Trump lands in Washington for inauguration celebration amid record cold

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WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump arrived in Washington on Saturday evening to attend his inauguration ceremony amid record-breaking cold.

Trump was aboard an Air Force One plane flown by outgoing President Joe Biden to his home in Palm Beach, Florida, where the Republican worked to transition power after his Nov. 5 election victory over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. . His wife Melania, daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared are with him on the plane.

Trump is expected to head immediately to his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, where a crowd of about 500 guests will watch a fireworks display and a musical performance featuring Leo Dees, an Elvis impersonator. and Christopher Macchio, a tenor. Which Mr. Trump has previously featured at political events.

Trump, 78, is scheduled to hold a rally with supporters inside the Capital One Arena in downtown Washington on Sunday to mark his inauguration, as well as a post-inauguration ceremony on Monday afternoon.

A blast of bad weather forecast for Monday prompted Trump to move the parade from the iconic west front of the US Capitol building to the Capitol Rotunda and down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol One Arena.

Trump will be sworn in at 12 noon local time (1700 GMT) and then deliver his inaugural address, a speech that usually sets the tone for the president’s new four-year term from the rotunda inside the US Capitol.

It will be the first time since Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in January 1985 that a major event has been moved indoors.

Crowds without seats in DC

Most of the more than 220,000 ticketed guests who came to watch from the U.S. Capitol grounds will not be able to see the swearing-in inside the building. Only a portion will fit inside the 20,000-seat Capital One Arena where the inauguration will be broadcast and parade entertainers and participants are expected to perform.

On Saturday, Trump fans who had planned to attend the inauguration were already roaming downtown Washington.

Arthur Case, a 78-year-old retired professor, and his brother Richard Case, a 64-year-old small business owner, traveled from Connecticut to watch Trump’s inauguration for the second time, after visiting in 2017.

“It’s very frustrating because we all traveled so long to get here, and then went through the congressional process to get tickets to the inauguration. We finally got tickets, now, boom. He’s saying That we might not be able to go to the (National) Mall, said Arthur Case.

“I’m not disappointed because on Monday we’re taking our country back,” Richard Case said.

Debbie Koch, a 60-year-old information technology professional who traveled from Wisconsin with her sister, said she plans to attend the Capital One Arena rally Sunday night if she can get in.

“We don’t know for sure,” he said. “We’re very excited to be here.”

Asked Saturday how they would manage crowds of Trump inauguration ticket holders who wouldn’t fit into the Capitol Rotunda or Capitol One Stadium, the Secret Service referred the question to event organizers.

Trump’s inaugural committee did not respond to requests for more information about the Capital One Arena event on Saturday.

Once he returns to the White House on Monday afternoon, Trump is expected to begin signing dozens of executive orders and directives that he plans to crack down on immigration, boost U.S. energy production and other priorities. has made

Trump, whose first term ran from 2017 to 2021, declined to attend the inauguration of Biden, who defeated him in 2020. He left Washington for Florida before the event, vowing that “we’ll be back in one form or another.”

Two weeks earlier, his supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to delay lawmakers from certifying Biden’s victory.