Former President Obama wished his wife Michelle Obama a happy birthday on Friday, calling her ‘the love of my life.’ 

The former first lady, who turned 61, has largely avoided being out in public in recent weeks. She will not attend President-elect Trump’s inauguration on Monday, and was not seen at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral last week. 

To commemorate her birthday, the former president shared a tribute to his wife on Instagram, writing, ‘You fill every room with warmth, wisdom, humor, and grace – and you look good doing it. I’m so lucky to be able to take on life’s adventures with you. Love you!’

Michelle later shared the post on X and captioned it, ‘Love you, honey!’ followed with a heart emoji and an emoji of a face blowing a kiss. 

Sources reportedly close to Michelle told People that the former first lady intends to skip Trump’s inauguration because she cannot contain her disdain for the Republican president-elect.

The former first lady repeatedly took jabs at Trump while on the campaign trail for Vice President Kamala Harris and during her speeches at the Democratic National Convention in August. In one speech at the DNC, she accused Trump of spreading ‘racist lies’ and opposing her husband’s political career because of his race.

Though she is often floated as a choice of Democratic candidate for president, the source emphasized that the former first lady also has no interest in being a public figure now that her public service has ended.

While Michelle will not be in attendance at Trump’s inauguration, former President Obama is scheduled to attend Monday’s inauguration along with former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and their spouses.

Unconfirmed rumors swirled late last year that the Obamas’ marriage was on the rocks and that former President Obama had been involved in a romantic affair with actress Jennifer Aniston.

Aniston emphatically denied the rumors, telling late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, ‘That is absolutely untrue. … I know Michelle more than him.’ 

When reached for comment at the time, an Obama representative told Fox News Digital, ‘Stop.’ 

Fox News Digital’s Kristine Parks and Caroline Thayer contributed to this report.

The Treasury Department announced this week that it had recouped more than $31 million in fraud and improper payments to dead people during just five short months of having access to the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) federal death database. 

The Treasury Department issues billions of payments every year, including benefit payments, federally funded state-administered payments and other miscellaneous payments. Sending those funds and others by accident to people who are dead has been a long-standing problem within the federal government, according to fiscal watchdog group OpenTheBooks

In 2020, the Government Accountability Office estimated that during the first round of COVID-19 stimulus checks, $1.4 billion was sent to dead people. Across all three rounds of stimulus checks during the pandemic, nearly $3.6 billion went to dead people, according to OpenTheBooks.

The SSA is the only government agency with a database that records the deaths of U.S. citizens. In 2023, as part of an omnibus appropriations bill, Congress granted access for the Treasury Department, on a temporary basis, to have access to the database to help prevent improper payments to dead people. The temporary basis is set to expire in 2026.

‘While this should have been a no-brainer for a long time, it’s promising to see some taxpayer funds being recouped with basic communication among executive agencies,’ said John Hart, executive director of OpenTheBooks. ‘Too often the left hand just doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, and it’s resulted in trillions of dollars in improper payments.’

Hart blamed the nearly $4 billion in COVID-19 stimulus payments sent to dead people on the Internal Revenue Service’s failure to check the SSA’s death database. 

He also pointed out how, in addition to improper payments through the stimulus check program, the Small Business Administration also sent more than $3 billion more to dead people in the form of forgivable loans ‘to entities on the Treasury Department’s ‘Do Not Pay’ list.’

‘Today’s news is a step in the right direction, but there are miles to go before we break even,’ Hart said.

After news of the recovered payments was announced, Fiscal Assistant Secretary David Lebryk noted that the results were ‘just the tip of the iceberg.’

‘Congress granting permanent access to the Full Death Master File will significantly reduce fraud, improve program integrity, and better safeguard taxpayer dollars,’ he said. 

President-elect Trump’s inauguration will now take place inside the U.S. Capitol due to cold weather forecast for Monday, the first indoor inauguration since President Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in January 1985. 

On that frigid January 20th 40 years ago, the air temperature was 7 degrees, with a windchill of -40. 

