Applications for protest permits have been slow. The hotline for tickets has been loud.
The run of show for this year’s presidential inauguration is by official estimations expected to be surprisingly routine for a city that has seen only high-drama or disrupted swearing-ins since President Barack Obama took the oath a second time more than a decade ago.
In the place of raging counterdemonstrations that led to violence and sweeping arrests as President-elect Donald Trump first took office, National Park Service inquiries show this year’s permitted protests are expected to be smaller, and law enforcement officials have projected confidence in managing the crowds. Authorities have so far left the National Mall largely open to the public – a departure from the inauguration of President Joe Biden, when the District was a fortress, reeling from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol.
The forecasts mark a welcome turn for District leaders working to reset their relationship with Trump, who has expressed disdain for protest activity in the District and on the campaign trail derided D.C. as “a nightmare of murder and crime.” Local officials have sought to keep the emphasis on pomp in a high-visibility moment for D.C., even as many of them are noncommittal about whether they will show up to celebrate Trump’s return.
Trump, with his flair for showmanship, has historically taken great pride in the size and cinematography of his rallies, and Inauguration Day is no exception. He took intense interest in coverage of crowd size during his 2017 swearing-in ceremony, maintaining that factual reports contrasting his smaller audience with Obama’s proved a media bias against him. This month, Trump expressed frustration that, as he becomes president, flags will be flying at half-staff to honor the late former president Jimmy Carter.
City and law enforcement officials have not said how many people they expect to converge in the District next weekend, and it is unlikely that there will ever be a definitive count. In a 1997 appropriations bill, Congress banned the Park Service from spending its money on counting crowds, an already controversial practice that led to criticism from event organizers who argued that the official counts were low. Since then, it has been the Park Service’s practice not to provide crowd estimates.
“The Inaugural events will draw supporters, industry leaders, and diplomats of all backgrounds to Washington DC to join the President in ushering in America’s new golden era,” Rachel Reisner, director of communications for the Trump-Vance inaugural committee, said in a statement.
While hotel occupancy rates in D.C. hovered around 95 percent the night before Trump took the oath of office eight years ago as his supporters and protesters converged, the rate for this coming Sunday was about 70 percent as of last week, according to analytics firm Smith Travel Research. Obama’s first-term inauguration brought 97.2 percent hotel occupancy to the District; for his second swearing-in, the rate dropped to 78 percent.
Patrick Mara, chairman of the D.C. Republican Party, said his phone has been ringing almost constantly with requests for tickets to the presidential rally, swearing-in ceremony, parade and inaugural ball. He said it is a notable change from the same time in 2017, when some of the calls were from constituents who wanted to complain about Trump.
“The ‘Never Trump’ universe was bigger then,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who received 198 inauguration tickets to dole out to constituents, said her office had received 1,264 requests.
Trump has raised more than $170 million for his inauguration, a record amount first reported by the New York Times. In addition to the parade and swearing-in ceremony, the celebratory weekend so far includes what Trump’s team is casting as a “victory rally” Sunday at Capital One Arena and a Tuesday national prayer service at Washington National Cathedral. The Trump inauguration website says, as of Sunday, that information is “forthcoming” about other events for the weekend.
Elliott Ferguson, the head of Destination DC, the city’s marketing arm, said as of last week he was still awaiting confirmation about official inaugural balls – behind schedule of the typical timeline.
The inauguration is classified as a “national special security event,” the highest federal protective status. While authorities have said there is no known threat to the District at this time, D.C. police will be fully activated, meaning all officers will be on duty beginning Friday for as long as needed, according to D.C. police spokesman Tom Lynch. On Inauguration Day, they will be joined by about 4,000 police officers from across the country and potentially 7,800 National Guard troops, officials said at a news conference this month. There were 25,000 National Guard members deployed in Washington for the inauguration in 2021, after the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 of that year.
The Park Service is still processing several permits for demonstrations timed to the inauguration, the largest of which is scheduled for the Saturday before Inauguration Day. Organizers for that event, the “People’s March,” estimated in an application that 50,000 people would attend their protest of Trump and policy priorities that they say will undermine the rights of women, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, and racial and religious minorities. That’s far below the roughly 470,000 demonstrators who crowd scientists estimate protested Trump at the Women’s March in the run-up to his swearing-in in 2017.
Some protesters on the day of Trump’s first inauguration blocked security checkpoints and broke car and store windows. Police arrested more than 200 people that day; almost all charges were dropped after prosecutors struggled in initial trials to tie defendants to specific damage.
Pending applications with the Park Service for Jan. 20, which falls on a federal holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., include submissions from the ANSWER Coalition, a far-left-leaning group that has in the past 15 months organized several large pro-Palestinian protests in D.C., and the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, which hopes to host a 10 a.m. march from McPherson Square to the Metropolitan AME Church.
Staffers for D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said she plans to watch the inaugural parade from a viewing stand outside the John A. Wilson Building, a structure built to offer local lawmakers and their specially invited guests a front-seat view of the procession down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Though quick to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, Bowser has been persistently cordial since Trump’s election – emphasizing in public remarks their “shared priorities,” such as bringing back the federal workforce and cleaning up parks and public spaces.
This year, the District spent a historic $1.5 million constructing the stand, more than tripling the $419,560 spent in 2017. Dora Taylor-Lowe, a city spokeswoman, attributed the increase to rising construction costs and a competitive bidding process necessitated by “the incumbent contractor’s limited capacity.”
In recent years, the viewing stand has also doubled as a pulpit for District leaders to send a public message to the incoming presidential administration. The first time Trump paraded through the city, the mayor had the stand adorned with an image of Frederick Douglass and a quote from the abolitionist: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.” A Bowser spokesperson at the time said the inscription was intended to advance the city’s statehood agenda.
Bowser’s office declined to say what, if anything, the mayor will choose this year as an inscription as she seeks to build a working relationship with Trump, whom she visited last month at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Eight years ago, many of the District’s elected officials were outspoken about their distaste for Trump. Ten of the D.C. Council’s 13 members opted not to attend the parade – with several indicating that their absence was in protest of him.
Then-D.C. Council member David Grosso (I-At Large) plastered the windows of his council office, which faced the parade route, with the message “DC PROTECTS HUMAN RIGHTS.”
Now, resistance, if any, has unfolded in private conversations and behind closed doors. Instead of decorating windows, council members have quietly renamed sensitive bills to avoid GOP ire.
Council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) said she plans to attend the inauguration and the parade and stressed the importance of working alongside the federal government.
Although most council members have declined to share whether they plan to attend, those who did respond to questions about the choice did not cite their feelings about Trump.
A spokesperson for council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) said he would be traveling with his family given that D.C. public schools are “out for a long weekend.”
A spokesperson for council member Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) said she is on maternity leave and “has scaled back her attendance at events.”
A spokesperson for council member Anita Bonds (D-At Large) said she will not be attending the parade in person and instead “will likely watch it on TV.”
Spokespeople for council members Christina Henderson (I-At Large), Kenyan R. McDuffie (I-At Large), Robert C. White Jr. (D-At Large), Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8), Matthew Frumin (D-Ward 3) and Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) did not reply to multiple requests about their plans.
Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D), who has not said whether he will watch the parade, did say that he does not see attendance “as a statement on Trump.”
“I think there are many reasons a person would be there,” Mendelson said. “But in my world, if I want to make a statement, I would probably do it by a press release, a news conference, or I would do it in person.”