Trump announces he will not attend Biden’s inauguration
Donald Trump will join John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Johnson as the only presidents who refused to accompany incoming presidents as they’re sworn into office.
On Jan. 20, when Joe Biden is formally admitted to the office as the nation’s 46th president, Donald Trump will not be in attendance. POTUS took to Twitter on Friday (Jan. 8) to announce that he’ll be skipping the president-elect’s inauguration.
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the inauguration on January 20th,” he penned in a tweet.
Although Trump didn’t provide any reasons for his decision, it is not a complete surprise to those who have been following the 2020 presidential election.
Since results started rolling in Biden’s favor, the president alleged there was fraud and deception in the election results. Throughout the ballot tabulation, he filed lawsuits against cities, including Wisconsin and Texas, in attempt to overturn their final tallies and demand recounts.
After Biden’s win in Pennsylvania helped to secure his victory, Trump refused to concede, still finding several ways to block the former vice president’s presidential certification. Earlier this week, it was reported that POTUS asked Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes so he could win the recently-turned blue state of Georgia.
Then, on Wednesday (Jan. 6) — the day Congress was slated to certify the results of the Electoral College — the president organized a rally, telling his supporters that it was “statistically impossible [for him] to have lost the 2020 election.” Amid the gathering, he urged them to march to the U.S. Capitol and apply pressure to elected officials to reject the results. While there, advocates of Trump breached the government building, ransacking several rooms and clashing with Capitol Hill police in the process. The deadly riots resulted in 5 deaths and over 50 arrests.
Despite the chaos at the Capitol, Biden’s win in the election was confirmed, and Trump pledged “there will be an orderly transition.”
Trump’s potential absence will be the first time since Andrew Johnson’s departure from the White House that a president will not accompany the president-elect at his inauguration. John Adams and John Quincy Adams also refused to stand by the incoming presidents as they were sworn into office.