Trump Departs With Air­base Send-Off Before Biden Inaugural

Don­ald Trump depart­ed Wash­ing­ton for a final time as pres­i­dent Wednes­day morn­ing, skip­ping Joe Biden’s inau­gu­ra­tion and instead speak­ing at a mil­i­tary-style send-off at an air base out­side the nation’s cap­i­tal before leav­ing with his fam­i­ly for his Flori­da resort.

“I will always fight for you. I will be watch­ing, I will be lis­ten­ing, and I will tell you that the future of this coun­try has nev­er been bet­ter. I wish the new admin­is­tra­tion great luck, great suc­cess,” Trump said at Joint Base Andrews out­side of Washington.

But, he added, “we will be back in some form.”

Trump was greet­ed on the tar­mac by his fam­i­ly on a cold and blus­tery morn­ing as his stan­dard cam­paign ral­ly sound­track played in the back­ground. He spoke fol­low­ing a 21-gun salute and a ren­di­tion of “Hail to the Chief.” Sev­er­al of his clos­est advis­ers were in atten­dance, though key Repub­li­can allies on Capi­tol Hill, sev­er­al Cab­i­net mem­bers and his own vice pres­i­dent didn’t attend.

Fol­low­ing the event, Trump flew to Palm Beach, Flori­da, where he plans to take up res­i­dence at his Mar-a-lago resort. He will become the first U.S. pres­i­dent since the 19^th cen­tu­ry to skip his successor’s swear­ing-in ceremony.

Trump leaves Wash­ing­ton in a state of mil­i­tary lock­down, with rough­ly 25,000 Nation­al Guard troops deployed across the city to pro­tect against fur­ther attacks on the gov­ern­ment after the an assault on the U.S. Capi­tol on the day of a pro-Trump rally.

Tall fenc­ing sur­rounds the White House and Capi­tol; roads and bridges have been bar­ri­cad­ed to cur­tail access to the Nation­al Mall.

Some key fig­ures in his admin­is­tra­tion and part­ners on Capi­tol Hill — includ­ing Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell and top House Repub­li­can Kevin McCarthy — declined to attend the send­off, accord­ing to peo­ple famil­iar with the matter.

Sev­er­al for­mer Trump aides who became out­spo­ken crit­ics of the pres­i­dent received invi­ta­tions to the Andrews event, includ­ing financier Antho­ny Scara­muc­ci, who was briefly the White House com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor in 2017, but by 2019 was pub­licly advo­cat­ing for Trump’s impeachment.

For­mer Chief of Staff John Kel­ly and for­mer Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Advi­sor John Bolton and his deputy, Char­lie Kup­per­man, were also invit­ed. None of them attended.

While some fell out with Trump over pol­i­cy mat­ters, oth­ers have dis­tanced them­selves from him since the vio­lent insur­rec­tion two weeks ago that left five peo­ple dead, includ­ing a U.S. Capi­tol Police offi­cer. The episode result­ed in Trump’s impeach­ment, mak­ing him the first pres­i­dent to be impeached twice. The Sen­ate is expect­ed to begin his tri­al after he is out of office.

This report con­tains mate­r­i­al from Bloomberg News.

Source: News­max.