President-elect Trump will join President Obama in the White House for coffee prior to taking the oath of office next week, continuing a tradition that stretches back decades.
Thomas Barrack, chairman of Trump’s inauguration committee, told reporters Tuesday that Trump would observe the customary coffee visit shared by incoming and outgoing presidents for a generation.
The president-elect will also stay at Blair House, the president’s guest house, on the evening before he is sworn in, and he will attend the traditional worship service at St. John’s Church across from the White House before riding to the U.S. Capitol with Obama on the morning of Jan. 20.
“It’s a delicate balance between abiding by tradition and the president-elect…having his own fingerprint on a fresh canvas,” Barrack said of Trump’s inauguration ceremonies. “Mostly he’s abiding by tradition, especially in the swearing-in ceremony.”
Trump has announced few of the performers who will take the stage during a celebratory concert at the Lincoln Memorial the night before the inauguration and during performances leading up to the oath at noon on Inauguration Day.
Barrack said Trump has not sought A-list celebrities, noting he had instead wanted to focus on the “soft sensuality” of the historic location.
“It’s a much more poetic cadence than having a circus-like celebration that’s a coronation,” he said. “That’s the way this president-elect wanted it. I think it will be contributive. It will be beautiful. The cadence of it is going to be ‘let me get back to work.'”
