Your guide to Trump’s inauguration
Handover a huge moment for US — and two families at centre of transition
Two days from now, Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, will arrive at the White House for morning tea with President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle. Upstairs, in the residence, movers will rush around, simultaneously packing up the outgoing family’s last belongings as they unload those of the Trumps.
By lunchtime, Obama will have handed over the reins of the world’s most powerful nation to a man who vowed to tear down his biggest achievements and who defeated Obama’s chosen successor. A military aide with a briefcase holding the US nuclear launch codes will stop trailing Obama and leave the US Capitol in Trump’s entourage.
After a rancorous campaign that blew away precedent, an election result that shocked the political establishment and a transition by Twitter that upended convention, the unorthodox will be overtaken — at least for a few hours — by tradition.
The inauguration is “one of those great turning points” in the nation’s political consciousness, historian William Seale said. “Everything was going along one way and suddenly there’s a turnaround, and he won. A stop and a change. A re-evaluation.” Trump’s swearing-in will be “the moment on the head of a pin”, he said.
One of the most intriguing aspects of the day will be the limousine ride that Obama and Trump will share on the ride to the Capitol past thousands of onlookers. It promises to be especially awkward: Trump, the real estate magnate and reality-TV star who never held political office, spent years stoking false doubts about Obama’s legitimacy to hold office. Obama spent months telling voters that Trump was uniquely unqualified to be president, declaring that it would be a personal insult were he elected.
“His instruction to me was, ‘ The campaign is over, I am now president for all the people’,” Tom Barrack, the chairman of Trump’s inaugural committee, said this week.
Barrack, the chairman of Colony Capital, said that the Republican wants to “heal the wounds” of the election, to reach out to Americans with questions and doubts and “build a bridge and tie them back in”.
Some Democratic members of Congress, including AfricanAmerican civil rights icon John Lewis, have said they are boycotting the ceremony. In a Twitter post on Saturday, Trump criticised Lewis, who suffered a cracked skull while fighting for voting rights in the 1960s, as “all talk”, a day after the Georgia congressman said he doesn’t consider him “a legitimate president”.
Law enforcement officials expect between 700,000 and 900,000 people to attend inauguration events, about half the 1.8 million the Washington D.C. local government estimated were at Obama’s first inauguration.
About 100 different organisations are planning demonstrations either for or against Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said.
Much of downtown Washington will be closed to traffic to maintain tight security for the occasion.
About 28,000 personnel will be dedicated to security.
In a nod to the heavily rural constituency that helped propel Trump to the presidency, country singers Toby Keith and Lee Greenwood will be featured performers along with military bands at a “Make America Great Again!” event on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial the evening before the inauguration, the inaugural committee announced.
Trump will address the crowd at the concert.
The inauguration itself will reflect Trump’s background in reality television. Jackie Evancho, a teenager featured on America’s Got Talent, is to sing the national anthem.
Trump is seeking a “delicate bal- ance between abiding by tradition” and leaving “his own fingerprint on a fresh canvas”, Barrack said, but added, “Mostly he’s abiding by tradition especially in the swearing-in ceremony.”
That tradition includes having the chief justice of the US, John Roberts Jr., administering the oath of office to Trump; Vice-President-elect Mike Pence has chosen Justice Clarence Thomas for his swearing-in. Trump will parade down Pennsylvania Ave, past a flashy new hotel that bears his name, back to the White House, to rest up and get changed for the evening’s inaugural balls. He may use his presidential authority to issue executive actions even before the night-time balls — as Obama did eight years ago.
Trump plans to issue some executive orders on inauguration day and may swear in some of his Cabinet members, incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer said yesterday. But the incoming president will wait until Monday, the first full business day of his presidency, for “a big flurry of activity”.
When Obama was inaugurated, he and first lady Michelle Obama left the armoured presidential limousine and walked a stretch of the parade route. Trump’s team hasn’t said yet whether he will do the same.
There is always the potential for drama. Since the early days of the republic, the transfer of power often has been an awkward hand-off. President Dwight Eisenhower thought President John Kennedy too young and inexperienced for the job, and Kennedy’s wife Jackie hated that the Eisenhowers let them know it. Rosalynn Carter and Nancy Reagan didn’t talk in the motorcade limo they shared on Inauguration Day.
While most of focus will be on the Trumps’ arrival, the Obamas will have their own emotional experience, said Kate Andersen Brower, a former Bloomberg News reporter and author of First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies. On their last morning at the White House, the outgoing first family traditionally gathers the residence staff, about 100 people, in the State Dining Room to say goodbye.
After the swearing-in ceremony, the Obamas will lift off from the Capitol grounds one last time in the presidential helicopter, heading for Joint Base Andrews.
At Andrews, he’ll board a presidential aircraft, though it will no longer carry the designation Air Force One. The commander-in-chief won’t be aboard.
[Trump’s] instruction to me was, ‘The campaign is over, I am now president for all the people’. Tom Barrack Inaugural committee chairman
The fear of chaos erupting in the world once Donald Trump settles into the Oval Office, probably needs some historical perspective. From a historian’s point of view, we’re doing all right.
