Nancy Pelosi will skip Trump’s inauguration

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, will not attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, her spokesperson confirmed to Daily Kos. 

Pelosi is the second big-name Democrat to announce that they won’t attend. Earlier this week, former first lady Michelle Obama said she also plans to skip the event, which will take place on Monday. Other Democratic lawmakers who will play hooky that day include Reps. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.

News of Pelosi’s pending absence was first reported by ABC News

Pelosi’s spokesperson didn’t elaborate on why she won’t make the pilgrimage to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., this go-around. Her absence may be because Pelosi is still recovering from hip surgery she underwent in Germany following a fall in December. It’s also possible that, like most Democrats, she just hates Trump

No one would blame her if that were the case. The two have long had a tumultuous professional relationship. Since Trump’s first administration, their disdain for one another has seemingly only increased. Pelosi famously spent the final days of Trump’s first term trying to oust him from the Oval Office after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Trump, for his part, spent much of his first term avoiding Pelosi, even as the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged states and lawmakers attempted to work together to deliver aid.

Since then, Trump has called Pelosi “crazy,” “crooked,” “evil,” and “sick,” among other abhorrent things. In November, he nearly called her a bitch during a campaign rally, though he stopped himself from saying the word outright. 

Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally on July 29, 2023, in Erie, Pennsylvania.

“She’s a bad person, evil. She’s an evil, sick, crazy—” Trump said at a rally in Michigan amid his 2024 campaign, sounding out the letter “B” but stopping just short of uttering the obscenity. “It starts with a ‘B,’ but I won’t say it. I wanna say it.”

Pelosi’s inauguration absence marks a break in tradition for the octogenarian. In addition to attending Trump’s first inauguration, in 2017, ABC News reports that Pelosi has gone to 11 presidential inaugural events.

Senior leaders of both parties typically attend presidential inaugurations, regardless of the incoming president’s party. But Trump has no room to complain about Pelosi’s absence: He famously skipped President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021.

In reality, Trump probably won’t notice that Pelosi’s gone. He’ll be too busy trying to impress his trio of tech-bro sugar daddies—Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—who have been rewarded with plum seats at the inauguration. (All three men also donated at least $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.)

Meanwhile, while they will attend Monday’s inauguration, former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama will skip Trump’s inaugural luncheon. According to NBC News, both Obama and Clinton were invited but declined. Bush’s office told the outlet that he never received an invite.

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Biden to leave office less popular than Trump

Americans are giving President Joe Biden harsh reviews before he leaves office in less than two weeks, on Jan. 20. And worse than that, they appear to be judging him even more harshly than his two most recent predecessors, Donald Trump and Barack Obama.

According to a survey released on Friday by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, just one-quarter of U.S. adults (25%) said that Biden was a “good” or “great” president, compared with Trump, whom 36% of U.S. adults gave the same ranking after his first term in office ended, in 2021. (Notably, though, Trump had slightly higher “poor” and “terrible” ratings than Biden.)

Even more remarkable is that the survey about Trump was conducted shortly after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. And this is backed up by other polling as well. For instance, between Jan. 7-20, 2021, Trump’s approval ratings dropped from 42% to 39%, according to 538’s average. But at present, Biden’s job approval ratings sit at about 37%, according to 538’s average.

The result of this past November’s election, where Trump got very close to earning a majority of the popular vote, showed that voters preferred a return to Trump versus a continuation of Democratic rule, perhaps especially one tied to Biden. But now we have even more verification of the degree to which voters, after seeing both men govern, simply (if slightly) prefer Trump to Biden.

According to a national tracking poll by Civiqs, just 38% of registered voters have a favorable view of Biden. In fact, he has been below 40% since Nov. 10, making the odds of a rebound ahead of Trump’s inauguration pretty slim. Meanwhile, 45% of voters have a favorable view of Trump, according to Civiqs, and his favorability has been steadily increasing since about February 2023.

These data points starkly illustrate just how tarnished Biden’s legacy has become, despite an impressive domestic record. Not only did he pass landmark legislation, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, to help combat climate change, but Trump is also inheriting a strong economy, for which he has Biden to thank.

The issue? Polling suggests voters either don’t know this or believe Biden was insufficient in other ways. The AP-NORC survey found that only 2 in 10 Americans (22%) think Biden made good on his campaign promises. A larger share, 38%, said that Biden did not keep his word. The remaining 39% said he tried but failed to keep his campaign promises.

Biden is also faring considerably worse than Obama was at the end of his presidency. AP-NORC found that Obama left his second term in office with a majority of Americans (52%) describing his tenure as “good” or “great.” This squares with data released earlier this week by Gallup, which found Biden’s standing is similar to that of former President Richard Nixon, who resigned amid the infamous Watergate scandal. (Unlike the AP-NORC survey, Gallup’s involved a retrospective assessment of past presidents, not a contemporaneous one.)

Former President Barack Obama

As other politicos have pointed out, Trump seems to be enjoying a honeymoon period since his win in November. It’s possible, of course, that four years of Biden caused the electorate to reassess Trump, who once had dismal approval and favorability ratings too.

Remarkably, though, Trump has retained relative popularity amid two impeachments, many federal indictments, two assassination attempts, and some of the most unrelentingly negative media coverage in modern history, among many other faults of his. Such a deep catalog of sins would leave most politicians unable to revive their careers, but somehow Trump did—and he’s unfortunately doing better than ever.

The good news for Biden, if there is any, is that Americans’ negative views toward him may change over time. After all, Gallup found that other presidents who left with low approval ratings—including George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter—saw Americans’ perception of their presidencies warm with time. 

Plus, knowing Trump, he’ll surely squander his goodwill with the American electorate in due time. Every honeymoon must come to an end, including Trump’s. And with the high number of unpopular campaign pledges he’s made, he’s likely to only accelerate that timeline.

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