Donald Trump to begin second term indoors
Months of planning went into organising Donald Trump’s inauguration this coming week. Now he has moved the swearing-in ceremony indoors, citing ‘an Arctic blast’.
Months of planning went into organising US President-elect Donald Trump’s tightly choreographed inauguration. Now, with freezing temperatures bearing down on Washington, officials have less than three days to rethink the entire event.
Mr Trump was scheduled to deliver his second inaugural address and take the oath of office on Monday (early Tuesday morning AEDT) on the West Front of the Capitol, looking out at hundreds of thousands of onlookers gathered before him.
Instead, he will begin his second term with a more intimate indoor ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda.
Several hundred dignitaries and special guests will attend in person – the rest will watch live video feeds at the Capital One Arena in downtown Washington or on the National Mall.
Mr Trump announced the changes on Friday in a social-media post, pointing to what he called an “Arctic blast sweeping the Country’’.
“I don’t want to see people hurt, or injured, in any way,” Mr Trump wrote, warning of dangerous weather conditions in Washington.
The inauguration could be one of the most frigid since former president Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985, the last time the swearing-in ceremony was moved indoors. Temperatures are expected to hover around 20 degrees Fahrenheit (about -7 Celsius) around noon, with 8-degree wind chills, according to the National Weather Service.
It was an extraordinary turn of events for a president fixated on imagery and crowd size. The move will deny Mr Trump the ability to easily compare his inauguration turnout to that of his predecessors, as he did on his first day in office in 2017.
According to the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, 220,000 tickets had been distributed to the public, granting access to the official inaugural ceremonies on the Capitol grounds.
Inauguration organisers often plan for contingencies, including moving the event indoors. The venue change nonetheless created a logistical headache for the staffers who have spent long hours preparing for the event and the hordes of tourists who already have arrived in the nation’s capital.
Video screens and thousands of chairs already had been set up on the National Mall when news broke that the event would be moved. By Friday afternoon, workers were setting up a stage in the Capitol Rotunda.
Supporter Robert Clark arrived in Washington after an 1100km road trip from Carpentersville, Illinois, to find that his ticketed seat at the inauguration was up in the air. He checked his phone as he stood on the stone-paved eastern front of the Capitol, waiting for an update from organisers.
“We came all the way out here for this – we’re still going to make the best of it,” Mr Clark said, joking that Mr Trump’s indoor victory rally on Sunday night was now the “spot to be at’’.
Roxanne Ybarra and Robin Street, both of Reno, Nevada, held on to their tickets even after they were told that the inauguration would be held indoors in a smaller venue.
It was the pair’s first time visiting Washington, and they still planned to visit attractions around the city. “There’s still so much to see,” said Ms Ybarra, who added that she still hoped to score a spot inside the Capitol.
Plans for Mr Trump’s inauguration have been in the works for months and require close co-ordination between the president-elect’s team, the White House, congress, and city and federal officials. Security measures such as temporary fencing, concrete barricades and checkpoints have been installed ahead of events around Washington.
The change of plans also sparked concerns among some lawmakers and VIP guests about space constraints and seating arrangements, according to people familiar with the planning.
“I’m worried about getting my people in,” said one House of Representatives Republican. “Frankly, I’m worried about me getting in, so I don’t know how it’s gonna shake out. But it’s gonna be different, that’s for sure.”
The Senate Sergeant at Arms sent an email Friday warning that “a vast majority of ticketed guests will not be able to attend the ceremonies in person,” given the shift indoors, according to an email sent to Senate email holders. The email noted that the offices could “distribute tickets to constituents in the manner they think best’’.
For Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985, lawmakers and other dignitaries crammed into the Rotunda. The Washington Post at the time put the number of attendees at about 1000, a fraction of the 140,000 who had been expected to attend the formal outdoor ceremonies.
Discussions about moving the ceremonies began a few days ago after officials with the National Park Service raised concerns about the freezing temperatures, according to a person familiar with planning.
Mr Trump recognised that the weather would be dangerous and challenging for the thousands of his supporters who were expected to stand in the cold to witness the events, according to his aides. In his post about the location change, Mr Trump noted that Reagan had made a similar decision to move his inauguration inside.
The Capital One Arena, which seats roughly 20,000 people, will feature a livestream of the inauguration ceremony and host the presidential parade, which was previously scheduled to snake through downtown Washington. Mr Trump said he would also make an appearance at the venue on Monday.
On Inauguration Day, Mr Trump is expected to attend a service at St. John’s Episcopal Church before heading to the White House to meet President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden. He then will go to the Capitol for the swearing-in ceremony. The official program on the West Front of the Capitol was scheduled to include speakers and performances from singers such as Carrie Underwood and Lee Greenwood.
Beyond friends and family, and the traditional audience of top government officials, Mr Trump invited foreign dignitaries and some of his top donors to the festivities. Guests include media and tech executives such as Elon Musk, Meta Platforms’ Mark Zuckerberg, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
Australia will be represented by Foreign Minister Penny Wong. AFP reported that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, seen as close to Mr Trump, will attend in person
Yet, the cold wasn’t the only hurdle facing the inaugural planning committee – there was also a last-minute ticketing headache.
Before Mr Trump announced that he was moving the event inside, the planning-committee staff was at the Washington Convention Centre trying to repack more than 10,000 ticket packets after encountering logistical mix-ups, according to a person working on the inaugural committee. Representatives for the inauguration didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Among the errors staff was trying to fix: The committee sent out thousands of emails to people stating that their tickets were rescinded, just days after those same people received confirmation emails that they had tickets, according to an email reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Lindsay Wise contributed to this article.
The Wall Street Journal
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