Sky News Washington correspondent Annelise Nielsen says Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration was the “most unusual inauguration” as there were heavy security measures and no crowds allowed.

“Normally it’s a time where there’s thousands of people gathering and it’s such a part of their US history, they pick their leader, their democratically elected leader, and watch them being sworn in and it just didn’t happen,” she told Sky News host Chris Smith.

“The sense of just the security was overwhelming, you had tens of thousands of National Guards, on top of that security from local police to Secret Service, and the whole city was locked down.”

Ms Nielsen also said President Biden will have a “real challenge” to unite Americans as he signed 17 executive orders to reverse Trump’s policies.

“This is going to be a real challenge going forward for the Biden administration because there’s still this significant division in the United States.”