FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT: I, Franklin Delano Roosevelt--
CALVIN COOLIDGE: I, Calvin Coolidge--
LYNDON JOHNSON: I, Lyndon Baines Johnson--
- --do solemnly swear--
JOHN F. KENNEDY: --do solemnly swear--
GERALD FORD: --that I will faithfully execute--
RONALD REAGAN: --the Office of President of the United States.
- It's this moment--
GEORGE BUSH: --and will, to the best of my ability--
BILL CLINTON: --to the best of my ability--
- --it's these words--
JOHN F. KENNEDY: --preserve-- JIMMY CARTER: --protect--
RICHARD NIXON: --and defend--
- --once spoken--
GEORGE W. BUSH: --the Constitution
of the United States.
- --that have the power to transform
any citizen into a president.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: So help me, God.
FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT: So help me, God.
BARACK OBAMA: So help me, God.
- Congratulations, Mr. President.
- So don't mess it up.
JOHN ROBERTS: That I will execute
the office of President of the United States faithfully.
BARACK OBAMA: That I will execute--
JOHN ROBERTS: --the-- faithfully,
the President-- the Office of President of the United States.
BARACK OBAMA: --the Office of President of the United
States faithfully.
- --the Office of the Presidency of the United States.
- Whoopsie.
- --maintain and defend--
BARACK OBAMA: --the Office of President of the United States.
- Uh-oh.
- I'm ready to administer the oath.
- To tell the story of the presidential oath of office,
let's start at the beginning with this guy,
the old $1 bill himself, George Washington,
or the next best thing.
As our nation's first president, he
was the first to recite the oath back on April 30, 1789.
GEORGE WASHINGTON: I, George Washington--
- --do solemnly swear--
GEORGE WASHINGTON: --do solemnly swear--
- The oath of office is written into the United States
Constitution, and it's the only part meant to be
administered word for word.
FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT: --preserve, protect, and defend--
- The framers carefully added these specific 35
words as the binding pledge a new president
makes to the country.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: And I will faithfully
execute the Office of President of the United States.
- And Washington was the first person
ever to get a crack at it.
GEORGE WASHINGTON: And I will, to the best of my ability--
- He took the oath at Federal Hall in New York City.
But these days, most presidents take it outside the US Capitol.
- --the Office of President of the United States.
GEORGE BUSH: --the Office of President of the United States.
- The Constitution doesn't say who has to administer the oath,
but generally, it's the Chief Justice.
- --the Constitution of the United States.
- It was Washington's idea to kiss the Bible,
and almost every president after him did the same, that is,
until the Dwight Eisenhower decided enough of that.
He put the tradition to rest in 1953 and said a prayer instead.
DWIGHT EISENHOWER: --that Thou will make full and complete.
GEORGE WASHINGTON: --so help me, God.
- Now that line is up for debate.
The words "so help me, God" are not
written in the Constitution.
And historians are not sure whether Washington
was the first to say them, but most presidents have added
them to the end of their oath.
RICHARD NIXON: --so help me, God.
- Fast forward two centuries later,
the oath remains a very sacred tradition in our country.
- --preserve, protect, and defend--
JIMMY CARTER: --the Constitution of the United States--
RONALD REAGAN: --so help me, God.
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY: This is the grand theater
and the grand spectacle of watching a democracy at work,
where an entire government hands over a baton
to the next government.
It does not happen until the words of the oath are uttered.
FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT: --that I will faithfully execute--
BILL CLINTON: --the Office of President of the United States.
RICHARD NIXON: --preserve, protect, and defend.
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY: And the words matter.
You have to say the words correctly.
And if it goes sideways, you're going to have to do a do-over
like Barack Obama did.
- Yep, Barack Obama had a redo in 2009.
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY: The oath of office
went sideways, largely for Supreme
Court Justice Roberts' mistake.
JOHN ROBERTS: Are you prepared to take the oath, Senator?
BARACK OBAMA: I am.
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY: President Obama started taking the oath,
but Justice Roberts' language was different than what
Obama was thinking.
JOHN ROBERTS: --swear--
BARACK OBAMA: I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear--
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY: They were kind of counterposing each other.
And they would go back and forth.
And it was an awkward moment.
JOHN ROBERTS: --the United States faithfully--
BARACK OBAMA: --and I will execute--
JOHN ROBERTS: --the-- faithfully the President--
the Office of President of the United States--
BARACK OBAMA: --the Office of President of the United
States faithfully.
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY: Immediately, people
called it a botched oath.
Some people even questioned, is President
Obama a real president?
JEFFREY TOOBIN: The next morning,
a new Justice Department official
named David Barron called the White House counsel and said,
you know, we might want to think about doing this again.
And that's what set in motion the redo later that day.
I would describe the atmosphere in the White House
as kind of sheepish.
Everyone was kind of embarrassed to have to do this again.
- Four years later, he took it two more times,
but that's because in 2013, January 20 landed on a Sunday.
When that happens, the president-elect
takes the oath privately in the White House and then publicly
the next day.
SASHA OBAMA: Good job, Daddy. BARACK OBAMA: I did it.
SASHA OBAMA: You didn't mess up.
- Yeah, Dad, good job.
Can I call you Dad?
BARACK OBAMA: Thank you, everybody.
- In all, Obama has taken the oath four times.
The only other president to take the oath that many times is
FDR, but that's only because he was
elected president four times.