Monday’s forecast is a high of 23 degrees and a low of 10, but brutal winds are expected to whip across the city, making the temperature feel more like single-digits. 

President Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated inside the Capitol in 1801, as was custom in the nation’s early history. Organizers moved President James Monroe’s inauguration outside, because the Capitol was so badly damaged after the War of 1812 when the British burned it, which kicked off the custom of swearing in a president outside in front of the National Mall. 

President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961 had similar temperatures — a high of 26 and a low of 19. It was held outside, even after a storm dumped 8 inches of snow the previous day. 

‘The weather forecast for Washington, D.C., with the windchill factor, could take temperatures into severe record lows,’ Trump posted on Truth Social, addressing the expected cold. 

‘There is an Arctic blast sweeping the Country. I don’t want to see people hurt, or injured, in any way. It is dangerous conditions for the tens of thousands of Law Enforcement, First Responders, Police K9s and even horses, and hundreds of thousands of supporters that will be outside for many hours on the 20th (In any event, if you decide to come, dress warmly!).’

Trump said D.C.’s Capital One Arena will be open Monday for live viewing of his inauguration ‘and to host the Presidential Parade.’ 

‘I will join the crowd at Capital One, after my Swearing in,’ he wrote.

The members of the Republican National Committee, in a vote that was never in doubt, on Friday re-elected chair Michael Whatley to continue steering the national party committee. 

‘This organization has got to be the tip of the spear. And as your chairman, I promise this organization will be the tip of the spear to protect Donald Trump,’ Whatley said, as he spoke after the unanimous voice vote at the RNC’s annual meeting, which was held this year in the nation’s capital ahead of Monday’s inauguration of President-elect Trump. 

Whatley, a longtime Trump ally and a major supporter of Trump’s election integrity efforts, who was serving as RNC general counsel and chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, was named by Trump last March as chair as the former president clinched the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. Whatley succeeded longtime RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, whom Trump no longer supported.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital on the sidelines of the RNC’s winter meeting, Whatley says his job going forward in the 2025 elections and 2026 midterms is straight forward.

‘It’s really critical for us to make sure that the Trump voters become Republican voters,’ Whatley told Fox News Digital on the sidelines of the RNC’s winter meeting, which is being held in the nation’s capital.

Republicans enjoyed major victories in November’s elections, with Trump defeating Vice President Kamala Harris to win back the White House, the GOP flipping control of the Senate from the Democrats, and holding on to their razor-thin majority in the House.

Whatley, who was interviewed on Thursday on the eve of the formal RNC chair vote, said the GOP needs ‘to cement those gains’ made in the 2024 elections.

‘We’re going to go right back to the building blocks that we had during this election cycle, which is to get out the vote and protect the ballot,’ Whatley emphasized. 

The RNC chair pointed to ‘the lessons that we learned’ in the 2024 cycle ‘about going after low propensity voters, about making sure that we’re reaching out to every voter and bringing in new communities,’ which he said helped Republicans make ‘historic gains among African American voters, among Asian American voters, among Hispanic voters, young voters and women voters.’

Speaking a couple of days before the president-elect’s inauguration, Whatley emphasized that once Trump’s in the White House, ‘we’re going to go right back to the RNC. We’re going to roll up our sleeves and get to work. We’ve got a couple of governor’s races…that we’re going to be working on in ‘25.’

But Whatley said ‘everything is focused on ‘26,’ when the party will be defending its majorities in the House and Senate, ‘because that is going to determine, from an agenda perspective, whether we have two years to work with or four. And America needs us to have a four-year agenda.’

‘What we’re going to be doing is making sure that we are registering voters,’ he said. ‘We’re going to be…communicating with the folks that we need to turn out.’

Pointing to the 2024 presidential election, Whatley said ‘it’s the same fundamentals.’

But he noted that ‘it’s not just seven battleground states’ and that the 2026 contests are ‘definitely going to be a very intense midterm election cycle.’

While Democrats would disagree, Whatley described today’s GOP as ‘a common sense party… this is a party that’s going to fight for every American family and for every American community.’

