Joe Biden Swipes At Trump's Petty Behavior With Four Simple Words

It has been a longtime tradition that the outgoing U.S. president attends the inauguration of the incoming president as a valuable part of the symbolic (and literal) transfer of power. It is a tradition that President Joe Biden plans to uphold, regardless of who wins the 2024 election, which stands in stark contrast to how Donald Trump behaved when he was the outgoing president. In an official transcript from Marine One posted by The White House on August 13, Biden was asked: "if Trump wins, will you attend his inauguration?" To which Biden replied, "I have good manners," before getting in an extra burn on Trump: "Not like him." Mic. Drop.

Trump did not, in fact, attend the inauguration of President Biden in 2021. It was the first time in 150 years that had happened. Trump, who's known for not liking to lose, had just suffered an ego-bruising defeat in the 2020 election. The event was also two weeks after the January 6 insurrection, so showing up to see Biden get sworn in as president — which would publicly confirm that Trump understood he lost the election — wouldn't have been on-brand at the time. It was just one of the ways that Trump broke Inauguration Day traditions.

On January 8, 2021, Donald Trump confirmed via X, formerly known as Twitter, that he'd be skipping Joe Biden's big day though without context as to why. Critics were quick to come after Trump's X announcement. One wrote, "You are a sore loser without even an ounce of graciousness or dignity. We all know you will be on a golf course somewhere crying your eyes out like the baby that you are and always have been."

Trump's post about missing Biden's inauguration was his final tweet on the social media platform. He was banned later that same day, "due to the risk of further incitement of violence," via X blog. However, Trump's account was later reinstated by Elon Musk shortly after he bought the platform in October 2022.

Presumably still shaken by the January 6 attack, which caused a further rift between the two, Trump's vice-president Mike Pence was in attendance for Biden's inauguration along with three of the five former living presidents: George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. Jimmy Carter and Trump were the only ones who did not attend. (Carter had an understandable excuse due to his health and the ongoing COVID pandemic.) Our guess is that if Kamala Harris is elected, Trump probably won't be attending that inauguration either.