“Hats off! No bags! No drinks, no food, no water, no nothing. Everything out of your pockets. Come on – let’s go, let’s go let’s go!”
Security’s tough at the front of the line. There is a real sense of urgency.
It is bitterly cold outside Washington’s Capital One Arena and people have been queuing since 3.30am. Everyone’s keen to get in.
The queue snakes all the way around the back of the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library and down the block.
Inauguration Day happens to coincide with MLK Day (Martin Luther King Jr Day) this year. There was meant to be an outside match to commemorate that too, but it’s been cancelled because of the cold.
Follow live: Donald Trump’s inauguration
It’s now 7am and the queue starts moving. There’s a huge cheer at the front.
Despite the freezing temperatures and wind chill, people are excited. They came here for Trump, and it would have been colder on the National Mall in any case. They’re psyched.
“I spent so much money on my bills – they’re gonna go down, everything’s gonna go down and my pay rate is gonna go up,” says Dan French, who’s dressed as Uncle Sam.
Tabitha agrees. “New York, where I’m from, is a hot mess,” she says. “Everything is expensive, housing, food. Trump is going to come in and clean this up.”
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It’s a sea of red MAGA caps, USA flags, Trump and MAGA memorabilia. The street vendors are having a field day.
An extra layer helps, especially if it has Trump on it.
Grady from Texas has a ‘Daddy’s Home’ sweatshirt with a big picture of Trump on it. Immigration is why he voted Trump.
“Our borders are broken. It affects all of our communities. The fentanyl crisis is out of control,” he says.
I ask how this term will be different from the last. “We’re gonna get a lot more done,” Grady says.
“He knows a little bit about how to govern, he’ll be able to hit the ground running. He has new ideas and a whole cabinet of outsiders.”
Read more:
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Trump is expected to promise a revolution of common sense in his inaugural speech. I ask Grady what he thinks that means.
“Cancel culture and woke culture, there’s a lot of things that don’t make sense in this county especially on social issues,” he replies.
“We don’t have to overcomplicate things, cancel culture is dead now so I think to get away from that is what he means.”
And did Biden have no common sense?
“Oh no,” says Dan (aka Uncle Sam). “Biden had no sense at all”.
