President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural address on January 20 will take place indoors due to dangerously cold weather forecast in Washington next week, he has confirmed.
The speech, like others, will now take place in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, rather than outside the building.
The inaugural parade will also be held indoors at the Washington Capital One Arena in downtown Washington, about a mile away, along with all three inaugural balls.
The last president to be sworn in indoors was Ronald Reagan in 1985, when cold weather also battered the U.S. Capitol.
In a statement on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said he “doesn’t want people to get hurt in any way” amid the freezing temperatures.
“These are dangerous conditions for the tens of thousands of law enforcement officers, first responders, police K9s and even horses,” as well as “hundreds of thousands” of supporters.
“In any case, if you decide to come, dress warmly,” he added.
The Capital One Arena will also be open for a live viewing of the inaugural speech.
Here’s what you need to know about Donald Trump’s inauguration
BBC Weather: Inauguration Day may be one of the coldest in US history
Trump — who has planned a rally there on Sunday — said he would visit the arena after he was sworn in at the Capitol.
A planned parade will now take place in a modified form. It is unclear whether it will now take place indoors.
Extreme cold is forecast in Washington DC on Inauguration Day, with temperatures expected to reach a low of -11ºC (12F) and a high of -5ºC (23F). If the perceived temperature is taken into account, the temperature will feel significantly colder.
The weather is part of a larger polar vortex that will drop temperatures in the US.
“Everyone will be safe, everyone will be happy, and together we will make America great again,” Trump wrote.
Ahead of the inauguration, organizers had said about 220,000 tickets would be distributed to attend the event on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol.
Those without tickets could have attended the ceremonies on the National Mall.
Alternative plans will now be needed for these visitors, as well as for the tens of thousands of others expected in the city.
“I think people should be able to make their own decisions,” one man who wanted to attend the inauguration told the BBC. “They have to dress warmly to come out because it is a historic event and it has to be outside.”
Another supporter said of Trump, “I would be in the fight [cold] again to support what he is going to do, what he has done in the past and what he will do in the future.”
Trump said other inaugural events, including his rally on Sunday and three separate official inaugural balls on Monday evening, would take place as planned.
The move indoors means a much more limited capacity at Monday’s swearing-in for Trump, who is known to closely monitor attendance at his public events.
After his first inauguration, he claimed that “a million and a half people” had visited the National Mall.
But crowd size experts said the number was about a third of the estimated 800,000 to a million people who attended Barack Obama’s 2009 rally.
Due to Covid-19 restrictions, only about 1,000 people attended Joe Biden’s inauguration on the Capitol grounds.
In 1841, then-President William Henry Harrison, 68, delivered the longest inauguration speech in American history in cold, wet conditions.
He caught a cold and then pneumonia, and died exactly a month later, making his presidency the shortest in American history.
