US President Donald Trump left the White House on Wednesday after a tumultuous four years in office, hours before Democrat Joe Biden assumes the helm of a country.

 

Biden, 78, will become the oldest US president in history at a scaled-back inauguration ceremony in Washington that has been largely stripped of its usual pomp and circumstance, due both to the coronavirus as well as security concerns following the January 6 assault on the US Capitol by Trump supporters, said a Reuters report.

 

Trump left the White House with his wife Melania just after 8 am (1300 GMT) and went by helicopter to a sendoff event at Joint Air Force Base Andrews, where he promised supporters “we’ll be back in some form” and extolled his administration’s successes before flying off to Florida.

 

Top Republicans, including Vice President Mike Pence, were not there to see him go. Shortly after Trump finished his remarks, Biden left the presidential guest house in Washington on his way to church, where he was joined by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and House of Representatives Republican leader Kevin McCarthy.

 

With only a small number of attendees present, Biden will take the oath of office before US Chief Justice John Roberts just after noon (1700 GMT), placing his hand on an heirloom Bible that has been in the Biden family for more than a century.

 

Trump flouted one last convention on his way out. His refusal to attend his successor’s swearing-in breaks with more than a century and a half of political tradition, seen as a way of affirming the peaceful transfer of power.

 

The president did, however, leave a customary note for Biden in the Oval Office, according to a White House official, though it was not yet known what it said.

 

Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, will become the first Black person, first woman and first Asian American to serve as vice president after she is sworn in by US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s first Latina member.