Referring to former Democrats Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, whom Trump has nominated to serve in his second administration’s cabinet, Whatley touted ‘the fact that we have two former Democratic presidential candidates who are going to be serving in the president’s cabinet. That shows you that this is a commonsense agenda, a commonsense team, that we’re going to be moving forward with.’

In December, Trump asked Whatley to continue during the 2026 cycle as RNC chair.

‘I think we will be able to talk when we need to talk,’ Whatley said when asked if his lines of communication with Trump will be limited now that the president-elect is returning to the White House. ‘We’re going to support the president and his agenda. That does not change. What changes is his ability from the White House to actually implement the agenda that he’s been campaigning on.’

The winter meeting included the last appearance at the RNC by co-chair Lara Trump. The president-elect’s daughter-in-law is stepping down from her post.

She stressed that it’s crucial the RNC takes ‘the opportunity the voters have given us’ to ‘continue to expand the Republican brand.’

The elder Trump is term-limited and won’t be able to seek election again in 2028. Vice President-elect JD Vance will likely be considered the front-runner for the 2028 GOP nomination.

Whatley reiterated what he told Fox News Digital in December — that the RNC will stay neutral in the next race for the GOP nomination and that the party’s ‘got an amazing bench.’

‘You think about the talent on the Republican side of the aisle right now, our governors, our senators, our members of Congress, people that are going to be serving in this administration. I love the fact that the Republican Party is going to be set up to have a fantastic candidate going into ’28,’ he highlighted.

Unlike the DNC, which in the 2024 cycle upended the traditional presidential nominating calendar, the RNC made no major changes to their primary lineup, and kept the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary as their first two contests.

Asked about the 2028 calendar, Whatley reiterated to Fox News that ‘I have not had any conversations with anybody who wants to change the calendar, so we will wait and see what that looks like as we’re going forward. We’re at the RNC meetings this week and having a number of conversations with folks, but that is not a huge push.’

‘I don’t think that changing the calendar really helped the Democrats at all,’ Whatley argued. ‘And I think that us, making sure that we are working our system the way that we always have, is going to be critical.’

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is leading 22 other attorneys general in suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over a new rule that would fine the oil and natural gas sector for methane emissions that exceed a certain level. 

The GOP states are alleging the new rule, which was established in President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, is ‘arbitrary, capricious, [and] an abuse of discretion.’ The complaint against the EPA is scant on details, other than asserting the new rule is ‘unlawful’ because ‘the final rule exceeds the agency’s statutory authority.’ 

While the Supreme Court has articulated a very narrow authority on how Congress can delegate its legislative power, Steve Milloy, former Trump administration EPA transition adviser and senior fellow at the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute, said it is unclear to him how the EPA’s rule circumvents Congress. 

‘The IRA clearly says EPA is to levy a tax and prescribes the tax rate,’ Milloy told Fox News Digital, pointing to the section of the IRA’s ‘Waste Emissions Charge’ that sets a threshold for methane emissions at 25,000 metric tons. ‘I will be interested to see how the states support their claims.’ 

Nonetheless, Milloy is against the new fee on the oil and gas sector, noting methane is an ‘irrelevant greenhouse gas.’

‘The tax is pointless and will accomplish nothing except to make oil and natural gas more expensive,’ he said.

Milloy suggested the move to sue in the final days of the Biden administration is to start the process for the plaintiffs to settle with the Trump administration. According to him, this is a tactic that has been used by both sides of the green energy debate. He added that in the past, the Trump administration has sought to get rid of ‘sue and settle’ tactics.

‘Congress needs to change the law,’ Milloy said. ‘Because, let’s say that they sue and settle, well, the next administration can come back and undo it.’

Meanwhile, another forthcoming lawsuit from the Michigan Oil and Gas Association (MOGA) and the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce (AMFree) has also asserted that the new rule circumvents Congress, but provided details explaining why.

‘Under Subpart W, facilities in the natural gas and petroleum supply chains must report greenhouse gas emissions if they emit 25,000 metric tons or more of carbon-dioxide-equivalent emissions each year,’ the second lawsuit explains. ‘For gases other than carbon dioxide, ‘equivalent’ emissions are determined by multiplying emissions by the gas’s ‘global warming potential’ (‘GWP’).’ 

