The day will begin with a reach across the aisle after four years of bitter partisan battles under Trump. Some of the traditional trappings of the quadrennial ceremony will remain. The tense atmosphere in Washington evoked the 1861 inauguration of Lincoln, who was secretly transported to Washington to avoid assassins on the eve of the Civil War, or Roosevelt’s inaugural in 1945, when he opted for a small, secure ceremony at the White House in the waning months of World War II.ĭespite security warnings, Biden declined to move the ceremony indoors and instead will address a small, socially distant crowd on the West Front of the Capitol. Members of the National Guard form a barricade on Januin Washington, DC. At age 78, he will be the oldest president inaugurated. Americans who will watch the new president be sworn in are now acutely aware of how fragile our democracy is and how much it needs to be protected.”īiden will come to office with a well of empathy and resolve born by personal tragedy as well as a depth of experience forged from more than four decades in Washington. “I think we have been through a near-death experience as a democracy. It is very hard to find a parallel in history,” said presidential historian Michael Beschloss.
#Biden lockdown series
“Biden will face a series of urgent, burning crises like we have not seen before, and they all have to be solved at once. He takes office with the bonds of the republic strained and the nation reeling from challenges that rival those faced by former presidents Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. On his first day, Biden will take a series of executive actions - on the pandemic, climate, immigration and more - to undo the heart of Trump’s agenda. Trump, awaiting his second impeachment trial, stoked grievance among his supporters with the claim that Biden’s win was illegitimate.īiden, in his third run for the presidency, staked his candidacy less on any distinctive political ideology than on galvanizing a broad coalition of voters around the notion that Trump posed an existential threat to American democracy. He will not be applauded - or likely even acknowledged - by his predecessor.įlouting tradition, Donald Trump planned to depart Washington on Wednesday morning ahead of the inauguration rather than accompany his successor to the Capitol. Biden will look out over a capital city dotted with empty storefronts that attest to the pandemic’s deep economic toll and where summer protests laid bare the nation’s renewed reckoning on racial justice. Stay home, Americans were exhorted, to prevent further spread of a surging virus that has claimed 400,000 American lives. The US Secret Service, which is in charge of the event, says it is prepared. Fencing lines the perimetre of the US Capitol complex. Tanks and concrete barriers block the streets. More than 25,000 troops and police have been called to duty. The nation’s capital is essentially on lockdown. There have been no specific threats made against Biden. Law enforcement officials are contending not only with the potential for outside threats but also with rising concerns about an insider attack by troops with a duty to protect him. And the miscalculation could occur, no one can be sure what would happen and could end in Armageddon," Biden added later on in CNN's interview.View of the US Capitol as the sun sets ahead of the 59th inaugural ceremony for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in Washington, DC on January 19, 2021. "He, in fact, cannot continue with impunity to talk about the use of a tactical nuclear weapon as if that's a rational thing to do. When asked if the United States had considered what would happen if Putin did use a nuclear weapon and what the "red line" for his administration would be, Biden said it would be irresponsible of him to discuss specifics but made it clear that the Pentagon did not have to be asked to game out potential outcomes. And not because anybody intends to turn it into a world war or anything, but just once you use a nuclear weapon, the mistakes that can be made, the miscalculations, who knows what would happen," Biden continued. "The whole point I was making was it could lead to just a horrible outcome. "I think it's irresponsible for him to talk about it, the idea that a world leader of one of the largest nuclear powers in the world says he may use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine," Biden told CNN's Jake Tapper in an exclusive interview with the network. President Joe Biden said he does not believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin would use a tactical nuclear weapon on Ukraine. As Vladimir Putin ramps up his nuclear saber-rattling, President Joe Biden issues a warning to Russia as it escalates its offensive in Ukraine.
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