Giuliani snags a seat but VIPs lose theirs as inauguration moves inside

WASHINGTON: Rudolph W Giuliani is in. Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, is out.

When President-elect Donald Trump decided to move his inauguration indoors to the Capitol Rotunda, it meant relegating many VIPs with tickets to the event to an overflow room to watch the proceedings on video.

Ms Markarova was one of those guests who did not make the cut to sit in the Rotunda, the heart of the Capitol under the dome, which can’t accommodate anything close to the number of people who wanted to attend Trump’s inauguration ceremony. The Rotunda can seat about 800 guests. Some 220,000 tickets were distributed when the ceremony was expected to be held outdoors.

Giuliani, disbarred and disgraced, was among those who made it inside.Ms Markarova, in contrast, was given a seat in Emancipation Hall, which was set up as an overflow space for guests to watch the inauguration on two giant video screens. The second-tier group also included GOP donors who had originally been given tickets to attend the inauguration on the west front of the Capitol, as well as high-profile Republican governors like Ron DeSantis of Florida and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia.

Also in the overflow room: Logan Paul, the influencer and professional wrestler; Conor McGregor, the Ultimate Fighting Championship star; Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI; and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who has expressed interest in a pardon to resolve federal corruption charges.