Barely five minutes to10 p.m. on Wednesday, President Joe Biden, formally stepped in to take residence at the White House after a hectic four hours after his inauguration ceremony began.
The 78 years old former Senator and Vice President becomes the oldest man to take over the reins of power in the United States of America, while his Vice President, Kamala Harris becomes the first woman to attain that lofty seat.
Amidst tight security occasioned more out of fear for far right conservative hot-heads rather than the oft-repeated safety protocol of Covid-19, Biden and Harris took their oath of office, while most Americans watched on screens in their homes and around the country.
Already, Biden has signed his first slate of executive actions as president, erasing core aspects of Donald Trump’s legacy on the coronavirus pandemic, immigration, climate change, and more with the simple stroke of a pen.
Following an afternoon of ceremonies that included a virtual parade through Washington DC, and the laying of a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, the new administration immediately got to work at around 17.15 local time (12.15 GMT), rolling out 15 executive orders and two other action items.
“There’s no time to start like today,” the president said from the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk.
The orders fall into roughly seven categories:
▪︎COVID-19
Mr Biden kicked off his presidency by issuing his much anticipated 100-day mask challenge to the country, pairing it with an executive order to mandate mask wearing in all federal buildings and during interstate travel.
“It’s requiring, as I said all along, where I have authority, mandating masks be worn, social distancing be kept on federal property,” Mr Biden explained to reporters in the Oval Office.
The president is also reorganising the way the White House’s institutional approach to the coronavirus pandemic, bringing back an Obama-era position within the administration entitled the Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense.
He has pegged transition advisor Jeff Zients to be his “Covid czar”, providing the president with daily briefings about vaccine distribution, testing supplies, the production and availability of personal protective equipment for health workers, and everything else related to the pandemic response.
Mr Biden will have the US formally rejoin the World Health Organisation (WHO), which Mr Trump left after accusing the global organisation’s leadership of being too cozy with China, the source of the virus that has shaken the world economy and health system.
▪︎Immigration
On immigration, Mr Biden can pause or undo nearly every policy pursued by Mr Trump over the last four years.
One executive order from Wednesday revokes Mr Trump’s notorious “Muslim Ban”, which has restricted travel to the US from more than a dozen majority-Muslim countries.
Another bolsters the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) programme instituted under Mr Obama that seeks to protect the legal status of so-called “Dreamers”, Americans who were brought to the US as children without documentation but have lived here basically their whole lives. Mr Biden’s executive order calls on Congress to pass a law providing an eight-year path to citizenship for those protected by Daca.
Mr Biden’s administration will be immediately issuing new guidance to officials at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, a subsidiary of the Department of Homeland Security, that oversees immigration-related arrests and detention. That executive order will put an explicit stop to the Trump administration’s family separation policy.
Mr Biden will halt construction of Mr Trump’s wall along the US-Mexico border by revoking the national emergency declaration the former president issued in 2018 to siphon money away from other Pentagon projects.
And the new president will extend protections against deportation for thousands of Liberians living in the US, a programme Mr Trump had considered ending at multiple points over the last four years.
▪︎Climate
Indicating Mr Biden’s desire to reassert the US’ institutional influence throughout the world, the new administration will also be rejoining the Paris climate accords, a signature achievement of the Obama presidency that sought to reduce global carbon emissions and incentivise the production of green energy.
“We’re going to rejoin the Paris climate accord as of today,” Mr Biden proudly announced at his Oval Office signing ceremony.
A second environment-focused executive order will cut off private companies from drilling for oil and gas on federal lands, which will immediately halt construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The orders will place protections over other federal lands Mr Trump had opened up to various private companies for development.
▪︎Income inequality
Two of Mr Biden’s executive orders on Wednesday aim to provide immediate financial relief to the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic.
One orders the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as three federal departments, to extend the moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures through 31 March.
The Departments of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Veterans Affairs guarantee more than 11 million mortgages, economic advisers to Mr Biden have pointed out.
The other financial relief-minded executive order extends the freeze placed on student loan debt collection through 30 September of this year.
▪︎Ethics and good government
Cognizant of the rampant allegations of corruption and the flagrant Hatch Act violations from top to bottom of Mr Trump’s administration, Mr Biden has signed an executive order mandating everyone who works in his administration to sign an ethics pledge. That pledge includes language honouring the Justice Department’s independence from executive influence.
While Mr Trump actively, publicly lobbied for preferential treatment from the Justice Department for his corrupt 2016 campaign aides Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, Mr Biden is going to great lengths to avoid even the appearance of intervening in various departmental probes, no matter who investigators are looking into.
▪︎Race and inequality
Mr Biden inked his name on three executive orders to address racial disparities and inequities within the US government and its operations.
The first reverses a Trump-era order not to count undocumented immigrants living in the United States in the current census.
The US census, conducted every 10 years, is crucial to government operations. It is used to administer federal resources and apportion congressional seats. State legislatures use the census to draw new congressional boundaries if they have more or fewer House seats.
Another executive order calls on the federal bureaucracy to conduct reviews and isolate any racial inequities in how government resources are allocated. It also dissolves the 1776 Commission, Mr Trump’s advisory committee established last September to promote “patriotic education” in US public schools. Critics of the commission have said it whitewashes US history, giving young Americans a warped view of the country’s past.