Michael Buschbacher, a partner at Boyden Gray PLLC, which is representing MOGA and AmFree in their lawsuit, agreed with Milloy that it will take legislation to reverse the new methane rule, but said the purpose of their legal filings is ‘to get the most onerous mandates off the books, so the American energy industry can begin its march back to dominance under the new administration.’

‘The Biden-era environmental regulations aren’t going to magically vanish at 12:01 on Monday. It’s going to take time and legislation to unwind the mess that he has left behind,’ Buschbacher said.

The EPA declined to comment on the matter, citing the pending nature of the litigation.

President Biden’s final list of commutations was released Friday afternoon, laying out the names and registration numbers of nearly 2,500 inmates whose sentences were reduced by the president’s action.

This latest round of commutations cements Biden’s spot as the president with the largest number of pardons and commutations granted to individuals. The people on the list, according to a statement from President Biden, were determined to have received disproportionately harsh sentences for drug crimes, compared to sentences they would have received today.

‘Today’s clemency action provides relief for individuals who received lengthy sentences based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine, as well as outdated sentencing enhancements for drug crimes,’ Biden said in a statement Friday. ‘As Congress recognized through the Fair Sentencing Act and the First Step Act, it is time that we equalize these sentencing disparities.’

The new list of commutations comes after Biden already set a record for the largest single-day act of presidential clemency last month, when he commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 individuals who were placed on home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic and were largely accused of committing non-violent drug offenses, according to the White House. 

Following last month’s commutations, several Democrats urged Biden to issue even more pardons and commutations for people serving long sentences. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., who was among those pressing Biden to take action, applauded the president Friday for his action. 

‘Today, President Biden is taking another historic, transformative, and compassionate step toward healing and reuniting families by commuting the sentences of thousands of individuals serving unjustified lengthy sentences—a direct result of the failed policies of the War on Drugs,’ Rep. Pressley said. 

‘With this action, President Biden … is demonstrating the power of clemency to address the injustices of our criminal legal system. I thank President Biden for acting boldly and continuing to use clemency to change and save lives. This is what we’ve been calling for and this is the type of leadership the moment demands. This will be a defining part of President Biden’s legacy.’

OpenAI has partnered with a new AI initiative led by a group co-founded with outgoing Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry that has pushed left-wing causes and has several board members aligned with Democrats. 

OpenAI, led by CEO Sam Altman, is backing an initiative known as AI 2030, which is aimed at shaping ‘public dialogue about U.S. competition against China on AI,’ Politico reported in October.

The initiative is led by the ‘non-partisan’ think tank American Security Project (ASP), where Kerry was a founding member and served two stints on the board of directors. 

ASP has promoted the idea that climate change is a national security threat, and argued on its website that pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal was a bad idea that ‘harms national security.’ The group previously received a $500,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation ‘for use by its World War Zero initiative, an effort to achieve action and mobilization through awareness and public education to halt the increase of global carbon emissions.’  The Rockefeller Foundation has dished out tens of millions of dollars to left-wing causes.

Kerry’s former chief of staff David Wade, who gave Hunter Biden rapid response help as the Burisma scandal swirled, currently sits on the board of directors and recently authored an op-ed in The Hill explaining how AI in the U.S. has reached its ‘Sputnik moment,’ outlining the need to compete with China on AI.

Former Obama Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, who called then-President Trump an ’embarrassment’ in 2018, also sits on the board of ASP.

Rep, Don Beyer, D-Va., who is also on the board at ASP, has publicly opposed Trump’s tariff policies, calling them ‘idiotic’ and ‘illegal’ in a 2023 press release.

In 2018, ASP promoted an op-ed by Board Member Matthew Wallin in which he criticized Trump’s diplomatic tactics against Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

In 2017, Wallin amplified the debunked media narrative in a post on X, then Twitter, that Trump called White supremacists at the deadly Charlottesville rally ‘good people.’

