12-4-2020
President-elect Joe Biden, along with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, laughed at a question by CNN’s Jake Tapper about whether or not President Donald Trump should attend his Inauguration next month.
Midway through the first dual interview given by the incoming president and vice president, Tapper asked Biden whether he thought it was important Trump follow tradition and attend his successor’s inauguration.
The president, who continues to maintain a public facade that he somehow won an election he overwhelmingly lost, has not invited Biden to the White House or show any sign he would be on hand for the president-elect’s swearing in..
“President Trump has not said whether he’s going to attend your inauguration yet. Do you think it’s important that he’s there?” Tapper asked.
“You’re laughing,” he pointed out a beat later, as Biden and Harris could be heard chuckling.
“I think it would be important only in one sense,” Biden said, turning more serious.
“Not in a personal sense. Important in the sense that we are able to demonstrate at the end of this chaos that he’s created that there is peaceful transfer of power with the competing parties standing there shaking hands and moving on.”
“What I worry about, Jake, more than the impact on the domestic politics, I really worry about the image we’re presenting to the rest of the world,” he added.
“The power of our example. And look where we are now in the world. Look how we’re viewed. They’re wondering ‘My lord, these things happen in tinhorn dictatorships.’ This is not the United States.
In that sense the protocol of the transfer of power I think is important, but it is totally his decision and it’s of no personal consequence to me. But I do think it is for the country.”
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