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US President Donald Trump left the White House for the last time on Wednesday, skipping his successor’s nomination in an extraordinary break with tradition. Watch the preparation for Joe Biden’s inauguration LIVE.
A small crowd bade their farewells as Trump, 74, and First Lady Melania Trump walked a short red carpet and boarded the Marine One helicopter shortly after 8:15 a.m. Washington time for the short flight to the air base where they will fly to Florida aboard Air Force One.
“I just want to say goodbye,” Trump told the rally, calling his tenure the “honor of a lifetime.”
Trump will be at his resort town of Mar-a-Lago, Florida when Biden, a 78-year-old former vice president, is sworn in at noon on the Western Front of the U.S. Capitol.
Extraordinary circumstances
Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be sworn in at the very spot where pro-Trump rioters clashed with police two weeks ago before storming Congress in a deadly insurgency.
The inauguration is unlike any other.
Some 25,000 National Guard troops are positioned in key areas of Washington, tasked with preventing any repeat of this month’s attack.
Amid the pandemic, the general public is essentially barred from attending the swearing-in, leading to the unprecedented sight of an empty National Mall on inauguration day.
Instead, on the grassy expanse of the mall, some 200,000 flags were planted to represent the absent crowds.
Trump broke the days of silence on Tuesday with a pre-recorded farewell video in which – for the first time – he called on Americans to “pray” for the success of the new administration.
But Trump has yet to personally congratulate Biden.
Straight to work
The new president will seek to quickly confirm his Cabinet choices and push through ambitious legislation – including a $ 1.9 trillion bailout.
“We don’t have a second to waste in tackling the crises we face as a nation,” Biden tweeted Tuesday night.
“That’s why after taking the oath tomorrow, I’m going to get to work.”
He plans to start his tenure by joining the Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization, according to aides, who said Biden would sign 17 orders and actions just hours after taking the oath, opening new ones lanes on Immigration, Environment, Covid-19 and Economy.
In the early days, he will end Trump’s heavily assaulted ban on visitors from several Muslim-majority countries and halt construction of the wall Trump ordered at the US-Mexico border to stem illegal immigration, according to reports. assistants.
To symbolize the new spirit of unity, Biden invited the two senior senators – Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican Mitch McConnell – and other congressional leaders to attend a church service with him on Wednesday before the inauguration.
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