BBC history presenter Dan Snow (@thehistoryguy) tweeted at the weekend: “World is absolutely not in chaos. Compared to the past it’s unimaginably peaceful & prosperous. Pessimism fuels Trumps.”
But for months or longer, there’s been a sense of a mostly orderly and predictable period of time coming to an end and something new and dubious beginning.
Irritating political norms that were dull but provided stability now look paper thin. Can a policy or long-time understanding now get overturned in just 140 characters by Trump on Twitter?
Various institutions, traditions and assumptions that seemed to hold it all together have never looked so inadequate — eroded by the anger, apathy and complacency out there, everywhere.
These days Trump is able to shake political capitals in Europe and dent company profits (Lockheed Martin, BMW etc) with a few words in an interview or a tweet, such is the nervousness at what he intends and the loose style with which he tosses away opinions.
On Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said: “We Europeans have our fate in our hands”.
She was reacting to Trump’s comments about Nato (“obsolete” but also “important”), the EU (prepare for Brexit sequels) and herself (made a “catastrophic mistake” about refugees). In the same interview with the Times and Bild, Trump put Merkel on the same level as Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, even though Berlin is a key US ally and Moscow is a difficult rival power, usually dealt with at arms length. “I start off trusting both but let’s see how long that lasts,” he said. “It may not last long at all.”
Statements that were once seen as part of the tumble of campaign politics take on a different light when uttered by a man days away from being the leader of the free world. Former US ambassador to Nato Ivo Daalder tweeted: “Trump is more critical of Nato, EU, & Germany--all close allies--than he's ever been of Putin & Russia. We're entering an upside down world.” But Robin Niblett, the director of Chatham House, told the New York Times: “I take all of this with a pinch of salt. I think Trump is trying to keep his options open and not be cornered by simply standing up for existing policy positions.”
Yesterday Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May said the UK would not be able to stay in the single market after leaving the EU. Add to that Trump’s targeting of Merkel as she faces re-election, Beijing’s concern at the sudden shakiness of US recognition for the one-China policy and Trump’s general warming towards Russia. A lot of uncertainty that wasn’t there before has been injected into the Western world.
Trump’s team has been sending mixed signals compared to the boss during the transition with the proposed secretary of defence, General James Mattis, calling Nato “the most successful military alliance, probably in modern history, maybe
ever”. A great unknown at this stage is how much of policy will be shaped by Trump himself or by his Cabinet. And within the team, who will have the most influence?
Added to this are the surreal changes in party politics in Washington, with a Republican wing these days in favour of Putin, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks while others stick to the party’s old foreign policy orthodoxy and the Democrats newly antagonistic towards Russia.
Trump’s approach to foreign pol- icy is one half of the equation — other countries have to work out what it means and react to it. When Trump says something that’s different to policy in place for eight years or longer, it isn’t a simple expression of his viewpoint: Others are making moves to take advantage of a new reality. Major swings are expected when power changes hands between the parties but Barack Obama to Donald Trump is extreme.
While most of the attention has been focused on larger powers and potential major conflicts, such as China and Taiwan, smaller standoffs are more likely. A Serbia/Kosovo flare up shows that there’s not only potential new conflicts to watch out for but old ones reviving. Kosovo police stopped a Serbian train painted in nationalist colours with the words “Kosovo is Serbia” crossing the border. Serbia does not recognise Kosovo’s independence.
Boston Globe writer Scott Gilmore made the point: “To their credit, Serbians understand Trump/Putin are ushering in a new Moscowcentric world, while Americans are still deciphering tweets.” Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg tweeted: “Trump's comments on the EU and Nato could pave the way for Russian adventurism in the Baltics. Which would not be good.”
It is Trump’s reframing of the US relationship with Russia that is bubbling concern. Nato is deploying troops to Poland to reassure alliance members. Lithuania is to build a fence along its border with Russia. Yesterday a Nato General, Denis Mercier, reacted to Trump’s comments with a soothing: “We see that there is a need for adaptation”. Mercier said Nato has “some structures that are obsolete”.
Trump has argued with people, companies and groups as diverse as Saturday Night Live, the Pope, CNN, Vanity Fair and US intelligence staff. But he has consistently been positive about Moscow and Putin. Aside from the US intelligence report on Russia’s alleged meddling in the election and the disputed dossier compiled by a former MI6 agent, there’s a lot that is publicly known about Trump’s views of and ties to Russia. Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum outlined them:
Trump's real estate group is heavily reliant on Russian investment; a former Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort, worked for Ukraine’s former Russian-backed President, Viktor Yanukovych; Team Trump at the Republican convention changed the party platform to soften the language on Ukraine and Trump repeated slogans and conspiracy theories during the election campaign lifted from Sputnik, a Russian propaganda website.
Trump is willing to “risk serious conflict with China, to destroy US relations with Mexico, to dismiss America's closest allies in Europe and to downgrade Nato . . . But he has repeated many times his admiration for Russia and its president”.
The world waits to see whether its fears of chaos are exaggerated.