For this inauguration, Trump hopes for fewer protests and more acceptance

WASHINGTON — On his second go-round, Donald Trump wants an inauguration that is more broadly accepted and celebrated than eight years ago, when he squeaked past his opponent and took office as police fired pepper spray at protesters alarmed by his rise.

He’s hoping for fewer protests and “less divisiveness” this time, a person close to the president-elect told NBC News, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss Trump’s thinking.

In this year’s election — unlike in 2016 — Trump won both the popular vote and a comfortable electoral college margin. Coming off those results, Trump believes there won’t be the same sort of stigma attached to his presidency as was the case back then, the person said.

That’s Trump’s hope. For now, his advisers are beginning work on an inauguration unlike anything the U.S. has seen since the late 19th century, when Grover Cleveland was the first to reclaim the White House four years after voters had thrown him out.

Aides have come up with a logo for the inaugural ceremony on Jan. 20 and have built a website that will soon go live, a person familiar with the planning said.

They’ve been booking blocks of hotel rooms and workshopping themes for a swearing-in that is surrounded by a slew of parties, luncheons and, finally, a parade ending at a White House reviewing stand that is now under construction. (Some D.C. residents have been trying to encourage Airbnb hosts not to rent out our their properties during the inauguration — or raise the prices and donate the funds to liberal groups, according to The Washington Post.)

A women’s march is also scheduled around Trump’s swearing-in, though it may be a smaller than the massive demonstration that took place in 2017 around the country.

One of the co-chairs of that march, Linda Sarsour, said she believes the political environment is more dangerous now for women to openly protest Trump’s presidency.

“We just don’t think it’s safe to have people in Washington, D.C. during the same weekend when we have an influx of MAGA in Washington,” she said in an interview. “We need to be careful.”

Much work remains in Trump’s planning. His advisers haven’t yet settled on the number of inaugural balls that will take place. (In 2017, he and his wife Melania danced at three official balls.) While Trump will again use a presidential inaugural committee to raise money, his team has not yet said whether the operation will accept donations from corporations or lobbyists.

Trump’s first inauguration raised a record-shattering $107 million, while also spawning accusations of sloppy bookkeeping and culminating in a $750,000 legal settlement over where the money went.

Trump will take office after a four-year hiatus, making the occasion a rare blend of old and new. When he was inaugurated the first time, the nation knew a lot about Trump the man, but little about how he’d govern.

Now, Americans have a better idea of how he’ll govern, but little understanding of how his four years in exile might have altered his thinking and priorities. Is he bent on retribution, as he has suggested at times? Or was he sincere when he said in his victory speech that his party is about “inclusion”?

The inaugural will set a tone that may offer clues as to how he wants to lead. Trump will deliver a set speech, of course, but he’ll also presumably escort outgoing President Joe Biden to a waiting helicopter after the ceremony.

That simple and traditional gesture, rooted in the peaceful transfer of power, takes on added meaning given that Trump skipped Biden’s swearing-in after mounting an unsuccessful bid to overturn the result base on false claims that the election was stolen.

One aim of the inaugural planners is to put workaday Americans front-and-center during the events, as opposed to celebrity guests, the person familiar with the planning said.

The celebrities Trump has drawn to his side are mostly 20th century figures who were prominent when he came of age as a Manhattan real estate developer. Trump was heartened to see Sylvester Stallone, star of the “Rocky” franchise, appear with him during an event at his Mar-a-Lago resort earlier this month, the person close to him said.

Pro wrestling icon Hulk Hogan, now 71, spoke at the Republican nominating convention in Milwaukee over the summer and plans to attend the inauguration, according to a spokesman for Real American Beer — whose motto is “One Nation, Under Beer” — an adult beverage company that Hogan founded.

The singer Lee Greenwood also will attend and, if asked, will perform, as well, a spokesman for him said. Greenwood wrote the song that has become an anthem of Trump’s campaign: “God Bless the USA.”

Biden and his wife, Jill, will also appear on the inaugural stage. Unclear is whether Hillary Clinton plans to be there. A spokesman for Clinton, who lost to Trump in the 2016 race, declined comment.

A variable out of Trump’s control is the size of the crowd that will gather on the National Mall to watch the ceremony.

This matters to him. A lot.

His last inaugural sparked a prolonged back-and-forth over the number of people who came to watch. Photos showed that Barack Obama drew more people to his 2009 swearing-in. Always attuned to ratings, Trump balked at the implication that Obama had drawn the bigger crowd.

His White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, wrote in a memoir that Trump had called him the next morning to tell him about a TV news segment he had seen that compared the two audiences eight years apart.

“The president was clear: this needed to be addressed — now,” Spicer wrote. That touched off a contentious exchange in the White House press briefing room over what seemed a triviality on the first full day of a new presidency: crowd size.

Chairing the inaugural are Kelly Loeffler, a former U.S. senator from Georgia, and Steven Witkoff, a real estate investor.

One test will be their stewardship of the private donations pouring in.

In one instance in 2017, Trump’s inaugural committee logged a $25,000 donation from someone named Katherine Johnson, listing the address as NASA headquarters.

That seemed to be a reference to the space agency’s famed mathematician, but the Katherine Johnson who had been celebrated in a movie in 2016 was by then in her 90s. She no longer worked at NASA and, according to her family, had given Trump no such donation.

“What you would hope the transition team would learn from that experience is you actually have to keep accurate records of where you got the money for the inauguration,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor at the Stetson University law school and author of the book, “Corporatocracy.”

In 2022, the attorney general in Washington, D.C. announced a settlement in which Trump’s inaugural committee and Trump Organization paid a total of $750,000 to resolve a case stemming from inauguration spending.

The attorney general, Karl Racine, had alleged that the inauguration committee had “improperly” overpaid for events at what was then the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. (In the settlement, the defendants disputed the allegations and denied any wrongdoing).

“No one is above the law — not even a president,” Racine said at the time in a prepared statement.