church himself. phil, walk us through who is inside, who will be at the service and what we ll be hearing. we obviously just saw the president-elect and the future first lady walk in. over the course of the last 45 minutes, wolf, we ve seen every close confidant, cabinet member, incoming senior level white house staffer also make their way into st. john s episcopal church, about 300 individuals expected to attend this service. as jake pointed out earlier, when you look back over the course of the campaign, one of the more surprising elements was the really intense evangelical support that now president-elect trump got. that will be represented heavily at this service. gerri fallwell, junior, james dobson, a lot of individuals that made concrete decisions to back the president-elect when maybe it wasn t the most popular or even kind of sensical idea at the time as far as they were talking are here. they ve been close confidants throughout the campaign and remain so now.
is customary on this very important day, the trumps will take a short drive around the corner to st. john s episcopal church to attend a private service. it s one of many inauguration traditions being honored by the president-elect. in about an hour, the trumps will head over to the white house for a truly iconic moment. they ll be greeted by president and mrs. obama before they all go inside for some tea and coffee. we ll carry all the big inauguration events live throughout the day. we have a team of correspondents in place. they re spread out across the nation s capital including over at blair house and over at st. john s church. they re awaiting the president-elect of the united states, donald trump, just hours before he takes charge at the white house. extensive live coverage coming up. jake, this is going to be an historic moment because we will see the full magistery, but it begins with a church service.
wall around jerusalem to help protect the city. that will be at the center of the sermon. should be about an hour long before they head back over to the white house for that tea with the obamas. but everybody that you would expect to be here is here, and this is kind of a tradition that we ve seen pretty much consistently since 1933. president-elect trump continuing that today. the reverend indeed very controversial, runs a 12,000-member mega church in dallas. we should point out, he has said islam and mormonism are heresies from the pit of hell, suggested the catholic church was led astray by satan and on and on. that s one of the challenges for the president-elect, projecting a message of unity but surrounding himself with allies of the campaign. if you re left of center, you look at this and say how can you deliver a message of unity when you allow the lead sermon, when you go to the president s church, as st. john s is called,
different than our president. john, we see people beginning to emerge from blair house. there s the president-elect of the unit states, wearing his red tie and melania trump, the entire family, they spent the night at blair house, spent the entire night at blair house. first time we re seeing melania trump on this date, and i m sure a lot of people, dana, will be talking about what she s wearing on this day. donald trump obviously very, very traditional look. but they re going to drive over only about a block from blair house over to st. john s episcopal church for this prayer service. the first thing that comes to my mind, the minute i saw melania is jackie onassis or jackie kennedy at the time. different color, but boy is that a jackie kennedy style she s got there, very classic, very elegant, very refined. they re going to get in a little motorcade, a short drive from blair house over to st.
even though obama is retiring from the white house, he is retiring and giving over the job to somebody who is more than 15 years his senior. it s interesting because when ronald reagan was running, there are all those questions from his opponents and from the media about his age. there really weren t many about donald trump and his age. this is inauguration day in the united states, only just beginning, donald trump is at st. john s episcopal church right now. he ll be heading over to the white house to sit down with president obama. that s shortly after the church service. we re standing by for their meeting. their drive to the capitol and all the big moments on this inauguration day. stay with us. where should you start when you re told