By FnF Desk | PUBLISHED: 21, Jan 2021, 10:04 am IST | UPDATED: 21, Jan 2021, 10:13 am IST
Washington: The wait for a new dawn is finally over for America as Joe Biden took oath as the 46th President of the United States on Wednesday with the promise to take the country out of the racial, economic, medical and societal sinkhole it had slipped into under the Donald Trump administration. Biden’s entry into the White House draws the curtain on arguably the most controversial administrations in modern times, and is expected to herald a new era for a bleeding United States of America. ‘President Joe Biden’ and ‘Vice President Kamala Harris’ of the United States of America. Kamala Harris too took oath as the Vice President of the United States, becoming the first woman, woman of colour, African-American and woman of South Asian descent to hold the office.
In his first remarks, Biden said, “Here we stand days after a riotous mob thought they could silence the will of the people. It will not happen, not today, not tomorrow, not ever.” He pledged to be honest with the country as it continues to confront difficulties, saying leaders had an obligation to “defend the truth and defeat the lies”. Saying there was “no time to waste”, Biden signed a slew of orders to “change the course” of the Covid-19 pandemic, combat climate change and advance racial equity. Undoing Donald Trump’s legacy, he lifted the travel ban on 13 Muslim-majority and African countries; halted construction of the US-Mexico border wall; and directed officials to preserve the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), among other things. Meanwhile, Biden disclosed that Trump had written him a “generous” letter before departing from Washington. “The president wrote a very generous letter. Because it was private, I won’t talk about it until I talk to him.
Biden, a 78-year-old former vice president and veteran Senator, took the oath of office from the very site where pro-Trump extremists went berserk two weeks ago, clashed with the police in Capitol Hill and stormed the Congress in a deadly insurrection to stage a coup following an inciteful speech by Trump. The event scarred the democratic DNA of a country that swears by its Constitution. While the handing over of power was not any different compared to the more than 2 centuries-old history of the United States, this inauguration was different.
Trump, a brash billionaire socialite, entered the White House four years ago following Barack Obama’s illustrious 8 years at the helm. But, very soon the Republican’s eccentricity clouded his promising campaign bid for presidentship. Washington had put on a dystopian look ahead of the swearing-in ceremony, with armed camps and around 25,000 National Guard troops tasked to prevent an encore of the riots. Donald Trump and his family skipped the swearing-in ceremony. Outgoing vice president Mike Pence attended the event as the official representative of the previous administration.
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