Donald Trump was sworn in for a second term as US president on Monday (20 January) in a ceremony inside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, having foregone the usual outdoor festivities due to exceptionally cold weather. The ceremony capped a weekend of celebrations in the US capital that included vice president-elect JD Vance hosting a gala at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) on Saturday and Trump speaking at a dinner for supporters at the National Building Museum (NBM) on Sunday. Both events served as high-priced fundraisers for Trump’s inaugural committee and related committees, which have raised a record-breaking $250m.
According to a report by The Guardian, donors had to either give $1m or have raised $2m to secure two tickets to the “Vice President’s Dinner” at the NGA. Two tickets to the candlelit dinner the following night at the NBM cost donors $250,000, or raising a total of $500,000 in donations. Those prices were significant markups—sometimes double—from the donations required to attend comparable events surrounding Trump’s inauguration in 2017.
Attendees at this weekend’s galas included many of the people Trump has put forward to serve in his cabinet, among them would-be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth, potential secretary of state Marco Rubio and secretary of homeland security nominee Kristi Noem. Also in attendance were prominent supporters and donors including the billionaire space race rivals Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
Monies raised by Trump’s inaugural committees that are not spent on this week’s festivities are expected to be transferred to a newer committee that is gathering funds for an eventual Trump presidential library and museum, according to The New York Times. Fundraising for that project started with a major infusion from ABC News after the media organisation agreed last month to donate $15m to Trump’s future presidential library and museum to settle a defamation lawsuit he had brought.
The NGA is closed on 20 January, as are all the Smithsonian Institution’s museums on the National Mall “in an effort to reduce pedestrian and vehicle congestion around the Capitol”, according to a Smithsonian statement. The NBM is closed through 22 January.
Pari Dukovic, President Donald J. Trump for Time Magazine in 2019, 2019 National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. © 2019 Pari Dukovic.
The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is not on the National Mall, but is across the street from the Capitol One Arena, where an indoor version of the traditional inauguration parade is being held Monday. The NPG is closed for the inauguration, but last week installed a portrait of Trump from its permanent collection, taken by Pari Dukovic for Time magazine. The 2019 portrait of Trump at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office at the White House is on view adjacent to the NPG’s Recent Acquisitions exhibition. Another portrait of Trump, by photographer Matt McClain, is on view in the museum’s permanent exhibition America’s Presidents.
Trump and his wife Melania have not selected artists to create their official portraits for the NPG, as his predecessor did less than a year after leaving office.
During his first term, Trump repeatedly attempted to drastically cut or completely end funding for federal arts and culture agencies, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Museum and Library Services. No such plans were openly discussed in the lead-up to his second term or appear to be among the wave of executive actions he planned for his first day in office.
However, at least one sector of the cultural field appears to be on the new president’s mind: on 16 January he named the actors and film-makers Jon Voigt, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone “to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California”. Their apparent brief is to bring film and television productions that have been moved to other countries back to the US.
