With a promise to ‘heal’ America, Joseph R Biden (Joe Biden) will take the oath to become the 46th president of the United States on Wednesday.
Joe Biden, who is known around the world for his stint as the vice-president during the Obama administration, will be the oldest person ever sworn in as president of the country. He turned 78 in November 2020.
President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be sworn in at the West Front of the US capitol during the 59th Presidential Inauguration ceremony.
His inauguration is taking place under the shadow of the unprecedented health crisis and protests in the US. The security in the capital has been beefed up amid a high level of security concerns following the January 6 Capitol riots.
It is anticipated there will be roughly 1,000 guests in attendance, the majority of whom will be members of Congress and their guests during the event today.
US President Donald Trump has said he will not be joining Joe Biden at the inauguration. It’s customary for an outgoing president and other former presidents to sit behind a new president, symbolising the peaceful transfer of power. Biden called Trump’s decision not to attend “one of the few things he and I have ever agreed on.”
In his victory speech in his hometown, Wilmington, Delaware in November, Joe Biden pledged to unite the country as he called it ‘a time to heal in America’.
“I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify; who doesn’t see red states and blue states, only sees the United States,” Biden said.
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1942 and moved to Delaware as a child. At age 29, Biden became one of the youngest people ever elected to the United States Senate.
Weeks later, tragedy struck the Biden family when his wife Neilia and daughter Naomi were killed and sons Hunter and Beau critically injured in an auto accident.
Biden was sworn into the US Senate at his sons’ hospital bedside and began commuting from Wilmington to Washington every day. For five years, he raised Beau and Hunter as a single father, with the help of his sister Valerie and his family.
Biden married again five years after Neilia’s death, to his current wife Jill. The couple has one daughter together, Ashley Blazer, who was born in 1981.
The 2020 race marked Biden’s third attempt at running for President. He first tried in 1988 but dropped out after allegations of plagiarism. He ended his second attempt in 2008 after garnering less than 1% in the crucial Iowa caucuses.
US President Donald Trump, in his farewell address on Tuesday, highlighted his accomplishment as president and offered luck as well as “best wishes” to the incoming administration. In a 19-minute pre-recorded video, Trump tried to strike a conciliatory tone by condemning the Capitol Hill riots and said that America is a nation of incredible, decent, faithful, and peace-loving citizens who all want our country to thrive and flourish.
