To hell with it, I won’t go to inauguration: Trump
So much for national unity. President Trump announced Friday that he won’t attend Joe Biden’s inauguration, flip-flopping on his pledge to promote “healing” in the wake of his farright supporters orchestrating a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th,” Trump tweeted.
Biden wasn’t upset. “One of the few things he and I have ever agreed on,” Biden told reporters at his transition team headquarters in Delaware. “It’s a good thing — him not showing up.”
Trump will become the sixth president in American history to skip the inauguration of his successor. Richard Nixon was the last president to do so after resigning in disgrace in 1974 amid the Watergate scandal.
Trump’s inauguration pullout came less than 24 hours after he posted a video on Twitter condemning Wednesday’s Capitol attack and vowing to provide a “seamless” hand-off to Biden’s administration.
“This moment calls for healing and reconciliation,” Trump said in the video.
On Wednesday, Trump’s tone was sharply different.
In what will go down as one of the darkest speeches in modern American history, Trump urged a crowd of far-right supporters outside the White House to “fight like hell” and march to the U.S. Capitol to stop the congressional certification of Biden’s “bulls—t” election victory.
At least five people, including a police officer, died in the mayhem that ensued, as the proTrump rioters stormed the Capitol, touting guns and Confederate battle flags.
Trump-boosting Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who was among a small group of GOP senators who voted in favor of invalidating Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, pleaded with the outgoing president to reconsider his inaugural cancellation.
“He is, of course, not constitutionally required to attend and I can imagine losing an election is very hard, but I believe he should attend,” Scott said in a statement. “I plan to attend and believe it is an important tradition that demonstrates the peaceful transfer of power to our people and to the world.”