Hammering the 'first nail,' lawmakers kick off inauguration construction at Capitol

WASHINGTON — Standing in front of construction workers in neon vests and hard hats amid pallets of lumber on Wednesday, lawmakers hammered the first nails into the 2025 inauguration platform.

The quadrennial event kicks off the real work of preparing for about 1,600 official guests who will join the next president onstage as he or she takes the oath of office. The inaugural platform is built from scratch every four years for the Jan. 20 ceremony, which has been held on the West Front of the Capitol since 1981.

Security is heightened around the worksite, which is ringed by two sets of fencing. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security announced that Jan. 6, 2025, would be designated a National Special Security Event in the hopes of avoiding a repeat of the previous electoral vote count. On that day in 2021, a mob scaled and overran the inaugural platform as supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol seeking to overturn the election.

In her remarks Wednesday and while speaking with workers afterward, Sen. Amy Klobuchar repeatedly emphasized the inauguration’s role in a peaceful handover of the White House keys.

Klobuchar, who leads the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, oversees planning for the event as chairwoman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. The Minnesota Democrat thanked the other members of the joint committee — Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Rules ranking member Deb Fischer, R-Neb. — “for your commitment to this event that lies at the very heart of our democracy, that is the peaceful transfer of power.”

Thomas Austin, the architect of the Capitol, also spoke, highlighting just how large of a construction task it is to build the temporary stage. “The project uses more than a half a million nails and enough board feet of lumber that, if laid end to end, would stretch from here to Fort Meade in Maryland,” he said.

As for the actual hammering, none of the members would have much luck pursuing a carpentry career if their next election doesn’t work out, but they all managed to drive their nails through the pre-drilled holes in short order.

After the ceremony, Klobuchar chatted with the gathered workers, noting how she used some of her pull as the Inaugural Ceremonies chair to ensure that the nails were made of American-mined iron and the hammers came from a Minnesota manufacturer.