DONALD Trump pumped his fist and waved as he departed the White House for the last time as US president, although he said he hoped “it's not a long term goodbye”.
Speaking on the South Lawn of the presidential residence, Trump said: "It's been a great honour, the honour of a lifetime. The greatest people in the world, the greatest home in the world.
"We love the American people, and again, it has been something very special. And I just want to say goodbye but hopefully it's not a long term goodbye. We'll see each other again."
Trump will be the first president in modern history to boycott his successor's inauguration. By the time Biden is sworn in, Trump will already have landed at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
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However, he did follow at least one presidential tradition. The White House said the Republican president left behind a note for his successor, Democrat Joe Biden.
Deputy press secretary Judd Deere declined to reveal what Trump wrote to Biden or to characterise the sentiment in the note, citing privacy for communication between presidents.
Trump has refused to publicly concede to Biden and did not mention the Democrat by name in a pair of farewell addresses.
Aides had reportedly urged Trump to spend his final days in office trying to salvage his legacy by highlighting his administration's achievements - such as passing tax cuts and scaling back federal regulations.
However, Trump largely refused, taking a single trip to the Texas border and releasing a video in which he pledged to his supporters that "the movement we started is only just beginning".
In his final hours, Trump issued pardons for more than 140 people, including his former strategist, rap performers, ex-members of Congress and other allies of his family.
Trump, awaiting his second impeachment trial, will head to Florida with a small group of former White House aides as he charts a political future that looks very different now than just two weeks ago before the Capitol riot.
READ MORE: David Pratt: How can the Republican Party move on from Donald Trump?
During his time in Washington DC, Trump rarely left the confines of the White House, except to visit his own hotel.
He and his wife Melania never once ate dinner at any other local restaurant, and never ventured out to shop in its stores or see the sites.
When he did leave, it was almost always to one of his properties: his golf course in Virginia, his golf course in New Jersey, or his private club and nearby golf course in Palm Beach, Florida.
The city overwhelmingly supported Biden, with 93% of the vote. Mr Trump received just 5.4% of the vote.
JOE BIDEN
Joe Biden will swear the oath of office at noon local time (5pm in Scotland) to become the 46th president of the United States.
Biden will take the helm of a deeply divided nation and inherit a confluence of crises arguably greater than any faced by his predecessors.
At age 78, he will be the oldest president inaugurated.
By his side, Kamala Harris will today become the first woman to hold the office of vice president of the US.
The former senator from California is also the first black person and first person of South Asian descent elected to the vice presidency, and will become the highest-ranking woman ever to serve in government.
The very ceremony in which presidential power is transferred, a hallowed US democratic tradition, will serve as a jarring reminder of the challenges Biden faces.
The inauguration unfolds at a US Capitol battered by an insurrectionist siege just two weeks ago, encircled by security forces evocative of those in a war zone, and devoid of crowds because of the threat of the coronavirus pandemic.
Stay home, Americans were told, to prevent further spread of a surging virus that has claimed 400,000 lives in the US.
Biden will look out over a capital city dotted with empty storefronts that attest to the pandemic's deep economic toll and where summer protests laid bare the nation's renewed reckoning on racial justice.
READ MORE: Donald Trump will not come to Scotland to avoid Joe Biden inauguration
Biden, in his third run for the presidency, staked his candidacy less on any distinctive political ideology than on galvanising a broad coalition of voters around the notion that Trump posed an existential threat to US democracy.
On his first day, Biden will take a series of executive actions - on the pandemic, climate, immigration and more - to undo the heart of Trump's agenda.
"Biden will face a series of urgent, burning crises like we have not seen before, and they all have to be solved at once. It is very hard to find a parallel in history," said presidential historian Michael Beschloss.
"I think we have been through a near-death experience as a democracy.
"Americans who will watch the new president be sworn in are now acutely aware of how fragile our democracy is and how much it needs to be protected."
THE INAUGURATION
The day will begin with a reach across the aisle after four years of bitter partisan battles under Trump.
Biden invited Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leaders of the Senate and House, to join him at a morning Mass, along with Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leaders.
Once at the Capitol, Biden will be administered the oath by Chief Justice John Roberts. Harris will be sworn in by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
The theme of Biden's approximately 30-minute speech will be America United, and aides said it would be a call to set aside differences during a moment of national trial.
Biden will then oversee a Pass In Review, a military tradition that honours the peaceful transfer of power to a new commander in chief.
Then, Biden, Harris and their spouses will be joined by a bipartisan trio of former presidents - Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama - to lay a wreath at the Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Ceremony.
Later, Biden will join the end of a slimmed-down inaugural parade as he moves into the White House.
Because of the pandemic, much of this year's parade will be a virtual affair featuring performances from around the nation.
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