WASHINGTON – Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was sworn in as 46th President of the United States on Wednesday, taking office at a time of deep economic, health and political crises with the promise of seeking unity after four tumultuous years that tore the fabric of American society.
With his hand on a five-inch-thick Bible that has been in his family for 128 years, Mr. Biden recited the 35-word oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution” in a ceremony administered by the Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., completing the process at 11:49 am, 11 minutes before the presidency authority formally changes hands.
The power transfer ritual came shortly after Kamala Devi Harris was sworn in as vice president by Judge Sonia Sotomayor, with her hand on a Bible that belonged to Thurgood Marshall, the civil rights icon and Supreme Court judge. Harris’ rise made her the highest ranking woman in the history of the United States and the first black American and the first person of South Asian descent to occupy the second highest position in the country.
The ceremony on a cold, airy but sunny day with a handful of snowflakes ended Donald J. Trump’s stormy and divisive presidency for four years. Characteristically, Trump once again defied tradition by leaving Washington hours before his successor’s oath, instead of facing the reality of his election defeat, although Mike Pence, his vice president, attended.
Mr. Trump flew to Florida, where he plans to live on his property in Mar-a-Lago. But within a few days, the Senate will open the former president’s impeachment trial on the charge that he incited an insurrection by encouraging the crowd that attacked the Capitol on January 6 in an attempt to prevent the formal counting of College votes. Election that ratified his defeat.
The vision of the newly installed president and vice president of the nation on the same Western Capitol Front occupied just two weeks ago by the looting pro-Trump crowd underscored how surreal the day was. Unlike most inaugurations full of joy and a fresh start, the festivities on the 59th day of the nation’s inauguration served to illustrate America’s problems.
Amid fears of further violence, Washington was turned into an armed camp, with some 25,000 National Guard soldiers joining thousands of police and a large strip of the city center blocked. With the coronavirus pandemic still on the rise, Americans were told to stay away, leading to the strange spectacle of a new president speaking at a largely empty National Mall, filled not with people but with flags that represented the absent crowd.
Many of the usual inaugural customs have been canceled because of the virus, including a lunch with congressional leaders at Statuary Hall, the noisy parade down Pennsylvania Avenue and the gala balls where the new president and his wife usually dance.
Instead, Mr. Biden will review military units on the Eastern Front of the Capitol and later proceed to the White House escorted by bands from all branches of the army, as well as university percussion lines from the University of Delaware and the University Howard, the soul counselors of the new president and vice president, respectively. After that, a virtual “Parade Across America” will feature performances broadcast live from 56 states and territories.
To symbolize the theme of national unity that Biden has sought to project, he will join three former presidents – Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton – to deposit a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery before the parade. Instead of formal dances, the new first and second couples will participate in a 90-minute evening television program hosted by actor Tom Hanks.
If the pomp and circumstances were constrained by the challenges of the day, Biden’s determination to quickly begin to unravel Trump’s presidency was not. He planned to sign 17 executive orders, memos and proclamations in the late afternoon with the aim of reversing many of the main elements of the last government, a dramatic rejection of his predecessor and a broader set of Inauguration Day actions than any other in history Modern.
Among other measures, he planned to issue a national mask mandate for federal workers and federal property, seek the extension of an eviction break and student loan relief, return to the Paris climate deal, suspend construction of the Trump border wall, lift travel bans in some predominantly Muslim countries, strengthen the program that allows young immigrants to be brought into the country illegally when children remain, prevent discrimination by the federal government based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and impose a moratorium on rental properties. oil and natural gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Rarely, if ever, has a new president moved to reverse so much of his predecessor’s work on his first day in office, but Biden was determined to signal a break with Trump. Some of the orders were more symbolic than substantive, and lasting changes will still require legislation. To that end, Biden planned to unveil an immigration reform on Wednesday providing a path to citizenship for 11 million people living in the country illegally, which will have to be approved by Congress in what will certainly be a contentious debate.
Getting attention in Congress will be a challenge, with the Trump trial likely consuming the Senate for days or weeks. As it stands, the Senate seemed unlikely to confirm any of Biden’s cabinet choices on the day of his inauguration, another customary violation. Trump had two of his cabinet secretaries confirmed the day he took office, while Obama and Bush each had seven.
With Harris in office, the Senate, divided equally with 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, now turns to Democrats thanks to his decisive vote as mayor. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer becomes the Democratic majority leader and hopes to create two parallel avenues for him to consider nominations and legislation while conducting Trump’s trial.
