Washington — President-elect Donald Trump will be sworn-in for a second term Monday in front of a crowd of former presidents, elected officials and family members gathered at the U.S. Capitol.
The inauguration ceremony will take place indoors in the Capitol Rotunda and marks the official transfer of presidential power. The proceedings were initially going to be held on the West Front of the building, but the president-elect decided to move them inside due to dangerously freezing temperatures expected in Washington, D.C., on Monday.
Trump will recite the oath of office just after 12 p.m., marking the start of his second administration. Here’s what to know about the oath of office and how the swearing-in ceremony will work:
Who will swear in Donald Trump at his second inauguration?
Pat Benic/Pool via Bloomberg
As per tradition, Chief Justice John Roberts will administer the oath of office to Trump. It will be Roberts’ fifth time reading the presidential oath.
While the Constitution does not specify who must administer the oath, the chief justice has traditionally sworn in new presidents. John Adams was the first president to take the oath from the chief justice in 1797.
Not every president has been sworn in by the chief justice, however. In 1923, Calvin Coolidge was vice president when he took the oath from his father, a notary public, in Vermont after President Warren Harding died. Lyndon Johnson was sworn in by a federal judge on Air Force One shortly after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Jackie Kennedy stood by his side, still wearing her blood-stained jacket.
Who will swear in JD Vance?
Justice Brett Kavanaugh will administer the oath of office to Vice President-elect JD Vance. Trump tapped Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court in 2018.
Vance will be sworn in first.
The vice presidential oath has been administered by a variety of officials over the nation’s history. The first three vice presidents, and many throughout the 19th century, took the oath from the president pro tempore of the Senate, according to the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. Incoming vice presidents have typically chosen “friends and associates” to administer the oath since World War II.
What is the oath of office?
Vance and Trump recite different oaths.
The oath the vice-president elect will say is the same repeated by senators, House members and other federal employees, and has been in use since 1884. It states:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
For the president, Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution requires he recite this oath:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
In 2009, then-President Barack Obama had to take his oath of office a second time after Roberts flubbed a word. Roberts re-administered the oath to Obama at the White House later in the day “out of an abundance of caution,” the White House counsel said at the time.
Who swore in Biden and Harris?
Roberts also swore-in President Biden when he was inaugurated in January 2021, a ceremony that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor administered the vice presidential oath to Harris.
