WASHINGTON D.C – Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been sworn in during a ceremony with no public in attendance amid security and pandemic concerns. Donald Trump is the first modern president to skip the event.
Democrat Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on Wednesday, ending the tumultuous four-year term in the White House of Republican Donald Trump.
Biden, 78, took the oath of office from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts at a solemn ceremony at the US Capitol which was snubbed by the outgoing president and took place in the shadow of a raging coronavirus pandemic.
Before Biden, Kamala Harris was sworn in as US vice president, becoming the first woman, the first Black person and the first Asian American to hold the office.
Biden became the oldest US president in history at a scaled-back ceremony in Washington that had been largely stripped of its usual pomp and circumstance, due both to the coronavirus and security concerns following the January 6 assault on the US Capitol by Trump supporters.
Following his oath of office, Biden celebrated his incoming administration not as a celebration of a candidate but a victory for US democracy, saying more work must be done to heal the nation.
“The will of the people has been heard, and the will of the people has been heeded. We’ve learned again that democracy is precious and democracy is fragile. At this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed,” Biden said in his inaugural speech. “Today we celebrate the triumph, not of a candidate, but of a cause. The cause of democracy.”
And then he pivoted to challenges ahead, acknowledging the surging virus that has claimed more than 400,000 lives in the US. Biden looked 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 injustice.
