'Ready to get to work': Biden to call for unity during inauguration as nation's 46th president

Courtney Subramanian and John Fritze, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – Joe Biden, a fixture in American politics who won last November's election on a promise to reset the response to the coronavirus pandemic and return calm to the White House, will be sworn in Tuesday as the nation's 46th president.

The former vice president and veteran U.S. senator from Delaware will recite the 35-word oath of office enshrined in the Constitution at noon, capping the most rancorous post-election period in modern history and marking an abrupt departure from President Donald Trump's tumultuous four years as an unconventional leader of the free world.

Biden will enter the White House after winning more than 81 million votes – roughly 7 million more than Trump – and as his Democratic Party takes control of the Senate and retains its majority in the House, a unified government that represents a complete reversal from the Republican rule of Washington ushered in just four years ago.

"It's hard sometimes to remember," Biden said on the eve of his inauguration at a coronavirus memorial held at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. "But that's how we heal. It's important to do that as a nation. That's why we're here."

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The new president's administration will make history before it even steps into the White House, most notably because Vice President-elect Kamala Harris of California will become the first woman, African American and South Asian American to assume the vice presidency. Biden, 78, is also the oldest person in U.S. history to become president.

Gathered on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol, where a pro-Trump mob rushed in days earlier to disrupt the counting of Electoral College votes, the inauguration will be missing much of its pomp and some of the symbolic images that signal a peaceful transfer of power. Breaking with 152 years of tradition, Trump will not attend the inauguration and will instead skip town for Florida before Biden is sworn in as his replacement.

The pandemic, meanwhile, has forced organizers to encourage supporters to stay away. The Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol has put law enforcement on high alert, with more than 25,000 National Guard members called in to help with security, large fences erected near the National Mall and a complete lockdown imposed in parts of Washington.

Trump touted his economic and foreign policy record in a videotaped "farewell address" that the White House distributed on Tuesday.

"Now, as I prepare to hand power over to a new administration at noon on Wednesday, I want you to know that the movement we started is only just beginning," Trump said in the 20-minute video, in which the president did not mention Biden by name.

President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 19, 2021, in New Castle, Delaware.
President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 19, 2021, in New Castle, Delaware.

Biden, who will be sworn in by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, ran a campaign focused on arresting a pandemic that has killed more than 400,000 Americans and returning what he has described as "decency, respect, tolerance" to politics. But whether Biden can bring a divided nation together while juggling competing demands within his party will likely be a central question of his next four years in office.

While the traditional inaugural parade from the U.S. Capitol to the White House has been canceled by coronavirus, Biden will still march into the Oval Office to take part in another ritual for new presidents: Unwinding the work of the last guy. Aides said Biden will sign 17 orders on his first day, including: Resetting the U.S. relationship with the World Health Organization, rejoining the Paris climate accord and reversing travel restrictions on several predominately Muslim countries – among others.

"We are eager and ready to get to work," Jeff Zients, Biden’s COVID-19 response coordinator and a former top official in the Obama administration said.

For Biden, the inauguration represents triumph over adversity and the payoff that can come with persistence. Making his third run in 2020, the former vice president held off on a campaign in 2016, noting his family’s grief after the death of his son, Beau Biden. The younger Biden, the former Delaware Attorney General, died in 2015.

Struggling to hold back tears Tuesday, Biden said farewell to his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, before he departed for Washington, his new home.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I only have one regret, that he's not here, because we should be introducing him as president,” Biden said of his son.

“This is kind of emotional for me,” Biden said, choking up at a "send-off" event before taking a short flight to the nation’s capital. "You've been with me my whole career, through the good times and the bad. I want to thank you for everything."

He recalled waiting at a Wilmington train station 12 years ago to be picked up by Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, before they were inaugurated in 2009.

“And here we are today,” Biden said. “My family and I about to return to Washington, to meet a Black woman of South Asian descent to be sworn in as president and vice president of the United States.”

Contributing: Joey Garrison

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden inauguration marks shift in politics after four years of Trump

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