A smiling US President Joe Biden has pledged to ensure a “peaceful transition of power” on January 20 when former president and now President-elect Donald Trump is due to be inaugurated as the country’s 47th head of state.
“I will do my duty as president,” Biden told a crowd of senior officials and staff during a brief seven-minute address on Thursday in the White House’s Rose Garden. “On January 20th, we will have a peaceful transfer of power.”
Offering Trump his congratulations, Biden said “we accept the choice the country made” as he tried to send an upbeat message despite the gloom in his Democratic Party.
Biden said he had also promised a smooth transition in a phone call with Trump on Wednesday, during which he invited the Republican leader to a meeting at the White House.
Biden said he also spoke with Vice President Kamala Harris over the phone on Wednesday to congratulate her on her run for the presidency, despite the loss. “She ran an inspiring campaign,” Biden said on Thursday about Harris. “She has a backbone like a ramrod,” he added.
As Democrats pick up the pieces after Trump’s decisive victory on Tuesday, some in the party have expressed frustration that the 81-year-old Biden did not decide to abandon his bid for re-election until this summer, despite longstanding voter concerns about his age, as well as widespread dissatisfaction with high inflation, the US role in the slaughter of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza, and migration over the border with Mexico.
“The biggest onus of this loss is on President Biden,” said Andrew Yang, who ran against Biden in 2020 for the Democratic nomination and endorsed Harris’s unsuccessful run. “If he had stepped down in January instead of July, we may be in a very different place,” Yang told AP.
US Senator Bernie Sanders, an ally of Biden and Harris, said in a statement that the election revealed that the Democratic Party leadership had lost touch with the concerns of working-class Americans.
“Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?” the Vermont independent asked. “Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing?”
Biden spent much of his speech seeking to reassure his “hurting” supporters not to feel too down.
“You can’t love your country only when you win,” he said, repeating a theme he has referenced in previous speeches. “Setbacks are unavoidable, but giving up is unforgivable … The American experiment endures. We’re going to be OK.”
Election ironies
Biden’s speech was laced with irony about his accomplishments and his promise to turn over power to his successor, Trump, who when he lost re-election in 2020 refused to accept the results and did not attend Biden’s inauguration in 2021 after many Democrats say he tried to organise an illegal insurrection to remain in power.
Throughout the campaign, Biden repeatedly framed a possible Trump return to the White House as a threat to democracy, and the two men have repeatedly hurled insults at each other.
Trump has called Biden the “worst president in the history of this country”, and Biden appeared to describe Trump supporters as “garbage” only days before Tuesday’s election, before trying to walk the comment back and say it was a reference to a comedian who spoke ill of Puerto Ricans at a Trump rally.
Now that the election is over, Biden on Thursday urged people on both sides to “bring down the temperature”.
In another irony, Biden told his supporters to take comfort from the policy accomplishments of his four years in office, including his signature massive infrastructure spending bill, much of which will “take time” to have the impact felt.
“We are leaving behind the strongest economy in the world, ” Biden said, ignoring the fact that exit polls show many voters cast their ballots against Democratic candidates because of their view that the current White House had handled the economy poorly, leaving them struggling with high inflation and stagnant wages.
Biden ended his remarks on another ironic note, commending election workers for demonstrating the integrity of the country’s voting system, which Trump and many Republicans have vociferously criticised as being vulnerable to fraud.
“It is honest, it is fair and it is transparent,” he said.
US Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband leave after she delivered her presidential election concession speech at Howard University in Washington, DC, on November 6 [Saul Loeb/AFP]
Harris’s concession
Biden’s address to the nation came a day after Harris formally conceded the race Wednesday afternoon in a speech to tearful supporters gathered at her alma mater, Howard University, where she stressed that while she did not win the presidential election this year, the fight is far from over.
“The outcome of the election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for,” she said, while saying that, as a matter of principle, her supporters should accept the results.
“Do not despair. This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves,” Harris said. “This is a time to organise, to mobilise and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together.”