President Trump announced on Friday that he would not attend the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, ending two months of speculation about his decision, and in doing so will be the first president in more than 150 years – and only the fourth in US history to miss the ceremony in which his successor is sworn in.
Trump wrote in a tweet on Twitter: “To all those who asked for it, I will not go to the inauguration ceremony on January 20,” this announcement came a day after Trump admitted for the first time that Biden would take office, in a video posted by the White House in the wake of his supporters’ siege of the building. US Capitol, Mr. Trump promised a “orderly transition.”
Former presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are planning to attend Biden’s concert on January 20, Jimmy Carter, 96, is the only former president who has said he will not be there.
The traditionally outgoing president attends the inauguration of the next president as a symbol of a peaceful transfer of power as well as sometimes defeated candidates who have not won the White House.
Hillary Clinton was sworn in by Mr. Trump in 2017 after her electoral defeat, and Al Gore attended the inauguration of President George W. Bush in 2001 as the outgoing Vice President moved after the disputed election to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Trump is the first president to abandon his successor party since Andrew Johnson in 1869, when Johnson was so unpopular with his party that he did not secure a second term nomination, Republican Ulysses S. Grant won the 1868 election, Johnson and Grant hated each other so much that they refused to ride in the same carriage. On the day of the inauguration, according to political historian Ronald Schaeffer, Johnson was also the first US president to be impeached and Trump is the third, after Bill Clinton.
Before Johnson, only two former presidents refused to install their successor, as John Adams left Washington in 1801 before the celebration of Thomas Jefferson, who defeated him, and Adams was the second President of the United States and the first to lose the presidency by election, and John Quincy Adams, Adams’s son, did not attend, Sixth President, inaugurating Andrew Jackson after losing the presidency as well.
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