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Economic Times | 20 Jan, 2021 | 05.40PM IST
Joe Biden Oath Ceremony Live News: It's officially the end of President Donald J Trump
In a major departure from previous inaugurations, most of the events today will take place virtually because of the pandemic.
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But surveys tell a different story. The president’s approval ratings are the worst of his tenure, according to polls.
- A Pew Research Center survey released yesterday found that just 29 percent of American adults said Trump should continue to be a major political figure in the years ahead.
- Four in five Americans think the country’s democracy is under threat, according to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist College poll conducted after the Capitol attack.
Farewell Address of President Trump: “We did what we came here to do, and so much more,” he said. “The movement we started is only just beginning.”
This was a terrible, terrible experiment.
- Friedman for NYT
It’s not that Trump never did anything good. It’s that it was nowhere near worth the price of leaving our nation more divided, more sick — and with more people marinated in conspiracy theories — than at any time in modern history.
- Thomas L. Friedman wrote for The New York Times
A financial minefield is awaiting Trump. Baseless election fraud claims and the Capitol riot have compounded already-looming threats to his bottom line. And the cash lifelines he once relied on have vanished.
The tax records that he has long fought to keep hidden, revealed in a New York Times investigation last September, detailed his financial challenges.
Those lifelines are gone. And his divisive presidency has steadily eroded the mainstream marketability of the brand that is at the heart of his business.
- Many of his resorts were losing millions of dollars a year even before the pandemic struck.
- Hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, which he personally guaranteed, must be repaid within a few years.
- He has burned through much of his cash and easy-to-sell assets.
- And a decade-old I.R.S. audit threatens to cost him more than $100 million to resolve.
Those lifelines are gone. And his divisive presidency has steadily eroded the mainstream marketability of the brand that is at the heart of his business.
Needless to say, Trump's been busy these last few days. With hours left in Office, Trump went on a pardoning spree
- The president continued using his power to help his supporters, including his former chief strategist and one of his top 2016 fund-raisers.
- Steve Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, was charged with misusing donations to build the wall along the southern border.
- Elliott Broidy, a G.O.P. donor, had pleaded guilty in a lobbying case. Others on the list included Kwame Kilpatrick and the rapper Lil Wayne.
This is the point where we would show you our favourite Trump tweets, but Twitter's been eerily calm these days. Any idea why? Anyway...here's Melania Trump bidding Americans adieu instead.
A Farewell Message from First Lady Melania Trump https://t.co/WfG1zg2mt4
— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) 1611000071000Trump has said he would not attend the inauguration, which Biden says "is the few things him and Trump agree on."
Trump would be the sixth outgoing president – after Woodrow Wilson in 1921 -- to not attend the oath ceremony of his successor. Of course, Wilson was not bitter about his term coming to an end; he could not attend President Warren Harding’s inauguration due to poor health.
