WASHINGTON (AP) – Within hours of inauguration, President-elect Joe Biden paused in what could have been his triumphal entry into Washington on Tuesday night to mark the national tragedy of the coronavirus pandemic with a moment of collective mourning. for lost Americans.
His arrival coincided with the terrible news that the death toll in the United States has exceeded 400,000 in the worst public health crisis in more than a century – a crisis that Biden will now be tasked with controlling.
“To heal, we must remember,” said the incoming president to the nation at a sunset ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial. Four hundred lights representing the victims of the pandemic were lit behind him around the monument’s water mirror.
“Between sunset and dusk, let’s light up the darkness … and remember everyone we lost,” said Biden.
The sober moment on the eve of Biden’s inauguration – usually a moment of celebration in Washington, when the nation marks the democratic tradition of a peaceful transfer of power – was a measure of the enormity of the loss for the nation.
During his brief comments, Biden faced the huge statue of Abraham Lincoln, the president of the Civil War who served while more than 600,000 Americans died. When he turned to leave at the end of the vigil, he faced the black granite wall listing the more than 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam.
Biden was joined by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, who spoke about the nation’s collective distress, a not-so-subtle warning from outgoing President Donald Trump, who spoke moderately about the pandemic in recent months.
“For many months, we suffered for ourselves,” said Harris, who will make history as the first woman to serve as vice president when taking an oath. “Tonight, we suffer and we begin to heal together.”
In addition to the pandemic, Biden does not face a lack of problems when he takes charge of the White House. The nation is also on its economic leaps because of rising unemployment, there is a deep political divide and immediate concern about more violence after the January 6 uprising on the US Capitol.
Biden, an avid Amtrak fan who took the train thousands of times between his home in Delaware and Washington during his decades in the Senate, planned to take a train to Washington before Induction Day on Wednesday, but crossed out that plan after the Riot of the Capitol.
Instead, he flew to Andrews Joint Base on the outskirts of the capital and then traveled by car to DC fortress – a city that was flooded by some 25,000 National Guard soldiers guarding the Capitol, the White House and the National Mall which are involved in a maze of barricades and high fences.
“These are dark times,” Biden told supporters on an emotional farewell in Delaware. “But there is always light.”
Biden, who ran for president as a cool head who could do things, plans to issue a series of executive orders on the first day – including reversing Trump’s effort to leave the Paris climate deal, canceling Trump’s travel ban on visitors from various predominantly Muslim countries and extending the limits of the pandemic era to evictions and student loan payments.
Trump will not be present when Biden takes office, the first outgoing president to entirely skip the inauguration festivities since Andrew Johnson, over a century and a half ago.
The White House released a video of Trump’s farewell just as Biden landed at Andrews Joint Base. Trump, who repeatedly and falsely claimed that widespread fraud led to electoral defeat, extended his “best wishes” to the new government in his nearly 20-minute speech, but did not utter Biden’s name.
Trump also spent part of his last time in the White House huddled with advisers evaluating pardons and clemency concessions in the final hour. He planned to leave Washington on Wednesday morning for a major ceremony at the air base that he helped plan.
Biden, on his farewell in Delaware, held at the National Guard / Reserve Center in honor of his late son Beau Biden, paid tribute to his home state. After his comments, he stopped and chatted with friends and supporters in the crowd, just as he had done on the Iowa ropes at the beginning of his long campaign journey.
“I will always be a proud son of the state of Delaware,” said Biden, who struggled to contain his tears while making brief comments.
The organizers of the inauguration this week finished installing some 200,000 US state and territorial flags on the National Mall, an exhibition that represents the American people who were unable to attend the inauguration, which is strictly limited by security and Covid restrictions.
The exhibition was also a reminder of all the faces of elected presidents as he looks to lead the country through the pandemic with infections and deaths on the rise.
From the beginning, Biden and his team aim to streamline the delivery of vaccines to anxious Americans and pass on their $ 1.9 trillion virus relief package, which includes quick payments for many people and an increase in the minimum wage to $ 15 per hour .
Biden also plans to release a comprehensive immigration bill on the first day of his government, hoping to provide an eight-year path to citizenship for about 11 million people living in the United States without legal status. That would be a major reversal of the Trump administration’s strict immigration policies.
Some Republican leaders have already rejected Biden’s immigration plan. “There are many issues that I think we can work on in cooperation with President-elect Biden, but a general amnesty for people who are here illegally is not going to be one of them,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Who is often a central player in the Senate immigration battles.
Many of Biden’s legislative ambitions can be tempered by the difficult numbers he faces on Capitol Hill, where Democrats hold a narrow majority in the Senate and the House. His hope of moving forward with an avalanche of legislation in his first 100 days may also be delayed by a Trump impeachment trial.
As Biden headed for Washington, five of his Cabinet choices appeared on Tuesday before Senate committees to start confirmation hearings. Treasury nominee Janet Yellen, Defense nominee Lloyd Austin, Homeland security nominee Alejandro Mayorkas, nominated Secretary of State Antony Blinken and nominee for Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines were being questioned.
Yellen urged lawmakers to adopt Biden’s virus relief package, arguing that “the smartest thing we can do is to act big.”
Aides say Biden will use Wednesday’s inaugural speech – one that will be delivered in front of a personally small group because of virus protocols and security issues and should take 20 to 30 minutes – to ask for American unity and offer an opinion message that Americans can overcome the dark times by working together.
To that end, he invited the four main Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress to attend mass with him at St. Matthew’s Cathedral before the inauguration ceremony.
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Madhani reported from Chicago. Associated Press writers Darlene Superville, Alan Fram and Alexandra Jaffe contributed reports.
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This story has been corrected to show that the flags on the National Mall represent people who were unable to attend, not the deaths of COVID.