The last executive order in this tranche extends federal workplace sex discrimination protections to LGBTQ Americans.
The Biden administration plans to roll out a total of 53 executive actions over the next 10 days, many of which will directly undo Mr Trump’s policies.
Each day will have a particular theme.
Thursday’s executive orders will focus on addressing the Covid crisis. Friday’s seek to provide economic relief.
The president reiterated that much of what he wants to do for the country will require working with Congress.
“We’re gonna need legislation for a lot o
f the other things we need to do,” he told reporters”.
________
Shortly after being sworn in, Biden delivered the speech below:
Chief Justice Roberts, Vice President Harris, Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, Leader McConnell, Vice President Pence, and my distinguished guests, my fellow Americans, this is America’s day. This is democracy’s day, a day of history and hope, of renewal and resolve. Through a crucible for the ages, America has been tested anew.
And America has risen to the challenge. Today we celebrate the triumph, not of a candidate, but of a cause, the cause of democracy. The people, 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. Democracy is fragile. And at this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed.
So now, on this hallowed ground, where just a few days ago violence sought to shake the Capitol’s very foundation, we come together as one nation under God, indivisible, to carry out the peaceful transfer of power as we have for more than two centuries. As we look ahead in our uniquely American way, restless, bold, optimistic, and set our sights on the nation we know we can be and we must be.
I thank my predecessors of both parties for their presence here today. I thank them from the bottom of my heart. And I know — and I know the resilience of our constitution and the strength, the strength of our nation, as does President Carter who I spoke with last night, who cannot be with us today, but whom we salute for his lifetime in service.
I’ve just taken the sacred oath each of those patriots have taken. The oath first sworn by George Washington. But the American story depends not on any one of us, not on some of us, but on all of us, on we the people, who seek a more perfect union. This is a great nation. We are good people. And over the centuries, through storm and strife, in peace and in war, we’ve come so far, but we still have far to go.
We’ll press forward with speed and urgency, for we have much to do in this winter of peril and significant possibilities. Much to repair, much to restore, much to heal, much to build, and much to gain. Few people in our nation’s history have been more challenged or found a time more challenging or difficult than the time we’re in now.
Once in a century virus that silently stalks the country. It’s taken as many lives in one year as America lost in all of World War II. Millions of jobs have been lost, hundreds of thousands of businesses closed, a cry for racial justice some 400 years in the making moves us. The dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer.
A cry for survival comes from planet itself. A cry that can’t be any more desperate or any more clear, and now a rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat.
To overcome these challenges, to restore the soul and secure the future of America, requires so much more than words. It requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy, unity. Unity. In another January, on New Year’s Day in 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation. When he put pen to paper, the president said, and I quote, “if my name ever goes down into history, it’ll be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.”
Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this: bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation. And I ask every American to join me in this cause.
Uniting to fight the foes we face, anger, resentment and hatred, extremism, lawlessness, violence, disease, joblessness and hopelessness. With unity, we can do great things, important things.
We can right wrongs. We can put people to work in good jobs. We can teach our children in safe schools. We can overcome the deadly virus. We can reward — reward work and rebuild the middle class and make health care secure for all. We can deliver racial justice and we can make America once again the leading force for good in the world.
I know speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy these days. I know that the forces that divide us are deep and they are real. But I also know they are not new. Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we all are created equal, and the harsh ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, demonization have long torn us apart.
The battle is perennial, and victory is never assured. Through civil war, the great depression, World War, 9/11, through struggle, sacrifices, and setbacks, our better angels have always prevailed. In each of these moments, enough of us — enough of us — have come together to carry all of us forward, and we can do that now.
History, faith, and reason show the way, the way of unity. We can see each other, not as adversaries, but as neighbors. We can treat each other with dignity and respect. We can join forces, stop the shouting, and lower the temperature. For without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury.
No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos. This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward. And we must meet this moment as the United States of America. If we do that, I guarantee you, we will not fail. We have never, ever, ever, ever failed in America when we’ve acted together.
And so today, at this time, in this place, let’s start afresh, all of us. Let’s begin to listen to one another again.
Hear one another. See one another. Show respect to one another. Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn’t have to be a cause for total war. And we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated, and even manufactured.
My fellow Americans, we have to be different than this. America has to be better than this, and I believe America is so much better than this. Just look around. Here we stand, in the shadow of the Capitol dome, as it was mentioned earlier, completed amid the civil war, when the union itself was literally hanging in the balance. Yet, we endured. We prevailed.
Here we stand, looking out on the great mall where Dr. King spoke of his dream. Here we stand where, 108 years ago at another inaugural, thousands of protesters tried to block brave women marching for the right to vote. And today, we mark the swearing of the first woman in American history elected to national office, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Don’t tell me things can’t change!
Here we stand, across the Potomac, from Arlington Cemetery, where heroes who gave the last full measure of devotion, rest in eternal peace. And here we stand, just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work of our democracy, to drive us from this sacred ground. It did not happen. It will never happen. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.
