the presidential plane on the day of his successor’s swearing-in.
Barack, Michelle and family will travel to Palm Springs in Southern California, according to the Los Angeles Times. The White House hasn’t provided any further details on what they’ll be getting up to.
At the time of writing, the outlook was for rain and temperatures of 7 degrees.
- With reporting by AFP
How are you feeling about the Trump presidency? Concerned? Delighted? We’d like to hear our readers views – so if you’d like to drop us a quick mail please send it to daragh@thejournal.ie. Include your first name and your county, and we’ll publish some of the messages as part of our liveblog on the inauguration this afternoon.
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“Say what you like about Donald Trump, he knows how to get attention”
So does any average 3 year old child, so proud to be alive in the times where the ability to not allow yourself to be ignored is considered a positive, admirable, to be inspired trait…
Elections are all about getting your name out there. You want to be the first name which comes to mind when people go to the ballot boxes and being as public as possible is how you do this. That being said Trump seems to have subscribed to the ‘all publicity is good publicity’ model which could backfire.
It’s great being the first name on people’s minds but you don’t want that to be for the wrong reasons either. He’s absolutely talented at keeping his name in the public eye but the reasons why will be his undoing in the campaign.
He expanded on the money he inherited from his father (people forget that uncomfortable fact when calling him a business ‘genius’ that and his corporations keep going bankrupt…) by using the business model of “make noise in the media / get attention / get name out there – sell name as a brand”.
He thinks you can win a Presidential that way – you can’t. You need to be trusted as the guy who, if woken up at 3am by the NMCC and told STRATCOM has detected 20 Russian ICBM’s incoming, can deal with that situation without destroying the planet and he comes off as someone who would fire all the US’s missiles without even considering if the attack was real. He might win the GOP nomination because, as with the dems voting for Bernie they are looking for a non-traditional politician, but this guy wont’ convince independent voters when it comes down to it – not a hope, Sanders or Hillary would crush him in a 60% 48 state landslide.
Trump is dangerous looney.
…and Clinton is a witch!
On Steroids at that.
Trump may be a dangerous looney, but can you blame the American people for wanting to look outside the politicocracy? The last guy was hailed as the second coming of Cicero and won a Nobel Peace Prize. How did that go?
A lot better than the previous 8 years and Trump like anyone else who stands for election is a politician.
Hillary Clinton expresses alarm for Israeli Jews, and not one word about Palestinian victims
The world is in far worse condition today after nearly eight years of Obama than it was under Bush.
The Hildebeast makes the fictional Claire Underwood seem like Snow White in comparison!
Ben, Trump is not the answer. However I do agree a Clinton v Bush is just another political/lobbing self interest grouping and establishment election prospect.
@Ben he might be from outside politics but he has the same policies as the establishment where it matters, he might be surprisingly liberal on things like healthcare (he’s in favor of free healthcare) and that might give him some crossover appeal, but that appeal is destroyed when you look at where he is on banking (against reform), immigration (Attached to a totally unrealistic plan that would cost 3trillion to implement and turn the US into a police state), foreign affairs (where he’d be a weird mix of totally unengaged and President Cheney, depending)
@Right, I don’t like many of Obamas decisions but he is mostly dealing with cleaning up Bush’s mess in foreign policy, ISIS would not have existed if not for the Iraq war.
@Ryan – seriously, what are you on about? The Obama admin created ISIS and their ilk. Where have you been for the last 5 years? What do you think the whole Clinton Benghazi affair was about? Isis have nothing to do with bush. It was Hussein Obama who withdrew all is forces from the area.
Should read ‘withdrew US Forces’.
ISIS have been around far longer than Obama mate. In fact, ISIS aren’t ‘against the west’, they are Islamic Fundamentalists who want to instil their version of Islam on other Muslims. It’s been in operation since the 1990s. The U.S. didn’t create this, it may if fuelled it by bombing the Middle East.
Try reading up on a bit of local history before you make stupid statements as if they were facts.
Thought Clinton was very poor. Evaded a lot of questions and refused to take any definitive stances. Scored a lot of cheap points by laying into the Republicans and doing “I’m a woman” stuff. Sanders on the other hand was clear and concise. The only reason he struggled on gun control was because he was being realistic whilst Clinton laid into him without saying what she was actually going to do herself. At one point Sanders began his rebuttal of a Clinton attack by saying “No, that’s wrong”, whilst Clinton forced a smile. She looked very uncomfortable for large parts of the debate.
Of the smaller fry, O’Malley definitely came out on top. He landed some heavy hits on Clinton which she didn’t deal with very well. His strategy seems to be hanging in for as long as possible in the hopes that either Sanders or Clinton will mess up and he can steal their votes. Webb was very right wing, and although he provided a few laughs when complaining about his lack of time it seemed like he’d be a better fit in the Republican camp. Chafee was hopeless and it was fairly clear by the end that even he knew it was a lost cause.
Sanders seeming to be hesitant on gun control – it must be remember he was a Senator for Vermont, a mostly quiet rural state where people owned shotguns for hunting and shooting vermin or pests on their farms, so many of his arguments where for reform that could protect those people, he was no from a big urban state so he was fighting his own patch.
I watched the debate (didn’t follow Trump’s tweets because he’s s bigoted fundamentalist blow-hard). All the media are saying Clinton “won”, telephone polls say Sanders… I think it’s between Clinton and O’Malley now for the Dem candidacy. In my opinion, he did really well and seemed genuine. His obvious hatred of the NRA helped.
The Democrat candidacy is unfortunately a one-horse race. The Democrats are obviously gearing up to put Clinton forward even though Sanders, going by the debate, would probably be the better choice at this point. Clinton seems to be acting like someone who’s 100% convinced she’s won the election already.
Clinton would basically ensure 4 more years of the same.
“Clinton is currently polling at about 42% nationally among Democratic voters, while Sanders is at 25%.”
…Four years of bad luck….
Sanders has a good change of winning Iowa and New Hampshire. If he wins those, then he’s got huge momentum. Remeber, Obama was way behind Hillary until he won Iowa.
You can see now why Hillary only wanted a couple of debates. She lost it last time due to her preformences and due to be upstaged by Obama. Sanders is the real deal he has his views and won’t change them due to polls. He will not be president though. If he gets the nomination it will push a lot of centre dems and undecided to the right.
He’s a social democrat in essentially a very christian right wing conservative countty
Would love to see a Sanders Vs Trump campaign and debate.
#feelthebern
Sadly for America and the rest of the world there appears to be nobody good enough to lead. The only hope is that someone emerges from the shadows but it does not look like it.
I thought sanders was an independent?
He is. By all accounts he still isn’t a member of the Democratic party. But apparently you don’t have to be in order to get the Democratic nomination.
Apparently you don’t need to be a member of the House of Representatives to be elected Speaker either.
He was an independent who cacus’ed with the democrats. In most US states (their federal elections, oddly, are regulated at a state level which is how 2000 happened) if you are an independent you can vote (and run) in one primary or the other, just not both.
Trump is BASICALLY an independent too, he’s donated to and supported both sides at diff times, just like all plutocrats in the US he hedges his bets so he owns both sides no matter who wins!
have your say