Jan. 20—Nine-hour lines, venues packed to the brim, snipers on roofs, armored cars, a congressional DJ and two hats pilfered by rapper Lil Pump.
It was a chaotic but exhilarating day for a few of the locals that traveled more than 2,500 miles to Washington D.C. They learned only Friday that the typical outdoor inauguration ceremony had been brought inside the Capitol, to which they had no access, amid below-freezing weather. But even if it had to be from a TV screen, they were there to see President Donald Trump assume office.
Natalie Poulson and Kellie Rizzi, both members of the Spokane County GOP executive board, received tickets to attend from their representative in Congress — in their case, freshman Rep. Michael Baumgartner. They arrived late Sunday with hopes of watching the morning ceremony from the Capital One Arena, the largest venue streaming the inauguration, but gave up after learning some started getting in line Sunday night.
Amanda McFarland, a member of the Young Republicans of Spokane, had arrived earlier, flying out Friday, and scoped out the city over the weekend attending various events, warning Poulson and Rizzi about the nine-hour wait she endured Sunday night to get into a rally. She visited a ball DJ’d by Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw and ran into the pro-Trump rapper Lil Pump, who posed for a photo with her before running off with two MAGA hats McFarland had bought for her parents.
“Lil Pump stole my hats,” McFarland laughed. “I’m OK with that.”
Instead of trying their luck at the arena, Poulson and Rizzi traveled to the nearby Museum of the Bible where they watched the proceedings in an auditorium with roughly 500 other people. McFarland and others from Washington Young Republican groups were invited to join a Southern Illinois inauguration event at the Cannon House Office Building across from the Capitol.
The museum’s crowd cheered loudest when Trump promised to secure the southern border, accused the public education system of teaching children to be “ashamed of themselves, and, in some cases, to hate our country,” and promised to “make America healthy again,” a slogan associated with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
McFarland’s smaller group of about 100 was roused by the prayers interspersing the day’s events, particularly pointing to a sermon from Detroit Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, who quoted at length from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech.
“It just brought a lot of hope to us,” she said. “Everybody loved it.”
After the ceremony the three went outside to watch Trump’s motorcade, though the route was cut short at the last minute — for security reasons, Rizzi believed.
High security has been a major theme of the trip, with snipers stationed on roofs, armored vehicles blocking roads and a large law enforcement presence. It was comforting, they said, and Poulson enjoyed chatting with officers during the long waits, but it complicated their movements through the city.
Between frequent detours and high costs of as much as $100, taxis or ubers were out of the question for the day, McFarland said, and instead the trio walked through the freezing cold for much of the day.
With all of the remaining balls and galas sold out, the trio concluded their evening with dinner at an Irish pub and planned to bookend the trip with a tour of the Library of Congress courtesy of Baumgartner.
Despite the changing plans and uncomfortable weather, the trio said their trip was worthwhile.
“I’m just pumped,” McFarland said. “I really think the potential for America in the next few years is exponential…I feel like it’s the dawn of a new era.”
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