Did Vice President Kamala Harris announce that she would not attend "the presidential induction ceremony" after Donald Trump won the November 5, 2024, election? No, that's not true: In a concession speech on November 6, 2024, Harris stated that she would "help" Trump transition to the White House and "engage in a peaceful transfer of power." As of this writing, there is no public record that Harris announced she would not attend the upcoming inauguration.
The claim appeared in a post on X published on November 6, 2024, (archived here). The caption read:
🚨 Kamala Harris has announced she won't be showing up for the presidential induction ceremony.
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Nov 6 14:46:10 2024 UTC)
The post was shared to X after Trump was declared the winner of the election to become the 47th president on November 5, 2024.
The United States government does not include the "presidential induction ceremony," as the post on X described it, on its list of American holidays (archived here). Presumably, the above post refers to the 2025 presidential inauguration (archived here), a ceremony every four years to swear in the newly elected president and vice president.
Harris gave her concession speech on November 6, 2024, on Howard University's campus. C-SPAN live-streamed the event, and at 5:18 (archived here) mark, Harris said:
Earlier today, I spoke with president-elect Trump and congratulated him on his victory. I also told him that we will help him and his team with their transition. And that we will engage in a peaceful transfer of power.
As of November 6, 2024, there was no indication on Harris' social media accounts (Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok) that she announced plans to skip the 2025 inauguration (respectively archived here, here, here and here).
Lead Stories searched for recent news stories mentioning "Kamala Harris" and "not attending Donald Trump's 2025 inauguration" on Google News, and we found no credible sources that would confirm the legitimacy of the claim (archived here).
More Lead Stories fact checks of claims concerning Kamala Harris are here.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims surrounding the 2024 U.S. presidential election are here.
