Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration ceremony has begun, with Senator Amy Klobuchar reflecting on the significance of the inauguration at the Capitol in the wake of a riot in the same place two weeks ago.

She said, as the country turned the page, it was up to everyone to “take up the torch of our democracy” to be an instrument of good.

“We pledge today never to take our democracy for granted as we celebrate its remarkable strength. We celebrate its resilience, its grit,” Klobuchar said.

A Capitol police officer hailed as a hero for his actions during the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol is accompanying Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris at the inauguration.

Officer Eugene Goodman confronted the insurrectionists and led them away from the Senate chambers moments after Vice-President Mike Pence was escorted from the Senate chamber as the rioters stormed the Capitol.

Goodman is a black man and was facing an overwhelmingly white mob. He is the only officer seen for a full minute on widely circulated footage captured by a news reporter. Goodman stands in front of the rioters and walks backward as the group follows him to a second-floor hallway, where other officers finally assist him.

A police spokeswoman says Goodman’s plainclothes assignment to accompany Harris “is a ceremonial role”.

AP

President Donald Trump has arrived in Florida after leaving the White House for the final time as President.

Trump’s family was on Air Force One with him, and he spent some of the flight meeting with flight staff, who wanted to say goodbye. According to CNN, he also watched the inauguration proceedings on television.

Trump has hinted about a comeback despite a legacy of chaos and bitter divisions in the country he led for four years.

Trump spoke to supporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where he walked across a red carpet and boarded Air Force One. He said: “So just a goodbye. We love you.” And the 45th president added: “We will be back in some form.”

Australia’s Ambassador to the United States, Arthur Sinodinos, is among the small crowd gathered at the Capitol for the inauguration ceremony.

One thing we won’t be doing this year is debating the number of attendees at the inauguration ceremony. It has been limited to about 1000 people due to the coronavirus pandemic and the violence at the Capitol two weeks ago.

It was this time four years ago that, in his now infamous debut as White House press secretary, Sean Spicer insisted that Donald Trump had drawn “the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe”.

Crowd sizes can be difficult to estimate, but images of the National Mall for Trump’s inauguration contradicted Spicer’s claims – particularly when compared with pictures from Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009.

Later that year, after he had resigned as White House press secretary six months into the job, Spicer said he regretted the claims he made about the crowd size, saying: “Of course I do, absolutely,”

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris have arrived at the Capitol ahead of the inauguration ceremony.

Biden and his wife, Jill, arrived at the complex about 90 minutes before the noon swearing-in ceremony. They were accompanied by Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, and were greeted by Senator Amy Klobuchar.

The President-elect’s motorcade wound its way through a mostly deserted Washington DC. The city’s streets would typically be lined with thousands of inaugural onlookers, but instead were ringed with a massive security presence including military vehicles and armed troops.

About 25,000 National Guard members have been dispatched to Washington following the violent siege at the US Capitol two weeks ago today.

Biden paused to wave from the Capitol steps before entering the building.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg has taken a swipe at Donald Trump as he left the White House for the last time as President, continuing the feud that has been simmering between the pair for more than a year.

“He seems like a very happy old man looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!” Thunberg tweeted, along with a photo of Trump boarding the Marine One helicopter.

Her tweet harked back to when Trump mocked Thunberg with nearly the same words in a 2019 tweet, along with a video of an emotional, then-16-year-old Thunberg blasting world leaders for not doing enough about climate change at a UN summit.

Trump had suggested Thunberg work on anger-management issues and go to a movie with a friend – words Thunberg has clearly not forgotten.

Barack Obama has congratulated his former vice-president on Twitter, just hours before Biden was due to be sworn in.

Obama, who has arrived at the Capitol for the ceremony, tweeted a photo of the two arm-in-arm, taken during Biden’s days as vice-president: