Donald Trump, the man who defied the odds to win the 2016 election, will be inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States on January 20.
At the ceremony, America’s Got Talent runner-up Jackie Evancho will sing the national anthem, and Trump will place his hand on two copies of the Bible — one a gift from his mother and the other once used by Abraham Lincoln — to take the oath of office.
Event planners are estimating that 900,000 people will be in attendance Friday, which is half the turnout of President Barack Obama’s record-breaking ceremony in 2008. Notably, more than 50 congressional Democrats have chosen to boycott the ceremony.
While there’s politics in the pageantry, the most important moment of the proceedings will likely come during Trump’s inaugural address.
As it stands, Trump will enter the White House an incredibly unpopular president; his approval ratings have dropped since he was elected in November. He lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by almost 2.9 million votes, and nearly the same number of people are coming to Washington, DC, to protest Trump’s presidency as are projected to attend the inauguration.
Trump told reporters that his inaugural address will aim to unite America, taking a similar tone as his election night victory speech. But we already know that Trump hasn’t made much progress on this front over the course of the transition process, going after civil rights icon John Lewis on MLK Day weekend and even questioning the validity of approval ratings.
Trump is said to be receiving counsel from advisers Stephen Bannon and Kellyanne Conway and his campaign speechwriter Stephen Miller, as well as several historians specifically regarding the speech’s length, incoming press secretary Sean Spicer told the press Wednesday. But the words will be fully Trump’s own.
Trump inauguration LIVE STREAM: watch swearing-in speech online
20 January 2017
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