It seems that it isn’t just celebrities who are avoiding President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. The men who have done the job that Trump is scheduled to begin on Jan. 20 also seem hesitant to appear alongside the president-elect when he is sworn into office. So far at least, Jimmy Carter is the only former president who has confirmed he will be going to the inauguration.
Bill Clinton has yet to make a decision about whether to attend the inauguration, a spokesperson tells CBS News. Considering Trump criticized the former president Clinton on Twitter this week, not to mention all the campaign talk of his extramarital affairs, it doesn’t seem too surprising the former president wouldn’t be eager to attend. A source close to Clinton tells Politico the former president is inclined to skip the event after the vicious campaign, but some allies of the family say it would be a mistake not to attend. “It would be especially bad if the Clintons did not attend, because it seems like they do not support the transition of power,” a top Clinton donor said. “It would be petty, they have to suck it up.”
Former president George W. Bush is also apparently still deciding whether to attend, and will only announce a final decision in 2017. “We simply don’t discuss his schedule this far in advance,” Bush spokesperson Freddy Ford told CBS News. His father, former president George H.W. Bush, 92, has already confirmed he won’t be attending the inauguration on Jan. 20.
To be fair, former presidents skipping inaugurations isn’t all that unusual. Even though all four living former presidents went to President Obama’s 2009 inauguration, neither George W. Bush nor his father attended the 2013 ceremony for health reasons.
Word that some former presidents may not be too eager to go to the inauguration comes as Trump’s transition team is scrambling to find headliners for the weekend. Famous people keep rejecting Trump and he even wrote a tweet about it that essentially boils down to, I don’t want you there anyway.
The New York Daily News compiled a list of the celebrities that have refused to perform at the inauguration and it includes: Elton John, David Foster, KISS, Celine Dion, Motley Crue, Ice T and Andrea Bocelli. The head of Trump’s Presidential Inaugural Committee told CNBC earlier this week that it was actually Bocelli who offered to perform and Trump was the one who said thanks, but no thanks.
