Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. became the 46th president of the United States on Wednesday, completing the most frightening transfer of power in recent American history.
Opened in a fortified Washington in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, the 78-year-old Democrat took the oath of office at the U.S. Capitol in front of a sparse bipartisan crowd. He enters the White House exactly two weeks after a crowd inflamed by his predecessor, Donald Trump, invaded the Capitol, interrupting the transition to the Biden administration and leaving five dead.
Biden took the oath of office of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, with his left hand on a family Bible. Speaking after becoming president, he declared: “Democracy has prevailed.”
“On this sacred ground where, just a few days ago, violence tried to shake the very foundations of the Capitol, we come together as a nation, under God, indivisible, to carry out the peaceful transfer of power as we have been doing for more than two centuries,” said Biden.
Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on the West Front of the US Capitol in Washington, January 20, 2021.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
Biden, the oldest American president, faces acute crises as he and Vice President Kamala Harris take power. At 56, she becomes the first woman, the first black American and the first South Asian American to become vice president.
Biden will try to expedite the largest vaccination effort in US history to contain a virus that has claimed more than 400,000 lives across the country. It will aim to boost an economy in which around 18 million people are receiving unemployment insurance and food banks are experiencing a demand never seen in decades.
“In the work ahead of us, we will need each other. We need all our strength to endure this dark winter,” said the president.
Biden will try to implement a broad agenda while sailing through a country where millions of people, including members of Congress, fed Trump’s misinformation and questioned the legitimacy of his victory in the November elections. In his inaugural address, the president said the country must “reject the culture where the facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured”. Biden asked Americans to “defend the truth and defeat the lies”.
Democrat Biden won the presidency in November on his third attempt. His first attempt came during the 1988 presidential cycle, followed by a 2008 primary defeat for his future boss Barack Obama.
Biden served for two terms as Obama’s vice president, from 2009 to 2017. He took office after 36 years in the Senate representing Delaware, a state that Biden said “will be written in [his] heart. “Biden entered the Senate when he was 30 years old.
The president ran last year as the best-equipped person to defeat Trump. Concerns bubbled up within his party that his track record in racial justice and the social safety net left him unprepared to face the country’s challenges. Biden promised to “restore America’s soul” and won his party’s presidential nomination after initial stumbles.
Tragedy and compassion
In a campaign during the pandemic, Biden aimed to show compassion built through tragedy. He used to open up about the deaths of his first wife, Neilia, and his daughter, Naomi, in a car accident in 1972, and about the death of his adult son, Beau, from brain cancer in 2015.
Biden takes office trying to contain the pain caused by the pandemic. He paused during his remarks for a moment of silence to acknowledge Americans who died of the virus, asking the country to “honor them by becoming a people and a nation that we know we can and should be”.
Working with a narrow majority in the House and Senate, Biden will first try to approve a $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. Other priorities include health, immigration and climate change – some of which he will begin to deal with executive orders on his first day in office.
Biden said the country “will be judged on how we will resolve these cascading crises of our era” – the pandemic, threats to democracy, systemic racism, economic inequality and climate change.
The Democrat, throughout his campaign, said he could win Republicans for his cause, especially because of his Senate relations. The next two years will test their dominance at a Trump-centered GOP. Democrats will need 10 Republican votes to pass most legislation in the House.
Trump’s shadow
Trump’s presence hung over the day’s ceremonies. He became the first president since Andrew Johnson in 1869 not to attend his successor’s inauguration.
He left the White House for Florida on Thursday morning, hours before Biden took his oath of office. After making brief remarks to supporters, Trump took off in Air Force One, while Biden attended a Catholic mass with masked Democratic and Republican parliamentary leaders.
Trump’s second-in-command, Mike Pence, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., And House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Attended the inauguration. So did former presidents Obama, George Bush and Bill Clinton.
McCarthy, House minority deputy, Steve Scalise, R-La., And Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, were among lawmakers who voted against counting Biden’s victory in Congress hours after the attack on the Capitol and then appeared to your possession.
The inauguration took place with a smaller crowd, faces covered to slow the spread of the virus. The January 6 uprising, during which some protesters invaded the Capitol and shouted to “hang Mike Pence”, increased security.
The streets around the Capitol were closed on Wednesday. More than 25,000 members of the National Guard patrolled Washington in a show of strength.
The National Guard examined the forces amid concerns about internal threats, removing two people for “inappropriate” comments and another 10 for other reasons.
This story is developing. Please check again for updates.
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