Chris Lehane, who serves as OpenAI’s Head of Global Policy, is the author of the infamous and controversial ‘Vast Right Wing Conspiracy’ memo promoted by then-first lady Hillary Clinton dismissing the Monica Lewinsky scandal as part of a right-wing media conspiracy. 

Along with being a longtime Democratic Party consultant, Lehane has recently contributed money to help former Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. 

Altman recently followed other tech titans and made a substantial $1 million gift to Trump’s inauguration in his personal capacity, but has faced scrutiny for previous high-dollar donations to left-wing efforts, including a $250,000 donation to a Democratic super PAC and opposition research firm American Bridge during the 2020 election. 

Altman has donated to hundreds of Democrats in recent years compared to just one Republican, Newsweek reported this past summer. He was also recently tapped to be a co-chair for the incoming Democratic mayor of San Francisco’s transition team. 

In addition to hosting a fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang at his San Francisco home in late 2019, Altman has donated over $1 million to Democrats and Democratic groups, including $600,000 to the Sen. Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC, $100,000 to the Biden Victory Fund and over $150,000 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC). He also gave thousands to state Democratic parties and top Democrats in the House and Senate.

In 2014, Altman co-hosted a fundraiser for the DNC at Y Combinator’s offices in Mountain View, California, which was headlined by then-President Obama.

Following Trump’s victory in November, Altman posted on X, ‘congrats to President Trump. i wish for his huge success in the job.’

‘It is critically important that the US maintains its lead in developing AI with democratic values,’ he added. 

During Altman’s tenure from 2014 to 2019 as the CEO of Y Combinator, an incubator startup that launched Airbnb, DoorDash and DropBox, he talked about China in multiple blog posts and interviews. In 2017, Altman said that he ‘felt more comfortable discussing controversial ideas in Beijing than in San Francisco’ and that he felt like an expansion into China was ‘important’ because ‘some of the most talented entrepreneurs’ that he has met have been operating there. 

Altman’s résumé and AI efforts have drawn the ire of Trump ally Elon Musk in recent years. Musk said last year, ‘I don’t trust OpenAI. I don’t trust Sam Altman. And I don’t think we ought to have the most powerful AI in the world controlled by someone who is not trustworthy.’

Musk, who has been involved with a highly publicized legal tussle with Altman, has also said that OpenAI’s ChatGPT function is infected with the ‘woke virus.’

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot whose core function is to mimic a human in conversation. Users across the world have used ChatGPT to write emails, debug computer programs, answer homework questions, play games, write stories and song lyrics, and much more. 

‘It is going to eliminate a lot of current jobs, that’s true. We can make much better ones. The reason to develop AI at all, in terms of impact on our lives and improving our lives and upside, this will be the greatest technology humanity has yet developed,’ Altman said in a 2023 interview with ABC News. ‘The promise of this technology, one of the ones that I’m most excited about, is the ability to provide individual learning — great individual learning for each student.’

In recent months, OpenAI has reportedly been quietly pitching its products to the U.S. military and pursuing defense contracts, Forbes reported.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for OpenAI said, ‘America has to win the AI race, and that is why Americans from both sides of the aisle are united in supporting policies that help the US maintain its competitive edge against China.’ 

‘ASP is a nearly twenty-year-old bipartisan organization that works with legislators, retired flag officers, subject matter experts, and groups from across the political spectrum to produce high quality research and forge bipartisan consensus on emerging threats to our national security,’ an ASP spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement. 

‘While OpenAI is one of many donors for AI Imperative 2030, we ensure an equal balance of opinions informed by independent experts and Consensus for American Security members, including Julia Nesheiwat, Ph.D., former Trump Homeland Security Advisor, and Neil Chatterjee, former Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission under Trump. We also recently hosted a roundtable featuring Nazak Nikakhtar, another former Trump official.’

The statement continued, ‘The primary objective of AI Imperative 2030 is to ensure that the U.S., not China, wins the race for AI supremacy. China aims to surpass the U.S. and lead the world in AI by 2030. We can’t let that happen. President Trump has been a leader in creating bipartisan consensus that the U.S. needs to compete more vigorously with China, and we look forward to working with his administration and the Republican Congress to design effective and cost-efficient policies towards this goal.’

