BIDEN, HARRIS TAKE POWER
An inauguration day like none other in a divided, pandemic-hit USA
HE has inherited a deeply divided nation but the 46th president of the United States spent the final hours before taking office overnight focused on family.
Circling from a tearful tribute to his own lost son to a solemn memorial for the more than 400,000 who have died from coronavirus, Joe Biden promised to be a leader for all Americans.
He has taken power on an Inauguration Day like no other.
Snubbed by Donald Trump — the first US President in more than 150 years to skip his successor’s swearingin — Mr Biden’s inauguration was largely a “virtual” series of appearances from which the public were cut out.
Social distancing requirements due to the pandemic have for months seen Team Biden urge the public to stay home to watch the event virtually. But the Capitol incursion on January 6, which caused five deaths and led to Mr Trump’s historic second impeachment, slammed a miles-wide security cordon on Washington DC that made a public viewing of today’s events impossible.
Mr Biden started yesterday with an emotional farewell to his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, during which he openly cried (below right).
Speaking at a National Guard centre named for his late son, Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015, Mr Biden said: “I have only one regret … that he’s not here.’’
“We should be introducing him as president,” he added.
Mr Biden’s speech was ahead of a short private plane journey to the capital, after a planned train trip to DC with Vice President Kamala Harris was cancelled over security concerns.
Mr Biden reflected on his term as Vice President to Barack Obama and said he would be a leader for all Americans.
“Here we are today … about to return to Washington, to meet a Black woman of South Asian descent — to be sworn in as President and Vice President,” Mr Biden said.
“Don’t tell me things can’t change.
“They can and they do.”
Later, he and Ms Harris led a simple but powerful tribute to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have died as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s hard sometimes to remember, but that’s how we heal. It’s important to do that as a nation,” Mr Biden said near the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where 400 lights flooded the sky to remember those lost.
“Let us shine the lights in the darkness along the sacred pool of reflection and remember all who we have lost.”
Across Washington DC church bells sounded, while in New York the Empire State Building glowed red.
Ms Harris, who today became the first female Vice President, stressed the need for Americans to come together.
“For many months, we have grieved by ourselves. Tonight, we grieve and begin healing together,” she said.
This call for unity was reflected in how the Biden and Harris families spent the morning ahead of their inauguration, with senior Republicans Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy among those to accept an invitation from the new first family to join them for a church service.
Mr Biden has promised an ambitious agenda for his first 100 days, including overturning some of Mr Trump’s most contentious policies during his first full day in office tomorrow.
Among those will be for the US to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord and reverse the travel ban on visitors from a number of countries that Mr Trump enacted in January 2017.
But the first challenge of the Biden administration was a peaceful and orderly Inauguration Day, something which the overwhelming security presence in Washington DC drove home.
Earlier yesterday, the FBI informed US law enforcement agencies that followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory and far-right “lone wolves” planned to infiltrate the inauguration by posing as National Guard members.
By day’s end 12 guardsmen had been removed from the 25,000-strong troop presence, two of them because of their apparent ties to extremists.
Popstar and actor Lady Gaga, who was scheduled to perform the national anthem ahead of the swearing in, summed up the concerns of many.
“I pray tomorrow will be a day of peace for all Americans,” she said on social media, after she rehearsed her song.
“A day for love, not hatred. A day for acceptance not fear.
A day for dreaming of our future joy as a country. A dream that is nonviolent, a dream that provides safety for our souls.”