Donald Trump Will Not Attend Joe Biden’s Inauguration on January 20

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Jan 8, 2021

President Donald Trump has confirmed that he will not be attending the inauguration of incoming president Joe Biden.

“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th,” Trump tweeted Friday morning.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1347569870578266115

This does not come as a surprise given Trump’s rhetoric and behavior following the most divisive election in recent memory. Trump has repeatedly claimed that serious allegations of fraud in several swing states constitute sufficient reason to believe that the election was stolen from him. Nevertheless, various courts have rejected lawsuits filed by Trump’s legal team and others, and Congress has confirmed Biden’s victory.

According to The Hill, advisers say Trump will likely travel to Florida a day before the inauguration in order to use Air Force One.

This will be the first time an outgoing president has refused to attend his successor’s inauguration in 152 years. The last president to do it was Andrew Johnson, who refused to attend Ulysses S. Grant’s inauguration in 1869. Like Trump, Johnson also beared the mark of being an impeached president whom the Senate failed to convict.

Other outgoing presidents who refused to attend their successors’ inaugurations include John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and Martin Van Buren. The 1800 election between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson is often considered to be one of the most divisive elections in US history, though Adams and Jefferson famously reconciled through correspondence in retirement. Quincy Adams refused to attend Andrew Jackson’s inauguration in 1829, while Van Buren did not attend William Henry Harrison’s in 1841.