Fox News Digital’s Nikolas Lanum, Cameron Cawthorne and Joe Schoffstall contributed to this report.

President-elect Donald Trump’s second inauguration is just two days away, and excitement for the celebrations is building throughout Washington, D.C., and across the nation. 

Celebrities and top business leaders are rallying around the incoming 47th president of the United States – a stark contrast to the inaugural ceremonies in 2017. 

Trump, in November, won the 2024 presidential election in a landslide. He dominated both the Electoral College and the popular vote to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris after a historic campaign cycle. 

Since his massive victory, the president-elect has seen support from his traditional allies – including Republicans in Congress and GOP governors across the nation – as he builds out his incoming administration. 

However, he has also been embraced by top executives in the business world and Silicon Valley – individuals who had not been particularly cozy with Trump or his allies during and after his first administration. 

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and other tech leaders paid visits to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, throughout the transition period. 

Leading up to the inauguration, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook and executives from Google, Microsoft, Boeing, Ford Motor Co. and more, committed at least $1 million each to Trump’s inaugural fund – a total about-face from the first Trump inauguration. 

Trump will also have union leaders at his inauguration, representing the broad coalition of support he has seen since his victory, including International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien and members of the Firefighter’s Union. 

Celebrities, too, are showing up for the president-elect. Country music star and ‘American Idol’ winner Carrie Underwood will perform ‘America the Beautiful,’ and will be joined by the Armed Forces Choir and the United States Naval Academy Glee Club.  

Underwood’s performance will come just before Trump takes the presidential oath of office for the second time. 

Joining Underwood during the swearing-in ceremony will be opera singer Christopher Macchio, who is expected to perform the national anthem. 

Reports suggest other top music acts will make their way to Washington, D.C., for performances, including Jason Aldean, Rascall Flatts, Kid Rock, Billy Ray Cyrus, Village People and more. 

Last time, Trump struggled to attract big-name support, and even high-profile entertainers for his inauguration in 2017. The entertainment program was tame compared to his predecessor, President Obama’s 2013 inauguration, which included performances by Beyoncé and Kelly Clarkson.

Additionally, the 2017 inauguration weekend was also marred by protests across Washington, D.C. 

Protesters created chaos across the city ahead of Inauguration Day in 2017, shattering glass storefronts and torching cars, with police arresting more than 200 people in demonstrations that spanned several days.

Trump’s actual swearing-in on Capitol Hill and the parade to the White House happened, however, without any incident.

Despite the chaos, Trump, in his inaugural address, called for a ‘new national pride’ to heal divisions and asked for unity.

However, the day after Trump was sworn into office as the 45th president of the United States, several hundred thousand people from across the country descended on the nation’s capital to protest his presidency in the ‘Women’s March on Washington.’

Many of the protesters were indeed women and were largely peaceful compared to the rioters who wreaked havoc in Washington, D.C., days earlier. The march moved from the National Mall to the streets while the newly inaugurated president attended a National Prayer Service after waking up in the White House for the first time.

Celebrities like America Ferrera, Madonna, Ashley Judd, Cher, Katy Perry, Amy Schumer, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Michael Moore, Debra Messing, Patricia Arquette and others attended the march.

Madonna, during that protest, said she had ‘thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.’

However, Trump’s second inauguration is expected to be a celebration – the official Inauguration weekend will begin with a large fireworks display Saturday night. 

On Sunday, there will be a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery and a ‘Make America Great Again’ rally, where Trump will deliver remarks, followed by a candlelit dinner. 

Monday is Inauguration Day, when Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance will participate in the swearing-in ceremony; say ‘farewell’ to President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris; participate in the president’s Signing Room Ceremony on Capitol Hill; and lead the Presidential Parade down Pennsylvania Avenue and to the White House. 

The president will then attend three official inaugural balls and is expected to deliver remarks at each. 

