Donald Trump left the White House for the ultimate time as president Wednesday morning, snubbing President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration as he formally ended a time period stuffed with lies, racism, sexism, financial debt, illness, hate and American carnage.
Trump boarded Marine One on the White House simply after 8 a.m. and traveled to Maryland’s Joint Base Andrews for a military-style sendoff that includes a army band and a crimson carpet lined with armed companies personnel.
“We were not a regular administration,” Trump stated in a rambling speech at Andrews that touched on the economic system, the Space Force and the coronavirus pandemic, which he referred to once more with the racist time period “the China virus.”
“As the athletes would say, we’ve left it all on the field,” he stated.
“Have a good life, we will see you soon,” he added.
Trump then boarded Air Force One — whereas he nonetheless may — to journey to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida earlier than Biden was to be sworn in at midday.
The nation’s prime Republicans stated Tuesday that they’d skip Trump’s departure ceremony in favor of attending inaugural actions with Biden. Vice President Mike Pence was not anticipated to attend the sendoff and deliberate to be at Biden’s inauguration — the most recent signal that Trump’s relationship with considered one of his most loyal allies had soured.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) each accepted Biden’s invitation to attend Mass at a church in Washington at concerning the time of Trump’s sendoff, according to Axios.
Trump beforehand stated he would not attend Biden’s inauguration, by which the brand new president will take the oath of workplace in a pared-down ceremony with extraordinarily heightened safety.
Only a handful of presidents in U.S. history, all in the 1800s, boycotted their successor’s inauguration or left Washington early. (Richard Nixon didn’t attend Gerald Ford’s inauguration after Nixon resigned in 1974 as he faced impeachment within the Watergate scandal.) Outgoing presidents often attend their successor’s inauguration as an indication of respect and a sign of a peaceable transition of energy.
But Trump had lengthy proven he had no intention of peacefully transferring energy to the Biden administration, as proven by his repeated false claims that the November election was “stolen” from him and by his goading of fervent followers from throughout the nation to storm the U.S. Capitol in an effort to overturn the election outcomes.
On Jan. 6, the day Congress convened to certify outcomes of the election received by Biden, armed pro-Trump rioters — some donning racist, white nationalist symbols — overran police traces and rampaged via the federal government constructing the place Pence and lawmakers had been gathered. They violently threatened journalists, attacked regulation enforcement officers and hunted members of Congress with intent to hurt. Five people died as a result of the insurrection, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer.
After that, Trump’s White House employees started to depart in droves whereas federal and native authorities labored to trace down and arrest a whole lot of insurrectionists, a few of whom stated they had been following Trump’s orders.
Exactly one week after the riot, members of the House of Representatives voted to question Trump 237-197, making him the one U.S. president to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans joined all Democrats in favor of charging the president with inciting an revolt. Trump now faces a trial within the Senate, which is able to happen throughout Biden’s presidency.
Democratic lawmakers have roundly condemned Trump and other Republican lawmakers’ roles in repeatedly and dangerously mendacity concerning the election being fraudulent. Only a few Republican senators known as for Trump to resign or voiced help for impeachment.
In his final handle to the nation as president, Trump informed Americans on Tuesday: “We did what we came to do.”
We did what we got here to do.
Donald J. Trump
“In America, we don’t insist on absolute conformity or enforce rigid orthodoxies and punitive speech codes,” he stated in a recorded video, showing to defend the violent rhetoric that incited the revolt.
“Now, as I prepare to hand power over to a new administration at noon on Wednesday, I want you to know that the movement we started is only just beginning,” Trump continued. “There’s never been anything like it.”
Because of the Capitol siege, Washington heightened safety to conflict zone-like ranges in preparation for the inauguration and in anticipation of extra extremist violence. More than 20,000 National Guard troops are stationed close to the Capitol and across the metropolis, a a lot larger quantity than the 8,000 who had been in attendance for Trump’s inauguration 4 years in the past.
Downtown Washington went on lockdown late final week, whereas airways elevated safety protocols for flights going to and from the nation’s capital. And due to the pandemic, the National Mall changed what would usually be seats for inauguration attendees with a whole lot of hundreds of flags — a becoming farewell to Trump as he departs Washington after 400,000 Americans died of COVID-19 on his watch.
This is a growing story. Please verify again for updates.
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