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President Trump says he won't attend Biden/Harris inauguration

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MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump says he will not attend the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on January 20.

“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th,” Trump tweeted Friday morning.

Only three incumbent presidents in U.S. history have skipped attending their successors’ inaugurations: John Adams 1801, John Quincy Adams in 1829, and Andrew Johnson in 1869.  Johnson, like Trump, was impeached but not convicted while in office.

Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary, Devin O’Malley, said that Pence had yet to decide what he would do, telling ABC News, “Vice President Pence and the Second Lady have yet to make a decision regarding their attendance.”

Trump’s decision comes as he continues to amplify baseless and repeatedly disproven claims of voter fraud, which he insists are the reasons for his loss in the general election.  Those claims resulted in thousands of his supporters storming the U.S. Capitol building Wednesday, disrupting the usually ceremonial ratification of the presidential electoral votes and resulting in five deaths. 

Earlier Friday morning, Trump tweeted, “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

At least ten Trump administration officials have announced their resignations since Wednesday, with lawmakers on Capitol Hill currently discussing whether to again impeach Trump in the 13 days remaining in his presidency, or whether to urge Pence and remaining Cabinet members to use the 25th Amendment to declare Trump unable to perform his duties and subsequently remove him from office. 

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