When former US President Ronald Reagan took oath for a second stint at the White House in 1985, the ceremony was moved inside the Capitol Rotunda in Washington D.C. as a result of freezing temperatures. Now 40 years later, Donald Trump’s swearing in ceremony on Monday has also been shifted indoors due to the same weather factor.
On January 17, the incoming President announced on Truth Social that he has “ordered the inauguration address, in addition to prayers and other speeches, to be delivered in the US Capitol Rotunda, as was used by Ronald Reagan in 1985, also because of very cold weather”.
Trump also said that he did not want to see people getting injured during the oath-taking event as a result of thr sub-zero temperatures.
“It is my obligation to protect the country of our country… The weather forecast for Washington, D.C., with the windchill factor, could take temperatures into severe record lows. There is an Arctic blast sweeping the country. I don’t want to see people hurt, or injured, in any way.”
Weather forecasters have predicted a brutally cold Arctic blast to enter the country from Canada which is likely to freeze areas in the West, Central, South and East US.
On Monday, Trump’s inauguration day, the temperature in Washington D.C. is predicted to plunge to a low of minus 6 degrees Celsius.
RONALD AND Nancy REAGAN ‘HAD NO CHOICE’
Ahead of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration on January 20, 1985, the then White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes told mediapersons that the President and First Lady “really felt they had no choice”, The Associated Press reported, citing archived transcripts of press briefings housed at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in California.
It was minus 7 degrees Celsius on that day and the Press Secretary further said that “the medical people told them (the Reagans) that exposed areas would freeze in less than five minutes”.
“The Reagans looked at it, knowing parade participants might be out there for four hours, if not longer. So, it was just obvious, knowing that, what the medical people told them, that they would have had severe frostbite, if not some conditions that could have been worse.”
The Press Secretary, however, brushed off concerns that shifting the inauguration indoors had anything to do with Ronald Reagan’s health.
Ronald Reagan became the oldest President to take office at the age of 73. In 2021, outgoing President Joe Biden broke the record at the age of 78 years, And now Trump, who turned 78 in June 2024, will become the oldest person to start a presidential term.
-MINUS 6 DEGREES PREDICTED FOR MONDAY
The National Weather Service has predicted that the temperature is expected to dip to minus 6 degrees Celsius when Donald Trump is sworn in at noon.
When former President Barack Obama took oath for his first term in 2009, it was minus 2 degrees and during Biden’s inauguration in 2021, it was relatively warm at 5.5 degrees.
Monday’s forecast temperature is about the same as it was in Washington 64 years ago, when John F Kennedy took the oath in a minus 5 degrees temperature.
In 1909, William Howard Taft held his inauguration indoors after 10 inches of snow fell.
(With AP inputs_
Published By:
Karishma Saurabh Kalita
Published On:
Jan 20, 2025
