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Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was sworn in Wednesday as the 46th president of the United States, rising to the pinnacle of a career in public leadership that began a half century ago and now forces him to confront convulsing challenges dividing a fractured nation.
With his hand on his family Bible, Biden recited the oath taken by his predecessors, promising to “faithfully execute the office of president of the United States,” and, with the help of God, “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Moments before, Kamala D. Harris took her oath of office, making her the country’s first female vice president, and also the first Black American and first with Indian heritage to hold the second highest office in the land. She had placed her hand on twin Bibles, one from a family friend and the second belonging to Thurgood Marshall, the first African American justice of the Supreme Court.
Biden replaces outgoing president Donald Trump, whose scandal-plagued single term was constantly dogged by accusations that he failed to uphold his own oath — including in recent weeks as he refused to concede the election, tried to browbeat his vice president, Mike Pence, to violate the Constitution and inspired a deadly riot by supporters against the U.S. Capitol.
Biden, who at 78 is the oldest man to be sworn in as president, secured the office by pledging to be the polar opposite of Trump — to cool tempers rather than inflame them. He has promised to undo much of Trump’s legacy and restore what he refers to as “the soul of America” by proving that the past four years represented an aberration rather than an enduring rift in the national fabric. Early Wednesday he announced the first in a blizzard of actions reversing the Trump administration on a wide range of issues.
Four years after Trump gave a dark and defiant inaugural address pledging to end “American carnage,” Biden takes office seeking to appeal to the country’s more hopeful sentiments and make a plea for unity.
While Biden described America as a “place of hope and light, of limitless possibilities,” during an emotional goodbye ceremony in Delaware on Tuesday, the scene surrounding his inauguration in Washington on Wednesday offered a visceral reminder of the dark challenges he now faces as leader of the free world.
The very platform where he stood, on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol, was overrun on Jan. 6 by a mob incited by Trump that stormed the House and Senate chambers trying to stop legislators from affirming Biden as the next president. The decision by Biden and Harris to take their oaths of office outside and at the Capitol was itself an act of defiance in the aftermath of an hours-long riot in which Trump supporters screamed their intention to physically assault top elected officials.
The nation’s capital remained in a state of partial lockdown, with more than 20,000 members of the National Guard patrolling the streets to prevent a repeat of the insurrection that breached the U.S. Capitol and left one police officer and four rioters dead.
The National Mall that Biden and Harris faced as they took their oaths was filled not with people but with 200,000 flags, a reflection of the deadly pandemic that is still spiraling nationwide a year after Trump first asserted it was “totally under control.” More than 400,000 Americans have died of covid-19 and the viral pathogen continues to upend life for millions. Key to Biden’s success will be his ability to contain the pandemic and marshal the resources to hasten distribution of a vaccine.
Trump, who recently became the first president in American history to be impeached twice, became the first incumbent to refuse to attend his replacement’s oath-taking since 1869 and has continued to claim falsely that he was the rightful victor in November’s election.
Trump’s falsehoods have helped convince large swaths of the country that Biden is an illegitimate president, effectively stunting his political capital from the outset of his term.
Spurning the traditional handoff, Trump left the White House early Wednesday, still having not spoken to Biden since their last pre-election debate. Shortly before boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, Trump lauded what he said were his accomplishments and asserted that he had delivered the incoming administration — he did not mention Biden by name — “the foundation to do something really spectacular.”
“We will be back in some form,” he said. “So have a good life. We will see you soon.”
The recent turmoil added to the multiple crises Biden faces: In addition to the pandemic, the country’s economy is buckling, and the incoming president has pledged to address climate change and racial justice — two issues that dominated the past year with huge climate-propelled fires in California and massive unrest in cities and towns over police violence.
“Coming in he’s got his hands full obviously,” said former senator from Connecticut Chris Dodd, a close Biden confidant. “Any one of these issues alone would be a major problem. But combining all of them poses some real challenges.”
Dodd stressed that Biden’s age and his deep experience with national politics and crises over the past half century will guide him. “There is this expression, ‘It’s not his first rodeo,’ ” said Dodd. “There is a wonderful maturity and calm that Joe has demonstrated over these past few months. That’s the voice of experience, of confidence, of discipline — you don’t become an alarmist. The country wants to see in their leader confidence and assurance.”
Biden, a six-term senator before his eight years as vice president, has been trying to court members of Congress as he prepares to pitch an ambitious legislative agenda that includes economic relief tied to the pandemic, an immigration overhaul, infrastructure spending and climate change policy.
He needs the help: The Senate hadn’t confirmed a single member of Biden’s Cabinet ahead of his inauguration, a departure from previous new administrations that typically start with at least some key agency heads in place. Some major slots are expected to be given a Senate nod Wednesday.
Biden’s party will enjoy control of the White House and Congress for the first time since 2011 yet it holds only a narrow advantage in the House and the barest majority in the Senate — a 50-50 split driven by two Democratic runoff wins in December that will leave Vice President Harris to break a tie.
Biden, the second Catholic elected president, after John F. Kennedy, invited Republican and Democratic congressional leaders to attend Mass with him on Wednesday morning ahead of the inauguration. The decision by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, to attend — and to skip a farewell event for Trump that took place around the same time — offered one sign that Biden’s approach may at least take some of the vitriol out of the policymaking process.
But McConnell, who spent years as minority leader frustrating then-President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda when Biden was vice president, has not openly embraced the idea of helping the new president pass legislation.
Several prominent GOP lawmakers, including McCarthy, have cast doubt on Biden’s legitimacy — voting earlier this month to overturn the results of the election and endorsing Trump’s specious fraud claims.
Biden has said he would not question the motives of his political opponents, pledging to find common ground and pass bipartisan legislation despite Washington’s bitter polarization. The theme of his inaugural is “America United.”
After taking the oath, Biden planned to reenter the Paris climate accords, from which Trump had withdrawn the United States, and repeal Trump’s ban on U.S. entry for citizens of some majority-Muslim countries. Biden also has signaled that he’ll extend nationwide restrictions on foreclosures and require that masks are worn on federal property.
Already his team is circulating a list of possible executive orders for the first seven days of his administration, as a way to show Congress what the new administration’s priorities will be. Topics include the confronting the coronavirus, combating climate change, mandating the federal government buy more American goods, and shoring up national security.
Biden spent his final weekend as a private citizen at his home in Wilmington, Del. — leaving the state briefly with his wife on Monday to pack food into boxes at a Philadelphia hunger relief organization. He also rounded out his slate of top advisers, formally announcing Saturday that he would elevate the White House science office to a Cabinet-level position — an implicit rebuke of Trump, who frequently dismissed expertise.
Biden bid an emotional farewell to Delaware on Tuesday, with tears streaming down his face as he thanked a group that included longtime friends for sticking with him through the circuitous and at times tragedy-laden journey from a middle-class childhood in Scranton, Pa., and Wilmington to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
“You’ve been there for us in good and bad and never walked away,” said Biden, whose failed bids for the White House in 1987 and 2008 make him one of the longest seekers of the presidency to actually obtain it. “And I am proud, proud, proud, proud to be a son of Delaware.”
As he left his home state, where his first Senate election and the tragic death of his wife and daughter in a car accident occurred in quick succession 48 years ago, he sounded a note of optimism.
“Anything’s possible,” Biden said. “Anything’s possible in this country.”
Harris, 56, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants and a graduate of Howard University, is set to play a key role in the administration, not least as the potential tiebreaker in the Senate.