President Joe Biden said he’ll attend Donald Trump’s inauguration if the Republican candidate defeats Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in November’s election.
“I have good manners,” the 46th president said Tuesday. “Not like him.”
In 2021, Trump angrily shunned Biden’s inauguration and instead threw himself a Washington, D.C. farewell event after being defeated by the Biden and Harris ticket. The 78-year-old GOP candidate for the third-consecutive time still refuses to concede he lost to Biden by more than 6 million votes.
Biden welcomed Trump’s choice to skip that January event, which came weeks after Trump loyalists raided the U.S. Capitol in a failed attempt to stop his successor’s win from being certified by Congress.
“One of the few things he and I have ever agreed on … him not showing up,” Biden said at his transition team headquarters in Delaware at the time.
Biden called his inauguration “democracy’s day” during the bipartisan ceremony attended by past presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Earlier that day, Trump left the nation’s capital for his Florida estate after telling followers, “We will be back in some form.”
Biden and Trump appeared ready to square off in the 2024 election until the president announced last month he would not seek a second term and threw his support behind Harris. The 59-year-old VP will formally accept the Democratic Party’s nomination at next week’s convention in Chicago.
The latest polling released Tuesday shows Harris leading Trump in what’s expected to be a tight race.