- In this present crisis,
government is not the solution to our problem.
Government is the problem.
- Ask not what your country can do for you.
Ask what you can do for your country.
(crowd applauding)
- We've had this event during wars,
we've had it during depressions.
We'll have it during a pandemic.
As President Reagan said the first time he was sworn in
40 years ago that this event
is both commonplace and miraculous.
Commonplace because we've done it every four years
since 1789 and miraculous
because we've done it every four years since 1789.
- [Reporter] Against the backdrop of a pandemic,
January 20th, 2021 was set
to be an inauguration for the history books.
That was before a pro-Trump mob rampaged the US Capitol
on January 6th and disrupted the vote
to certify Joe Biden's 2020 presidential election win.
- You now have an inaugural that's literally
going to take place on the steps of the Capitol
that was ransacked a few days earlier by a mob
trying to prevent the very inaugural that's taking place.
I think there is a tendency
to kind of overstate the drama of most moments.
There's the tendency to hype them a little bit, if you will.
I think this one is kind of hard to hype.
I think the drama is legitimate.
- [Reporter] While President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration
will certainly look different,
the US has sworn in presidents at times
of high national drama and deep political division before.
So how will Biden's moment fit into history?
(triumphant fanfare music)
- We all know as Americans what that tableau
is supposed to look like.
A crowded dais with the new president
and the outgoing president both there
with a lot of dignitaries and the Supreme Court
and a big crowd down below.
We're not gonna have all of those things.
- [Reporter] The coronavirus pandemic
has fundamentally changed how we live,
and the tradition of the inauguration is not being spared.
As the US nears 400,000 deaths from the virus,
the inaugural has been adjusted dramatically.
Guests will be limited, the luncheon has been canceled,
and the parade will be virtual.
Senator Roy Blunt chairs
the Congressional Inauguration Committee.
- Inauguration of the President of the United States.
(crowd cheering)
I think we're gonna have somewhere in the neighborhood
of 2,500 to 3,000 people at the inauguration
as opposed to 200,000.
- [Reporter] Following the Capitol riot,
security is being beefed up.
At least 20,000 National Guardsmen were sent
to Washington, D.C. ahead of the inauguration.
That's more than twice the number sent
for President Obama's inauguration
when security concerns were also high.
- Both President-elect Biden and I and his team
are in agreement that events of the attack on the Capitol
make it even more important that we're outside,
we're at the place where people
are used to seeing the inauguration of the president.
- [Reporter] One president who won't be attending
is President Trump who, with a week remaining in his term
became the first president
to be impeached for a second time.
- [Nancy] On the table.
- [Reporter] After he was accused of encouraging a mob
to storm the Capitol in an effort to overturn the election.
- There's gonna be an air of tension.
The question of whether Democrats and Republicans,
having just been through this trauma
at the Capitol together,
will look as if they're unified or not
will be a question hanging over an event
in which people always put on a face of unity.
Will that be the case this time or not?
- I, Franklin Delano Roosevelt--
- [Reporter] Like many presidents before him,
Biden will enter office at a time
of heightened national drama.
- I, Gerald R. Ford do solemnly swear.
- [Reporter] But some of the most dramatic times
have seen some of the most memorable
inaugural addresses in history.
Jump back to 1865.
- Lincoln's second inaugural that occurred
during the Civil War produced
probably the greatest inaugural speech of all.
He said to the country, "It is time to bind our wounds.
"We must heal," and it was exactly the message
the country needed to hear at that time.
It's also one that stood the test of time.
- Do solemnly swear.
- [Reporter] Nearly 70 years later, the US,
in the midst of the Great Depression,
elected Franklin D. Roosevelt for the first time.
At his inauguration,
he addressed the nation, now famously saying.
- The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
- In both cases, Lincoln and Roosevelt
were trying to persuade Americans
that the drama of the moment could be overcome.
- That is similar in some ways to, I think,
the atmosphere we have now where people are saying,
can our democracy survive?
The inaugurals are designed to lift up Washington,
a moment in which everybody can be optimistic.
We'll see if Joe Biden can pull off that
in this strange environment. (audience applauding)
- [Reporter] In 2000, the highly-contested election
between George W. Bush and Al Gore
went all the way to the Supreme Court
and wasn't decided until December,
a month before the inauguration.
- [Matt Lauer] Finally, a president-elect.
George W. Bush will become the 43rd president
of the United States.
- It fell to George W. Bush to say,
this is a divided country politically.
There's controversy over my election.
He didn't say it, but he knew
that some people thought he wasn't even legitimately elected
'cause he hadn't won the popular vote.
He used his inaugural to say,
I recognize that there are deep wounds
left by this election.
I will help us all move past them.
- Our unity, our union is the serious work of leaders
and citizens and every generation.
And this is my solemn pledge.
I will work to build a single nation
of justice and opportunity.
(audience applauding)
- [Reporter] Trump faced a similarly divided country
when he took office in 2017.
Like Bush, he won the Electoral College
but lost the popular vote.
In his speech, however, he took a different approach
in addressing this divide.
- And the crime and the gangs and the drugs
that have stolen too many lives
and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.
This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.
(audience cheering) (audience applauding)
- Rather than really trying
to soothe the political passions,
some ways he ramped 'em up.
He said basically America is a place that is hurting.
It has been hurt by you people, the political establishment.
There's a dark America out there that needs to be changed.
I'm going to change it.
- From this day forward it's going to be only America first.
- [Reporter] Now as Biden takes office,
he is facing a still divided country.
A poll last month found roughly 1/3 of those surveyed
did not think Biden won the election legitimately.
And about the same share
believe there was widespread voter fraud.
- Just so you understand, this election was a fraud.
- [Reporter] Trump has repeated both of these false claims.
- He's conceded that he's not going
to be the president any longer,
but he has not conceded that he lost the election.
That is going to convey,
in the eyes of millions of Americans,
a sense of illegitimacy about a President Biden
and the Biden administration.
- [Reporter] This inauguration seems poised
to hold a unique place in our country's history.
- [Gerald] How President Biden tries to speak to people
who think he is not the legitimate next president
of this country is going to be
an important part of this inaugural.
- I pledge to be a president
who seeks not to divide but unify.
- [Gerald] I think people will look back
on the 2021 inauguration of Joe Biden and say,
that was the one and only inauguration
this country has ever had that went that way.
I can't imagine this set of circumstances
ever being repeated. (soft instrumental music)