‘President Trump is dedicated to uniting the country through the strength, security, and opportunity of his America First agenda,’ Trump Vance Inaugural Committee, Inc. Co-Chairs Steve Witkoff and Kelly Loeffler said. ‘The 2025 inaugural celebrations will reflect President-elect Trump’s historic return to the White House and the American people’s decisive vote to Make America Great Again.’

President Biden’s half-century political career comes to a close on Monday, as President-elect Trump is inaugurated and succeeds Biden in the White House.

While the longtime Democratic senator from Delaware, two-term vice president and one-term president can point to a plethora of legislative victories and other achievements during his four years in the White House, Biden leaves office as one of the most unpopular presidents in the nation’s history.

And Biden, who successfully defeated Trump in the 2020 election as he pledged to turn a page on his predecessor, is facing a legacy tarnished by his inability to prevent Trump from returning to the presidency.

Biden, in an open letter to the American people on Wednesday, appeared to acknowledge that he wasn’t able to follow through on the integral pledge from his 2020 campaign.

‘I ran for president because I believed that the soul of America was at stake. The very nature of who we are was at stake,’ Biden wrote. 

But he lamented ‘that’s still the case.’

‘President Biden ran on and was elected on a platform of a return to normalcy in 2020. And while voters appear to have wanted that in principle, history will remember Biden as having been unable to deliver on his promise,’ veteran political scientist Wayne Lesperance, the president of New England College, told Fox News.

Biden, in a farewell address to the nation this past week, aimed to cement his legacy as a president who pushed to stabilize politics at home while bolstering America’s leadership abroad, and as a leader who steered the nation out of the COVID-19 pandemic, made historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy, pumped up the economy and made historic gains in job creation, and lowered prescription drug prices for millions of American.

But he also used his speech ‘to warn the country’ that ‘an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy. Our basic rights, freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.’

Biden ends his single term in the White House with approval ratings that remain well underwater.

He stood at 42% approval and 57% disapproval in the latest Fox News national poll, which was conducted Jan. 10-13 and released on Thursday.

Just 36% of Americans approved of the job Biden has been doing in the White House, according to the latest CNN poll, which matched the president’s previous low mark in the cable news network’s polling during Biden’s White House tenure.

And Biden’s approval rating stood at 43% – slightly higher but still in negative territory – in national polls by USA Today/Suffolk University and Marist College. All of the polls were conducted in early and mid-January.

Biden’s approval rating hovered in the low to mid 50s during his first six months in the White House. However, the president’s numbers started sagging in August 2021 in the wake of Biden’s much-criticized handling of the turbulent U.S. exit from Afghanistan, and following a surge in COVID-19 cases that summer that was mainly among unvaccinated people.

The plunge in the president’s approval rating was also fueled by soaring inflation – which started spiking in the summer of 2021 and remains to date a major pocketbook concern with Americans – and the surge of migrants trying to cross into the U.S. along the southern border.

Biden’s approval ratings slipped underwater in the autumn of 2021 and never reemerged into positive territory.

The latest polls also indicate that many Americans view Biden’s presidency as a failure.

Sixty-one percent of adults nationwide questioned in the CNN survey said they see Biden’s presidency overall as a failure, with 38% viewing it as a success. 

According to the USA Today/Suffolk University survey, 44% of registered voters said history will assess Biden as a failed president, with 27% saying he will be judged as a fair president. Twenty-one percent of those questioned said history will view Biden as a good president, with only 5% saying he will be seen as a great president.

Just over a third of adults nationwide questioned in the Marist poll said Biden will be remembered as one of the worst presidents in American history, with 19% saying he will be considered a below-average president.

Twenty-eight percent of participants offered that Biden’s legacy will be considered average, with 19% saying he would be regarded as above average or one of the best presidents in the nation’s history.

Biden, in one of his last interviews in office, told MSNBC in an acknowledgment of regret that ‘ironically, I almost spent too much time on the policy, not enough time on the politics.’

Also weighing on Biden’s legacy – his ill-fated re-election run.

