Joe Biden ascends to the presidency on Wednesday with an inaugural speech outlining how he\u2019ll tackle the health and economic crises he inherits while attempting to knit the country back together, just two weeks after the outgoing president\u2019s loyalists waged a deadly riot to block the change of power.<\/p>\n
The incoming president will call on the U.S. to abandon the divisiveness stoked by Donald Trump, whose four-year term ends with nearly 400,000 Americans dead of Covid-19, a sharp economic downturn and the worst political crisis since Watergate, after the Capitol attack.<\/p>\n
Biden\u2019s address will seek to bridge the nation\u2019s deepening political divide by summoning support from people who didn\u2019t vote for him as well as those who did, according to advisers and allies. To do that, he\u2019ll have to move beyond his penchant for saying what\u2019s on his mind — such as remarks Friday in which he told Republican lawmakers who refuse to wear masks to \u201cgrow up.\u201d<\/p>\n
His message of unity will also be tested by Democrats\u2019 impeachment of Trump last week over the riot. Their plans to try the ex-president in the Senate after he leaves office risk overshadowing the early days of Biden\u2019s presidency and fanning the very flames of partisanship that Biden seeks to douse.<\/p>\n
The inaugural address will be the highest-profile speech of Biden\u2019s nearly half century in politics. While he will soberly address the difficult challenges ahead, his remarks are expected to be optimistic, stressing that with the right policies and a glimmer of comity in Washington, the country can find its way to a better position than before the pandemic.<\/p>\n
The speech is likely to contrast markedly from Trump\u2019s inaugural address in 2017, in which he famously declared he would end \u201cAmerican carnage\u201d in the streets of U.S. cities.<\/p>\n
If Democrats watched Trump\u2019s address in 2017 still dumbstruck that it was him standing there and not Hillary Clinton, Republicans watching Biden might feel<\/span> that same sense of disbelief as the Democratic leader pleads for unity barely a week after his party impeached Trump. Biden had expressed misgivings about sanctioning Trump over the riots with less than two weeks left in office but could do little to keep lawmakers angered by the attack on the Capitol from forging ahead with impeachment.<\/p>\n \u201cHe takes office at a very difficult time, perhaps the most difficult time that any president\u2019s taken office since Roosevelt, and he comes into office determined to get to work on these crises immediately,\u201d said Ron Klain, the incoming White House chief of staff. Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated in 1933 with the U.S. still mired in depression and Adolf Hitler on the cusp of taking over Germany.<\/p>\n Klain said Biden will sign more executive actions on his first day than any other president, in part to overturn policies unilaterally adopted by Trump. They\u2019re expected to include orders to end a ban on travel from some predominantly Muslim nations and to rejoin the Paris climate accord.<\/p>\n Biden\u2019s inauguration as the 46th U.S. president will be unlike any other in modern history. Washington, D.C., is now a fortified city, with rings of security around the Capitol, White House and National Mall and thousands of armed soldiers guarding against another attack by Americans who refuse to accept Trump\u2019s defeat.<\/p>\n After his speech, before an empty National Mall absent the usual throngs of Americans who attend inaugurations, Biden will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery and then proceed to the White House.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the most important inaugural address in terms of the health and future of our democracy, and the challenges of bringing us together, since Abraham Lincoln,\u201d said Delaware Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat who holds the seat Biden occupied for 36 years.<\/p>\n The inaugural speech is likely to be positive in outlook and focus on competency, said Matt Teper, Biden\u2019s chief speech writer at the beginning of his tenure as Barack Obama\u2019s vice president.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople want to know someone\u2019s in charge, help is on the way, chaos is behind us now,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a recognition that things aren\u2019t great right now, but there\u2019s definitely hope<\/span> that they\u2019re going to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n Teper said not to expect the speech to dwell on the past. There\u2019s \u201cno way\u201d Biden would invoke \u201cAmerican carnage\u201d to describe the problems Trump left behind, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not the tone anyone wants,\u201d Teper said. \u201cThat\u2019s not his way of looking at the world. It\u2019s, \u2018We\u2019re going to fix things and we\u2019re going to move forward.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Delivering rousing oratory isn\u2019t Biden\u2019s strength. He overcame a childhood stutter by reciting Irish poetry in front of a mirror, but his struggles with public speaking are still sometimes evident. Always deeply engaged in the speech-writing process, he devoted time to Wednesday\u2019s text every few days during the two-month transition, Klain said.<\/p>\n While Biden has a reputation for being long-winded and easily sidetracked in conversations and campaign speeches, he\u2019s shown discipline when the moment demands it. When he accepted the Democratic nomination for president in August, Biden delivered a powerful and tightly scripted address in less than 25 minutes.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s not going to be tripling what\u2019s on paper\u201d when he speaks, Teper said. When he rehearses speeches, Biden uses his own handwritten code of what Teper described as \u201cmarks and punctuation\u201d to help him visualize words to emphasize and places to pause.<\/p>\n A Republican strategist, Frank Luntz, said Biden\u2019s speech \u201cshould channel his best Bobby Kennedy. America was hurting in April 1968 when Bobby Kennedy delivered the most amazing five minute off-the-cuff speech full of empathy and understanding. It healed a broken country.\u201d<\/p>\n Kennedy\u2019s historic speech, which followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. the same night, pleaded with Americans \u201cto comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s exactly what Biden needs to do,\u201d Luntz said.<\/p>\n The speech will be an opportunity for Biden to signal that he plans to abide by the traditions of the American presidency after Trump\u2019s chaotic term, as well as a chance for him to lay out his policy goals and to begin pressuring Republicans to cooperate in a time of crisis.<\/p>\n The president-elect last week unveiled a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief proposal that would increase direct financial payments to Americans, raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and provide billions in aid to states and local governments.<\/p>\n He will hold narrow majorities in the House and Senate to help him achieve his agenda, though aides have signaled a desire to push for Republican support for the stimulus legislation. Some GOP lawmakers have already said they\u2019re opposed, however. While Klain acknowledged that the proposal is an opening bid, he argued it reflects what the country needs and that anyone who doesn\u2019t support it should offer \u201calternative answers.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2018Someone\u2019s in Charge\u2019<\/h3>\n
Channel RFK<\/h3>\n