Not ever. To all those who supported our campaign, I’m humbled by the faith you’ve placed in us. To all of those who did not support us, let me say this. Hear me out as we move forward. Take a measure of me and my heart.
If you still disagree, so be it. That’s democracy. That’s America. The right to dissent peaceably. Within the guardrails of our republic it’s perhaps this nation’s greatest strength. Yet hear me clearly, disagreement must not lead to disunion. And I pledge this to you, I will be a president for all Americans, all Americans.
And I promise you, I will fight as hard for those who did not support me as for those who did. Many centuries ago, St. Augustine, a saint in my church, wrote that a people was a multitude defined by the common objects of their love. Defined by the common objects of their love. What are the common objects we as Americans love, that define us as Americans?
I think we know. Opportunity, security, liberty, dignity, res
pect, honor and, yes, the truth. The recent weeks and months have taught us a painful lesson. There is truth a
nd there are lies, lies told for power and for profit.
And each of us has a duty and a responsibility as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders, leaders who have pledged to honor our Constitution and protect our nation, to defend the truth and defeat the lies.
Look — I understand that many of my fellow Americans view the future with fear and trepidation. I understand they worry about their jobs. I understand like my dad, they lay in bed wondering, can I keep my health care, can I pay my mortgage. Thinking about their families, about what comes next. I promise you, I get it.
But the answer is not to turn inward, to retreat into competing factions, distrusting those who don’t look like — look like you or worship the way you do or don’t get their news from the same source as you do. We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus — rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal. We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts.
If we show a little tolerance and humility, and if we are willing to stand in the other person’s shoes — as my mom would say — just for a moment, stand in their shoes. Because here’s the thing about life: there’s no accounting for what fate will deal you.
Some days, when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand. That’s how it has to be. That’s what we do for one another.
And if we are this way, our country will be stronger, more prosperous, more ready for the future. And we can still disagree. My fellow Americans, in the work ahead of us, we’re going to need each other. We need all our strength to preserve — to persevere through this dark winter. We’re entering what may be the toughest and deadliest period of the virus.
We must set aside politics and finally face this pandemic as one nation, one nation. And I promise you this. As the Bible says, “Weep, ye may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” We will get through this together. Together. Look, folks, all my colleagues that I served with in the house and the senate up here, we all understand, the world is watching, watching all of us today. So here’s my message to those beyond our borders.
America has been tested, and we’ve come out stronger for it. We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again. Not to meet yesterday’s challenges, but today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.
And we’ll lead not merely by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. We’ll be a strong and trusted partner for peace, progress, and security.
Look, you all know, we’ve been through so much in this nation. In my first act as president, I’d like to ask you to join me in a moment of silent prayer to remember all those who we lost in this past year to the pandemic, those 400,000 fellow Americans — moms, dads, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. We’ll honor them by becoming the people and the nation we know we can and should be.
So, I ask you, let’s say a silent prayer for those who have lost their lives and those left behind and for our country.
Amen. Folks, this is a time of testing. We face an attack on our democracy and on truth. A raging virus, growing inequity, the sting of systemic racism, a climate in crisis. America’s role in the world. Any one of these would be enough to challenge us in profound ways. But the fact is, we face them all at once. Presenting this nation with one of the gravest responsibilities we’ve had. Now we’re going to be tested.
Are we going to step up, all of us? It’s time for boldness, for there is so much to do. And this is certain. I promise you, we will be judged, you and I, by how we resolve these cascading crises of our era. We will rise to the occasion, is the question. Will we master this rare and difficult hour?
Will we meet our obligations, and pass along a new and better world to our children? I believe we must. I’m sure you do as well. I believe we will. And when we do, we’ll write the next great chapter in the history of the United States of America, the American story, a story that might sound something like a song that means a lot to me. It’s called “American Anthem.” And there’s one verse that stands out, at least for me.
And it goes like this: “The work and prayers of century have brought us to this day. What shall be our legacy? What will our children say? Let me know in my heart when my days are through. America, America, I gave my best to you.” Let’s add our own work and prayers to the unfolding story of our great nation.
If we do this, then when our days are through, our children and our children’s children will say of us, they gave their best, they did their duty, they healed a broken land. My fellow Americans, I close the day where I began, with a sacred oath before God and all of you. I give you my word, I will always level with you. I will defend the Constitution. I’ll defend our democracy. I’ll defend America.
And I’ll give all, all of you, keep everything you — I do in your service, thinking not of power but of possibilities, not of personal injuries but the public good. And together we shall write an American story of hope, not fear. Of unity, not division. Of light, not darkness. A story of decency and dignity, love and healing, greatness and goodness.
May this be the story that guides us, the story that inspires us, and the story that tells ages yet to come that we answered the call of history, we met the moment. Democracy and hope, truth and justice, did not die on our watch, but thrived, that America secured liberty at home and stood once again as a beacon to the world. That is what we owe our forebears, one another, and generations to follow.
So, with purpose and resolve, we turn to those tasked of our time, sustained by faith, driven by conviction, and devoted to one another and the country we love with all our hearts. May God bless America and may God protect our troops. Thank you, America.
▪︎ Additional reports by The Independent