![]() Donald Trump takes the oath of office as the 45th president of the United States. | |
Date | January 20, 2017 |
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Location | United States Capitol, Washington, D.C. |
Organized by | Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, Inaugural Committee |
Participants | Donald Trump 45th president of the United States — Assuming office John Roberts Chief Justice of the United States — Administering oath Mike Pence 48th vice president of the United States — Assuming office Clarence Thomas Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States — Administering oath |
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Business and personal 45th President of the United States Tenure Impeachments Prosecutions Interactions involving Russia ![]() |
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The inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States marked the commencement of Trump's term as president and Mike Pence's term as vice president.[1] An estimated 300,000 to 600,000[2][3] people attended the public ceremony held on Friday, January 20, 2017, at the West Front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. The event was the 58th presidential inauguration.[4] Held in Washington, D.C., from January 17 to 21, 2017, inaugural events included concerts, the swearing-in ceremony, a congressional luncheon, parade, inaugural balls, and the interfaith inaugural prayer service. The inauguration was protested worldwide.[5]
Administered by Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, the presidential oath was taken by Trump as his first task after becoming president, in keeping with Article Two, Section 1, Clause 8 and the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, with the vice presidential oath taken by Pence and administered by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas immediately preceding it.[6] Trump was sworn in with his left hand on a pair of Bibles: his personal copy and the Lincoln Bible.[7][8] At 70 years, 220 days of age on Inauguration Day, Trump was the oldest person to assume the presidency until he was surpassed by Joe Biden four years later, in 2021.
The Times spoke with crowd estimation experts who pegged the number in attendance on Friday at one-third of Obama's 2009 audience, or 600,000 people.
To try to settle the question of how many people attended the inauguration ceremony on the National Mall in Washington, DC, we reached out to Keith Still, a professor of crowd science at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK. (He analyzed aerial shots of the crowds of both President Obama's 2009 inaugural address and President Trump's for The New York Times.) His conclusion is that the crowd on the Mall on Friday was roughly one-third the size of President Obama's.