A little different.
Of course, Obama isn't the only president
whose swearing-in ceremony has been a little bit weird.
For example, it didn't go so smoothly
for President Truman in 1945.
- Vice President Harry S. Truman take the oath of office
as 32nd president.
- There's no audio of it, but when Harry S. Truman took
the oath, Chief Justice Harlan Stone said,
I, Harry Ship Truman.
But Stone made that up.
Truman's middle name was just the letter S.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT: --faithfully
execute the Office of the President of the United States.
- It also wasn't perfect for Herbert Hoover in 1929.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT: --to the best of your ability
that you will preserve, maintain, and defend.
- It's subtle, but did you pick up on that?
Chief Justice William Howard Taft said maintain instead of
protect the Constitution.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT: --the Constitution
of the United States.
- In 1909, when Taft himself was sworn in,
his oath was also misquoted.
JOHN ROBERTS: --and will, to the best of my ability--
BARACK OBAMA: --and will, to the best of my ability--
- While those earlier administrations
played a little fast and loose with the oath,
Obama's camp felt differently, because of, well, you know.
(WHISPERING) I'm not going to say it.
JEFFREY TOOBIN: Obama himself had
nothing to do with the decision to redo the oath.
It was the people around him.
His aides, who knew that politically as much as legally,
it was very important to establish his legitimacy.
They knew he was the first African-American.
They knew these false questions had been
raised about his birthplace.
So they decided, let's foreclose any controversy
and redo the whole thing.
- Maybe we should just go back to the way they administered
the oath in the 1800s.
BEN ZIMMER: Originally, whoever was administering the oath
would ask it as a question.
Do you, such and such, solemnly swear?
And then the person would respond just by saying, I do,
or I do solemnly swear.
HERBERT HOOVER: I do.
BEN ZIMMER: In more modern times,
the new president actually repeats every single word.
- --that I will faithfully execute--
JIMMY CARTER: --that I will faithfully execute--
BEN ZIMMER: The whole idea of taking
an oath to assume a new office goes back to ancient times.
HARRY TRUMAN: I, Harry S. Truman, do solemnly swear--
- The presidential oath is shorter
than other official oath.
It's shorter than--
- --to have and to hold--
- --most wedding vows--
- --and in health--
- --perform no operation for--
- --shorter than the Hippocratic Oath.
- On my honor, I will do my best--
- Even the Boy Scouts have a longer oath.
The Boy Scouts.
It takes more words to promise to get
an old lady safely across the street
than it does to get the nuclear codes.
- --mentally awake and morally straight.
- But how much do Americans know about the oath of office?
We decided to test a few to find out.
And since we like our tests with chicken wings,
we headed to the Founding Fathers
bar in Buffalo, New York.
- Welcome to Founding Fathers.
We're going to be taking the CNN Oath
of Office Trivia Challenge.
Are we ready?
- Not really.
- All right.
Who was the only president to take the oath of office
from a female official?
- Uh, Bill Clinton?
He was good with the ladies.
- LBJ.
It was federal judge Sarah Hughes aboard Air
Force One in Dallas, Texas.
- Oh, my god.
I totally didn't know that.
- Which president and what year was
the first oath of office to take place in Washington, DC?
- 1492.
1776.
My mom's birthday.
- Jefferson, right here.
1801.
- This guy's going too fast, right?
- Who was the first president to affirm rather
than swear the oath of office?
- What's the difference?
Those are synonyms!
- Pierce!
Franklin Pierce!
We have a winner!
- Pierce?
That's a president?
Here's another piece of trivia.
When Donald Trump takes the oath of office this year,
he'll be the first president since Eisenhower
to be sworn in without any political experience.
What won't be different is all the fanfare,
including "The President's Own" United States Marine Band.
[music playing]
Hey, how can I get a Marine band?
JASON K. FETTIG: We think we've played
for every presidential inauguration
since 1801, since Thomas Jefferson.
Music is actually central to the inaugural ceremony.
It really is the thing that glues
the entire ceremony together.
And when we come to the part of the presidential oath,
the music really is the thing that, I think,
seals the deal for the new President of the United States.
- [humming] I feel more presidential right now.
JASON K. FETTIG: Immediately following the oath,
we play "Four Ruffles and Flourishes."
[MUSIC - "FOUR RUFFLES AND FLOURISHES"]
And then we play "Hail to the Chief,"
which is official honors for the President of the United States.
[music - "hail to the chief"]
- These guys are good.
JASON K. FETTIG: And this is the first time the new president
hears "Hail to the Chief."
[music - "hail to the chief"]
When we have an inauguration where the new president
is not the incumbent, we actually
play "Hail to the Chief" twice.
We will play "Hail to the Chief" for President
Obama for the very last time in his administration.
And then when President Trump is sworn in,
we will play "Hail to the Chief" for the very first
time for the new president.
The oath and the music brings the entire ceremony
to its zenith.
[music playing]
- Sure, it may seem like a lot of pomp and circumstance,
but in the end.
It is so much bigger than that.
Because even when all the fanfare
is stripped away, even in a simple home
like Chester Arthur--
LYNDON JOHNSON: --will to the best of my ability--
- --on-board a plane in a time of crisis like Lyndon Johnson,
even behind closed doors at the White House
to make up for a mistake--
BARACK OBAMA: --I will to the best of my--
- --it really is all about the oath.
35 words with the power to make a president,
and hopefully, unite the country.