WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden said he would “of course” attend Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration next month, personally confirming his presence and rejecting what he called the Republican’s “childish game.”
“Of course I am,” Biden said in an interview broadcast on Thursday on the Meidas Touch network, when asked if he was planning to attend the Jan. 20 transfer of power.
“The only president ever to avoid an inauguration is the guy that’s about to be inaugurated.”
The White House had said Biden would attend, but Biden had not previously addressed the matter personally.
Trump did not attend the swearing-in of Democrat Biden as the 46th U.S. president on Jan. 20, 2021, becoming the first president in 150 years to break with a political tradition that is seen as affirming the peaceful transfer of power in the U.S.
Trump never conceded his defeat to Biden in the Nov. 3, 2020, presidential election and has continued to make unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.
His refusal to concede led to a chaotic transition of government operations to the Biden administration, delaying funding and access to federal agencies.
For his handover, Biden invited Trump to the White House after his Nov. 5 victory and the two had a meeting described by the White House as “very cordial.” His administration has been instructed to follow traditional transition procedures.
“The fact that he doesn’t abide by the rules of the democracy we’ve established is not my concern,” Biden said in the interview, conducted on Monday. “My job is to make a transition workable and available.”
“The bottom line is that we can’t keep this up. We can’t keep up this childish game of walking away when you don’t agree and not cooperating.”
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Heather Timmons and Frances Kerry)
