WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump said he would not attend his successor's swearing-in, a day after his top aides prevailed upon him to release a video conceding he would soon be departing office.

"To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th," Trump tweeted, making formal what many had long assumed that Trump would eschew the traditional step of personally demonstrating the peaceful hand-off of power to President-elect Joe Biden. He'll be the first outgoing president to skip his replacement's inauguration in more than 150 years.

His announcement he would not attend Biden's inauguration did not come as a surprise, though Trump had been polling people recently about whether he should go and seemed open, at least to some, to appearing.

It puts him even further at odds with Vice President Mike Pence, who has expressed a willingness to attend the ceremony if invited.

Traditionally, the outgoing president welcomes the incoming one to the White House in the morning before riding together in the same vehicle to the Capitol building for the swearing-in. Trump himself rode with then-President Barack Obama to his own inauguration four years ago.

In 1869, the last time a still-living president failed to appear at his successor's swearing-in, incoming President Ulysses S. Grant refused to share a carriage with his predecessor Andrew Johnson. Johnson said he would remain behind at the White House.

Three former American presidents do plan to be in attendance for the inauguration, officials say: Bill Clinton, Obama and George W. Bush have all made plans to be in Washington for the official transfer of power. — Courtesy CNN