Ronald and Nancy Reagan were disappointed.
That’s what White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes told reporters on January 18, 1985, after the Republican president and first lady decided to hold his second inauguration indoors due to unusually cold weather.
“They really felt like they had no choice,” Speakes said two days before the ceremony, according to archived transcripts of the press briefings held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in California.
That of President-elect Donald Trump decision take the oath of office in the Capitol Rotunda on Monday, when temperatures will be below freezing again. expectedremembers the last time cold weather gave rise to a similar decision.
The 1985 transcripts shed light on the Reagans’ considerations.
“There were high-level medical and military consultations and this was just a very serious health and safety issue,” Speakes said, according to transcripts provided Friday by the Reagan Library. “We probably would have had very serious problems for some participants.”
Just like that, the journalists asked.
On a day when the temperature reached -14 degrees Celsius in Washington, “the doctors told them exposed areas would freeze in less than five minutes, with wind chill factors like this,” Speakes said.
Speakes dismissed concerns about Reagan’s health as he took office for the second time at nearly 74 years old. (Trump turned 78 in June and will become the oldest person to begin a presidential term. President Joe Biden, who will be in the audience as Trump is sworn in, is 82.)
Reagan’s dressing room on the west steps of the Capitol was reportedly heated, so “no, I don’t think that was ever said to the president,” Speakes said.
It was the thousands of people participating in the parade, standing along the parade route and gathering on the National Mall, that Speakes said had the president and first lady more concerned.
“The Reagans looked at it … knowing that parade participants might be there for four hours or more,” he said. “So it was just a no-brainer, knowing that – what the doctors had told them – that they would have had severe frostbite, or even conditions that could have been worse.”