Biden hoped to use his inaugural speech to adopt an entirely different tone from his predecessor, who preferred provocation to conciliation. Biden started working on it before Thanksgiving, in a process led by his longtime adviser, Mike Donilon. He received help from Jon Meacham, the historian who is serving as an informal outside consultant, as well as from Vinay Reddy, his speechwriter, while counting on his sister, Valerie Biden Owens, who has long been an important sounding board.
But even as the new president cried out for unity, he wanted to use the speech to invoke white supremacy after George Floyd’s death and the siege of the Capitol by extremists. And although he didn’t want to quote Trump by name, he intended to talk about the need for truth and the consequences of lies after four years in which the president made tens of thousands of false or misleading statements.
In addition to age, gender and race, Biden could hardly be more of a contrast to the succeeding president. A longtime senator, former vice president and consummate informant from Washington, Biden is proud of his experience of working at the altar and hopes to form a partnership with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader and other Republicans.
Garrote and talkative, known for an incandescent smile, a shoulder massage that is sometimes overly familiar and a tendency to gaffes, Biden practices the kind of empathy politics of the type feel your pain dominated by Clinton and the policy of calling me anytime of relationships exemplified by the first President George Bush.
At 78, Biden is the oldest president in American history – older on his first day in office than Ronald Reagan on the last – and even allies silently acknowledge that he is no longer at his peak, meaning he will be constantly watched by friends and enemies for signs of decline. But he overcame doubts and obstacles to claim the prize of his life almost 34 years after starting the first of his three presidential campaigns.
Although he has strong center-left beliefs at his core, he is not ideologically driven, he is not willing or even eager to move with the political center of gravity. The progressive wing of his party remains skeptical and he may find it disheartening to hold his electoral coalition together, whose main point of agreement was the antipathy shared by Trump.
Mr. Biden reaches the height of power with a wind in favor of public support. Fifty-seven percent of Americans view it favorably, according to Gallup, a higher ranking than Trump has seen in office, and 68% approve of how Biden handled the transition. But the vast majority of the public believes the country is on the wrong track and, to a measure of the impact of Trump’s false allegations of electoral fraud, 32 percent told CNN polls that they did not believe that Biden legitimately won the election.
Mr. Biden and Mrs. Harris bring new diversity to the top of the government. Biden is only the second Catholic president after John F. Kennedy and Harris broke multiple racial and gender barriers to win the vice presidency. The Cabinet that Biden brought together has a record number of women and people of color, as well as the first homosexual to lead one of the Cabinet’s statutory departments.
Mr. Biden, who spent Tuesday night at Blair House, the presidential guest district on Pennsylvania Avenue in the White House, started his public day at 8:50 am, when he left for a religious service at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, the Apostle with his wife, Jill Biden, along with Mrs. Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff. Joining them were congressional leaders from both parties, including McConnell.
This was also a change in tradition, like most new presidents before taking the oath of worship at St. John’s Church, the White House’s episcopal parish in Lafayette Square. But São Mateus has its own presidential history as the site of Kennedy’s funeral.
Among the attendees at the Capitol inauguration ceremony were the three former presidents and their wives, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Michelle Obama, as well as former vice president Dan Quayle. In addition to Chief Justice Roberts and Judge Sotomayor, four other Supreme Court members were present: Judge Elena Kagan and all three nominees for Mr. Trump, Judges Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
Mr. Pence and his wife Karen Pence received bipartisan applause when they arrived at Captiol in thanks for their show of respect for the power transition, despite Mr. Trump’s contempt. It was Mr. Pence’s first visit since he was expelled from the Senate chamber two weeks ago to escape the pro-Trump crowd, some of whom shouted “Hang Mike Pence” because he refused to try to block the counting of College votes. Election as Mr. Trump had demanded.
Present at the ceremony were Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez and Garth Brooks. The stars who joined Hanks for the evening performance entitled “Celebrating America” at 8:30 pm were Kerry Washington, Bruce Springsteen, Eva Longoria, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Demi Lovato.
The celebrity celebration will include demonstrations of how to get started. Biden will sign his orders and memos in the Oval Office at 5:15 pm, followed half an hour later by a virtual oath from his team. At 7 pm, Jen Psaki, the new White House press secretary, will hold her first daily briefing, re-establishing a regular opportunity for reporters to question the White House, which has virtually disappeared under the Trump administration.
The Bidens will then spend their first night at the White House, completing a journey that officially started in 1987 and not officially long before. These were not the circumstances that the new president could have imagined when he arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, when he started this path, but history always has its surprises.