Donald Trump: Imagine how Hillary Clinton must have felt at the inauguration
Updated
When Donald Trump arrived at the inaugural luncheon following his swearing-in as US President, he immediately shook hands with his election rival Hillary Clinton, who was sitting with members of his family.
"There is something that I wanted to say," he told those who had gathered.
"I was very honoured — very, very honoured — when I heard that President Bill Clinton and Secretary Hillary Clinton was coming today.
"I'd like you to stand up, I'd like you to stand up."
What followed was a standing ovation, but it wasn't the one that Mrs Clinton had been looking forward to getting on January 20, 2017, before her dream of returning to the White House — this time as president rather than first lady — was shattered last November.
Mrs Clinton smiled and mouthed "thank you", before Mr Trump added: "And honestly there's nothing more I can say, because I have a lot of respect for those two people."
It was quite the turnaround from the second election debate just a few months ago.
Then, Mr Trump had told Mrs Clinton "you'd be in jail" if he was president, due to her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state. And in the debate audience, at Mr Trump's invitation, were three women who had accused her husband of sexual assault.
Just last week Mr Trump reprised his attack on Mrs Clinton, declaring her "guilty as hell" and deriding her supporters' criticism of how the FBI handled an investigation into her emails.
Mrs Clinton, for her part, hadn't been shy about calling Mr Trump unfit for office.
"There's always been a paranoid fringe in our politics, steeped in racial resentment. But it's never had the nominee of a major party stoking it, encouraging it and giving it a national megaphone," she had said in one campaign speech.
Earlier on inauguration day, Mrs Clinton made it clear that she was in Washington to endorse democracy, not her former opponent's vision for America:
And Mrs Clinton wasn't the only political opponent of Mr Trump to have a courtside view of his inauguration.
During the ceremony, she sat next to former president George W Bush and wife Laura, who didn't vote for Mr Trump despite the fact he represents their own party.
It can't have been an easy day for the former secretary of state, as Republican opponent Mike Huckabee acknowledged:
Topics: us-elections, world-politics, united-states
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