WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump said on Friday that he will skip the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, refuses to fulfill the outgoing president’s traditional role in the peaceful transfer of power, and undermines his own message just a day earlier about the need for ‘national healing’ and unity. “
Trump, who has not appeared in public since a violent mob of his supporters besieged the Capitol on Wednesday and tried to stop the transfer of power, will be the first sitting president since Andrew Johnson to not attend the inauguration of his successor.
Biden said he was fine with that, calling it “one of the few things we’ve ever agreed to.”
“It’s a good thing he doesn’t show up,” he added, calling the president a “shame” to the nation and unworthy of office.
Traditionally, the incoming and outgoing Presidents ride together to the Capitol on the inauguration day for the ceremony, a visible manifestation of the smooth change of leadership.
Biden will run for president at noon on January 20, regardless of Trump’s plans. But Trump’s absence is a final act of defiance against Washington’s norms and traditions that he has been ignoring for four years.
Historian Douglas Brinkley said that while attending the inauguration “would be a beautiful olive branch for the country,” he was not surprised by the decision.
“Donald Trump does not want to be in Washington as the second fiddle loser on stage with Joe Biden,” he said.
While Trump stays away, former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton will be on hand to witness the ritual of democracy. The only other living president, 96-year-old Jimmy Carter, who spent most of the pandemic at home in Georgia, will not be in attendance, but has given Biden best wishes.
Trump’s tweet that he would boycott the inauguration came as he went into hiding in the White House with a dwindling group of aides and as momentum grew on Capitol Hill to impeach him a second time.
“To all who have asked, I’m not going to attend the January 20th inauguration,” Trump said in a tweet.
It may have been his last. The company announced on Friday evening that it had permanently suspended Trump from its platform, citing the “risk of further incitement to violence.”
Trump’s decision came as no surprise: for more than two months, he has falsely claimed he won reelection and has been carrying out unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud, even though his own administration has said the election had gone reasonably well.
Senator Rick Scott, a Republican in Florida, urged Trump to reconsider.
“Of course he is not constitutionally required to attend and I imagine it would be very difficult to lose an election, but I think he should be present,” Scott said in a statement. The senator called the rite “an important tradition that shows the peaceful transfer of power to our people and the world.”
Vice President Mike Pence, who defied Trump on Wednesday when he refused to intervene in the congressional process to certify Biden’s victory, was expected to attend the inauguration, according to a person close to him and someone familiar with the inauguration schedule. . But Pence spokesman Devin O’Malley said in a statement Friday that the vice president and second lady “have yet to make a decision about their presence.”
Biden said that Pence was “welcome to come,” and that he would be honored to have him.
“I think it is important,” he said, that “the historical precedents and how and the conditions” under which governments are passing “are” maintained. “
Brinkley said Trump’s decision makes him look like a “bad loser.”
“It will also show that he is authoritarian at heart and does not believe in the democratic process. If you don’t respect the idea of a peaceful transition, you don’t respect the constitution or the spirit of democracy itself, ”he said.
On Thursday, with 12 days to go, Trump finally turned to reality when he released a video late in the day condemning the violence in his name at the Capitol and acknowledging that his presidency would soon end.
“A new administration will be inaugurated on January 20,” Trump said in the video, having previously issued a written statement offering the same message. “My focus now is on ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transfer of power. This moment calls for healing and reconciliation. “
But the next morning, Trump was back in his usual department. Instead of expressing condolences to the police officer who passed away Trump praised the “great American patriots” who voted for him for injuries sustained in the riot.
“They will not be respected or treated unfairly in any way !!!” he tweeted.
White House counsel Pat Cipollone has repeatedly warned Trump that he could be held responsible for Wednesday’s incitement to violence. Aides said the president’s video was intended in part to avert potential legal troubles and to slow the mass exodus of executives who announced their early departure in response to the violence.
Wednesday’s violent uprising broke out after Trump spoke at a “Stop the Steal” rally where he told his supporters the election had been stolen and urged them to fight. Since then, Trump has become increasingly isolated, abandoned by nearly all of his closest enablers.
He has seen the firings of top advisers, including two cabinet secretaries and a long list of board officials.
In addition to those who have resigned, senior staff, including longtime assistant Hope Hicks, will begin to leave as part of the usual ‘offboarding’ process that marks the end of an administration, leaving Trump with only a skeleton crew of aides in his latest days in the office.
Those who continued to work continued to weigh their own futures and grapple with how best to control the impulses of a president who was deemed too dangerous to run his own social media accounts, but who remains commander in chief of the world’s greatest army.
There were fears of what a desperate president could do in his last days, including speculation that Trump could incite more violence, make hasty deals, grant ill-conceived pardons – including for himself and his family – or even a destabilizing one. international incident.
On Capitol Hill, Democrats have made plans to impeach Trump a second time, with articles of impeachment expected to be introduced Monday. A draft of the resolution accuses Trump of an abuse of power, saying he “made deliberate statements encouraging – and expected to result in – impending lawless action in the Capitol.”
White House spokesman Judd Deere responded by saying, “A politically motivated impeachment against a president with 12 days to go will only serve to further divide our great country.”
Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was enacting other measures to try to control Trump’s forces. She said she had spoken to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about preventing a “runaway” Trump from launching military action or a nuclear strike. She and Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer have also called on Pence and the cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to force Trump from office – though the urgency of that discussion had waned among cabinet members and staff by Thursday.
Staff-level discussions on the matter took place in multiple departments and even parts of the White House, according to two people briefed on the talks. But no cabinet member has publicly expressed support for the move.
Pence did not publicly say whether he would support an appeal for the 25th Amendment, but Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said he did not consider that likely. “I just heard he’s not actually moving in that direction,” he said, citing “my Senate channels.”
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Associated Press writers Jonathan Lemire in New York and Alan Fram and Kevin Freking in Washington contributed to this report.