President-elect Donald J. Trump will kick off a series of inaugural events with a party for roughly 500 donors, friends and other supporters at his golf club in Sterling, Va., on Saturday, according to officials with the inaugural committee.
It is the initial setting for days of ceremony that typically honor an incoming U.S. president. The club, about an hour’s drive from Washington, will be Mr. Trump’s first stop after he lands at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on his private plane, the last time he will fly aboard the aircraft emblazoned with his name in gold letters for the next four years. He will be joined by his wife, Melania Trump, and some of his family members.
The next day, Mr. Trump is scheduled to hold a rally at Capital One Arena in Washington with his supporters. He is expected to visit Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia before the rally, and then to attend a candlelight dinner with supporters. And on Monday, Jan. 20, Mr. Trump, the only person besides Grover Cleveland to be elected to nonconsecutive terms, will be sworn in as the 47th president.
At Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., which overlooks the Potomac River, the inaugural committee plans to use the entire sprawling clubhouse, officials said. Mr. Trump’s aides are preparing for hours of music videos to be shown on dozens of televisions placed throughout the three floors of the club.
The event will feature what Mr. Trump likes to see and hear at public events and will include some Trump hallmarks, like a five-hour music playlist. There will be a well-known Elvis impersonator and tribute performer named Leo Days, as well as Christopher Macchio, a tenor whom Mr. Trump has featured at his last two Republican National Conventions and at an October rally in Butler, Pa. Pop-up performances will take place throughout the night, officials said.
The evening will include an extensive fireworks display and, most likely, tents set up outside to accommodate guests in freezing weather. The following day, Mr. Trump will attend a victory rally at Capital One Arena.
The rally underscores how much Mr. Trump feeds off his supporters, but also how much has changed in eight years. In 2017, shortly after a bitterly fought election, a Trump rally in the heart of Washington — a decidedly Democratic-leaning city — would have been unimaginable. But Mr. Trump, who increased his share of the vote in several major cities, made a point in the 2024 campaign of holding rallies in Democratic-leaning places, including New York City, where he filled Madison Square Garden.
One thing that has not changed, however, is Mr. Trump’s preference for using, and showcasing, his properties.
When Mr. Trump first arrived in Washington in January 2017, his initial stop was the hotel — converted from a federal post office building — that he had opened the year before on Pennsylvania Avenue and where several hundred of his supporters were gathered for an official luncheon.
But he no longer has the lease to the hotel, which is owned by the federal government and was a central gathering place for his allies, advisers, administration officials and lobbyists while he was in office. That ownership prompted criticism from Democrats about conflicts of interest. Republicans often said that they found that holding events at his properties was easier than working at other hotels, where some employees and workers were not fans of Mr. Trump.
The Trump Organization sold the lease after Mr. Trump left office in 2021. It was the only place that Mr. Trump would visit in Washington for dinners outside the White House.
Mr. Trump’s son Eric has been pushing to try to reacquire it.
The inaugural committee for Mr. Trump’s second term has raised a staggering amount of money, according to multiple people briefed on the figure. It exceeds $170 million, they said, far outpacing the $107 million that Mr. Trump’s allies raised for the inaugural events in 2017. The current inaugural committee has run out of tickets for events, and some are donating even while knowing that they may not make it into the venues to see Mr. Trump.
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