Obama exits the presidency voicing optimism for the future

On the National Mall, far fewer showed up than the throng that attended Obama's 2009 inauguration, and some protesters downtown hurled bricks and broke windows in a show of defiance.

Obama's staffers left one reminder on the wall near a West Wing entrance: a collection of newspaper front pages from Obama's proudest moments, including the day he signed the Affordable Care Act and the day the Senate confirmed his nomination of the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice.

He sat stoically as Trump, in his inaugural address, offered a bleak assessment of the state of the country after eight years of Obama's leadership.

When Melania Trump presented Mrs. Obama with a gift just as they were expected to pose for photos, Mrs. Obama looked left, then right, for someone to hand it to before Obama himself eventually walked it to a nearby aide.

Vice President Joe Biden accompanied the Obamas and the Trumps to the swearing-in, then departed Washington, in his characteristically down-home style, by Amtrak train.

Obama and his family headed to a vacation in California on the presidential plane, stripped of the Air Force One moniker as it ferried the now-former president for the last time.

Partisan resistance to him quickly hardened, and by the time his second term started, Obama had mostly assented to the reality that his best hopes to accomplish anything were through executive action and foreign policy.