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Atlantic: What I Saw at the White House on Trump's Last Day
Michael Beschloss Retweeted"Trump did, literally, the worst thing that an American president could ever do.”
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POLITICS
What I Saw at the White House on Trump’s Last Day
The handover of power was a solemn affair. There was no mistaking the new administration for the old one.
PETER NICHOLAS
JANUARY 20, 2021
At dawn this morning, workers loaded couches and tables into a moving truck parked outside the West Wing. Men wearing white coveralls and carrying roller brushes and paint cans walked across the north driveway. Inside the White House, pictures of the 45th president had been removed from the walls. Only the hooks remained, ready for a new set of portraits of the 46th.
{snip}
Trump left the White House with his wife, Melania, at about 8:20 a.m., refusing to take questions from the press. He walked to Marine One with an ominous send-off: “I just want to say goodbye, but hopefully it’s not a long-term goodbye. We’ll see each other again.” Later, in a brief departure ceremony at Joint Base Andrews before flying to Florida, he gave a familiar and repetitive summation of what he views as his accomplishments in office. He of course neglected to mention the incident that will come to overshadow everything else that happened over the past four years: a lethal insurrection carried out by his supporters after a rally in which he’d again falsely claimed that the election was stolen. Trump may have no interest in revisiting the riot at the Capitol on January 6 that delayed the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory and took five lives, but history won’t forget it.
“This is the only president in American history who incited an insurrection against Congress that could have resulted in assassinations and hostage-taking and, conceivably, the cancellation of a free presidential election and the fracturing of a democracy,” Michael Beschloss, the presidential historian, told me. “That’s a fact, and it won’t change in 50 years. It’s very hard to think of a scenario under which someone might imagine some wonderful thing that Donald Trump did that will outshine that. He did, literally, the worst thing that an American president could ever do.”
{snip}
After Trump boarded Marine One for his departure from the White House, tree branches bent and swayed as the blades whipped the air. The helicopter rose slowly from the South Lawn and arced behind the Washington Monument. Had Trump looked out his passenger window, he might have seen the thousands of National Guard troops and razor-topped fences aimed at repelling his supporters should they attempt another insurrection. He might have glimpsed the lights placed near the Lincoln Memorial honoring those who have died from COVID-19, even as he made his empty assurances that the nation had “rounded the turn.”
A small group of reporters and TV camera people gathered outside the White House on the north driveway watched quietly. A voice behind me eventually piped up: “Good riddance.”
PETER NICHOLAS is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers the White House.
What I Saw at the White House on Trump’s Last Day
The handover of power was a solemn affair. There was no mistaking the new administration for the old one.
PETER NICHOLAS
JANUARY 20, 2021
At dawn this morning, workers loaded couches and tables into a moving truck parked outside the West Wing. Men wearing white coveralls and carrying roller brushes and paint cans walked across the north driveway. Inside the White House, pictures of the 45th president had been removed from the walls. Only the hooks remained, ready for a new set of portraits of the 46th.
{snip}
Trump left the White House with his wife, Melania, at about 8:20 a.m., refusing to take questions from the press. He walked to Marine One with an ominous send-off: “I just want to say goodbye, but hopefully it’s not a long-term goodbye. We’ll see each other again.” Later, in a brief departure ceremony at Joint Base Andrews before flying to Florida, he gave a familiar and repetitive summation of what he views as his accomplishments in office. He of course neglected to mention the incident that will come to overshadow everything else that happened over the past four years: a lethal insurrection carried out by his supporters after a rally in which he’d again falsely claimed that the election was stolen. Trump may have no interest in revisiting the riot at the Capitol on January 6 that delayed the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory and took five lives, but history won’t forget it.
“This is the only president in American history who incited an insurrection against Congress that could have resulted in assassinations and hostage-taking and, conceivably, the cancellation of a free presidential election and the fracturing of a democracy,” Michael Beschloss, the presidential historian, told me. “That’s a fact, and it won’t change in 50 years. It’s very hard to think of a scenario under which someone might imagine some wonderful thing that Donald Trump did that will outshine that. He did, literally, the worst thing that an American president could ever do.”
{snip}
After Trump boarded Marine One for his departure from the White House, tree branches bent and swayed as the blades whipped the air. The helicopter rose slowly from the South Lawn and arced behind the Washington Monument. Had Trump looked out his passenger window, he might have seen the thousands of National Guard troops and razor-topped fences aimed at repelling his supporters should they attempt another insurrection. He might have glimpsed the lights placed near the Lincoln Memorial honoring those who have died from COVID-19, even as he made his empty assurances that the nation had “rounded the turn.”
A small group of reporters and TV camera people gathered outside the White House on the north driveway watched quietly. A voice behind me eventually piped up: “Good riddance.”
PETER NICHOLAS is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers the White House.
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