The Supreme Court went on high alert hours before the President-elect Joe Biden’s swearing-in ceremony.
CNN has further reported increased national guard presence outside the Supreme Court building over the past few minutes and the Supreme Court builiding was thoroughly searched.
Biden, 78, will become the oldest US president in history at a scaled-back ceremony in Washington that has been largely stripped of its usual pomp and circumstance, due to the COVID-19 as well as security concerns following the January 6 assault on the US Capitol by Trump supporters. His running mate, Kamala Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, will become the first Black person, first woman, and first Asian American to serve as vice president. Biden and Harris will take the oath of office, following which the new president will deliver his inaugural speech laying down the vision of his administration.
Donald Trump walked out of the White House today and headed to Florida, giving a miss to the inauguration event of Joe Biden where he will take oath as the 46th president of the United States. In his final remarks before leaving the White House, Trump said, “We love the American people and again it has been something very special. And I just want to say goodbye, but hopefully it’s not a long term goodbye. We’ll see each other again.”
Joe Biden arrived at the US Capitol at 21:55 (IST) where the swearing-in ceremony will proceed in front of Chief Justice John Roberts.
The European Union’s top officials breathed a sigh of relief as Joe Biden will be taking over as president of the United States, but they warned that the world has changed after four years of Donald Trump and that trans-Atlantic ties will be different in the future. “This new dawn in America is the moment we’ve been awaiting for so long,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, hailing Biden’s arrival as “resounding proof that, once again after four long years, Europe has a friend in the White House.”
