The President elect, Joe Biden will be inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States at noon, and it will mark the commencement of his four-year term as president and Kamala Harris as vice president. The public ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday, January 20, 2021, on the West Front of the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
The event will be the 59th presidential inauguration. Biden will take the oath of office as president at the event, and Harris will take the oath of office as vice president. The inauguration will take place during extraordinary political, health, and economic crises, including an attempt to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, which led to a storming of the Capitol during a critical session of the House of Representatives.
President-elect Joe Biden’s inaugural plans have been reshaped by Covid and concerns over security after the Capitol riot. Biden is slated to enact a diverse array of policies by way of executive action on his first day as president. Tamara Keith, Ayesha Roscoe, and Carrie Johnson discuss it all on The NPR Politics Podcast.
On the morning of Jan. 20, Donald Trump and Melania Trump will depart the White House as President and first lady, but they will not invite their incoming counterparts, Joe and Jill Biden, inside before they do.
The dissolving of one of America’s most enduring transfer-of-power rituals — the outgoing president welcoming the incoming president on the steps of the North Portico, and then riding with them to the United States Capitol — is just one of the snubs the Trumps are perpetrating as they leave Washington.
Instead of a president and first lady, the Bidens will be greeted by the White House chief usher Timothy Harleth, according to a source familiar with the day’s events and planning. Harleth, a 2017 Trump hire from the Trump International Hotel in Washington, will likely not stay on in the Biden administration, the source said, noting the role of chief usher in all probability will be filled by someone more familiar with the incoming president and first lady.
In the afternoon of Inauguration, then-President Biden will participate in a ceremonial wreath-laying at Arlington National Cemetery, joined by former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. It is during these hours the bulk of the Bidens’ personal effects will be moved into the White House and unpacked, according to another source with knowledge of executive residence practices.
By that time, all Trump paraphernalia will be gone, and a thorough top-to-bottom cleaning of the entire White House campus will have been completed. Deeper cleaning protocols were arranged via the White House with outside contractors, on top of regular cleaning done by staff, including specialized attention to rugs, carpets, curtains and surfaces, to tackle any possibility of lingering germs, of the COVID-19 sort or otherwise.
“Moving furniture and vacuuming, cleaning baseboards, vacuuming drapes, wiping down shades, cleaning chandeliers, washing windows, high dusting,” are areas all covered during the traditional move-in of a new president and his family, according to the residence source. “That cleaning will start as soon as Donald Trump and Melania Trump depart.”
A particular focus of this move will be paid to the bedrooms in the residence, where new mattresses and box springs for the incoming first family are standard operating procedure, according to the source. Yet one part of the bedroom set-up will be markedly different with the Bidens than it was for the Trumps: The Bidens will be sharing a bedroom. Melania Trump spent the majority of her time in the White House in the large bedroom suite typically reserved for presidents and their spouse, adjacent to the West Sitting Hall, according to a source with knowledge of the arrangement.
“Donald Trump slept in his own bedroom, which was previously a study or den during other administrations,” the source said of the arrangement.
