Today Donald J. Trump Is Sworn In as the 45th President of the United States in a grand style

Around noon today, Donald J. Trump will become the 45th President of the United States of America. This occurs after he takes the oath of office (“I do solemnly swear [or affirm] that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”) and delivers an inaugural address, the latter of which is not constitutionally required, but is in fact one of the many precedents that was set by George Washington, who delivered his to Congress in April 1789. In 1817, James Monroe was the first to deliver his in open air before crowds, and in 1829, Andrew Jackson, who had campaigned as the common man, addressed his inaugural remarks to the American people, which is how it’s been done ever since. (This tradition may have hastened the shuffling-off of President William Henry Harrison’s mortal coil; President Harrison delivered a two-hour-long inaugural address on a freezing day in 1841 without a hat or overcoat and died of pneumonia a month later.)

President Trump’s swearing-in will be immediately preceded by that of his vice president, Mike Pence, on a day that began, as is the custom, with a private Trump family breakfast at the president’s guest house, Blair House, and a prayer service for the Trumps at St. John’s Episcopal Church. This is traditionally followed by coffee with the sitting president at the White House, before the outgoing and incoming presidents ride together to the Capitol. The ceremony will feature six religious leaders: Paula White, a televangelist (and the first female clergy member to offer a prayer on Inauguration Day); Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a global human-rights organization that works to combat anti-semitism; Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, of Detroit; Reverend Franklin Graham, president of the Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association; Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York; and Reverend Dr. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

There will also be remarks from Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, who is the chairman of the congressional inaugural committee, and some musical performances, among them those by Jackie Evancho and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Chief Justice John G. Roberts will administer the oath of office as Trump rests his hand on two bibles: one that he was given by his mother in 1955, when he graduated from Presbyterian Sunday school, and the one that Abraham Lincoln used at his inauguration. (The last and only president since Lincoln to use that bible, according to The Washington Post, was President Obama, both in 2009 and 2013, a choice that “the 44th president said was meant to emphasize Lincoln’s call for ‘national unity’ during his first inaugural address.”)

After President Trump has been successfully installed, the Obamas will bid farewell and depart from the East Front of the Capitol to their new life as citizens. Luncheons, a review of the armed forces, and an inaugural parade to the White House led by the new president and his vice president will follow, with thousands of military personnel representing each branch. Tonight, the inaugural balls begin, with President Trump expected to attend, dance, and make remarks at two official events held on separate floors of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center as well as the Armed Services Ball, held at the National Building Museum. The official inaugural schedule ends the following morning at 10:00 a.m. at the Washington National Cathedral with an inaugural prayer service so that the new president and vice president may “pause and contemplate the incredible responsibility he has been entrusted with” as the 45th American presidency begins, and we would all do well to remember how the President whose bible was employed today ended his inaugural address, some 156 years ago: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”