In April 2023, the then-80-year old Biden announced his re-election bid. Fourteen months later, Biden was losing ground to Trump in 2024 election polling when he suffered a disastrous debate performance against the former president, which reignited deep concerns among voters over his physical and cognitive ability to handle another four years in the White House.

Less than a month later, following an outcry from fellow Democrats, Biden announced he was ending his campaign and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to serve as the party’s 2024 standard-bearer.

Two and a half months after Trump’s convincing victory over Harris, Biden is still facing plenty of blame for the Democrats’ electoral setbacks in November.

Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville told Fox News that ‘the Joe Biden story is one of the great tragedies of American politics. I really mean that. He should be having a glorious, well deserved, highly acclaimed retirement. And he’s not.’

And Carville, a political mastermind behind former President Bill Clinton’s historic 1992 White House victory, argued that ‘it’s hard to blame anybody but him.’ 

But Biden’s friends and supporters feel that the negative views of the soon-to-be former president will shift over time.

‘Biden, because of some of the legislation that he was able to muscle through, is going to look pretty good,’ John MacNeil, a longtime Democratic consultant, Biden supporter, told Fox News. ‘The fruits of some of what Biden accomplished are only going to become visible over the next few years.’

But MacNeil, a founding director of Unite the Country, the super PAC that boosted the then-former vice president through the 2020 Democratic primaries, also acknowledged that Biden may be ‘seen as just a hiccup between Trump one and Trump two. That is something that historians will talk about.’

Presidential inaugurations mark some of the most defining moments in U.S. history, allowing presidents to establish traditions and reinvigorate the American people.

Some inaugurations make history, while others are remembered for comical blunders and even brawls.

Before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office for a second time on Monday, here are some of the most momentous Inauguration Day moments in U.S. history.

George Washington’s first inaugural address

No tradition’s story is complete without its origin. President George Washington delivered the first-ever inaugural address on April 30, 1789, just two weeks after Congress unanimously elected him to serve as the nation’s leader.

His 10-minute speech noted the ‘divine blessing’ of the nation’s founding, expressing gratitude to ‘the benign parent of the human race’ for the deliberations that led to the founding and the unity of the American people.

Andrew Jackson’s White House mob

President Andrew Jackson had some 20,000 of his supporters attend a celebration around the White House following his first inauguration in 1829.

The mob quickly grew rowdy, however, with fights breaking out and furniture being destroyed. Jackson ultimately fled out a window to the safety of a nearby hotel, according to the National Archives.

Staff at the White House then resorted to filling bathtubs with whiskey and orange juice outside the White House in order to get the crowd to leave the building.

William Henry Harrison’s only inauguration

President William Henry Harrison delivered his inaugural address on a bitterly cold day in March 1841. He refused to wear a coat and traveled to and from the inauguration on open horseback. His address is also the longest in U.S. history, with Harrison speaking for more than two hours.

Several weeks after Inauguration Day, Harrison caught a cold, which then developed into pneumonia, and he died on April 4, barely a month after taking office.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inauguration

President Franklin D. Roosevelt first took the oath of office in 1933 in the midst of the Great Depression.

It was during his first inaugural address that he delivered a line now known to virtually all Americans, telling the people, ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’

Roosevelt’s steadfast leadership would see Americans through both the Great Depression and World War II.

John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address

President John F. Kennedy assumed office on Jan. 20, 1961, and he too delivered a line that would enter the American pantheon.

‘Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country,’ he urged.

Kennedy’s words led the country to the moon and back, and to this day, polls rank him as the most beloved recent president.

Barack Obama’s first inaugural address

President Barack Obama’s first inauguration is notable not only because he was the first Black American to become president, but also for the historical quirk that he had to be sworn in twice.

Obama and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts briefly spoke to one another as Roberts was administering the oath of office. As a result, Roberts misspoke and stated, ‘That I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully.’

Obama then repeated that phrasing, which is incorrect. The oath’s correct wording in the Constitution is, ‘That I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.’

While the ceremony moved forward regardless, Obama and Roberts met again the following day at the White House to administer the oath correctly.