Democratic Sen. Cory Booker will attend Donald Trump's inauguration because it is the "peaceful" way to transition power, he told USA Today.
"I respect everybody's choice in this. My personal feeling is this is the peaceful transition of power," Booker said after he spoke at a Martin Luther King Day breakfast in Washington.
"Barack Obama will be up there, handing off the reins of our country and I feel ... it's important for us to be up there. This doesn't mean I agree with Donald Trump," Booker said.
Other Democratic leaders have vowed to stay away from the ceremonies, including Georgia Rep. John Lewis, California Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, California Rep. Mark Takano, New York Rep. Yvette Clark, among others.
Booker, the junior senator from New Jersey whose star has risen over the past year, said he will continue to be one of Trump's biggest critics if the president-elect continues down the path he's gone so far.
"I respect our institutions, and so I'll be there just like the president will be there and most of my Senate colleagues," Booker told USA Today.
"But as soon as that hand goes down and the ceremonies are over, it's time to get to work on advancing our nation's ideals and if Donald Trump wants to repeal our health care, undermine our Justice Department's the critical work they've been doing for the last eight years, if he wants to go after Muslim Americans, immigrant Americans, all these things, I'm going to be fighting to try to stop, to try to make sure we don't see the kind of change or retrenchment or reversals that I worry about."