The president of the United States, , ended a half-century political career on Wednesday with a final speech from the Oval Office, hoping to seal a legacy overshadowed by Democrats’ failure to prevent his return to the White House.
Biden opened his speech with a familiar message — urging Americans to unite — but quickly warned about a dangerous concentration of wealth in the United States.
“Our system of separation of powers and checks and balances may not be perfect, but it has maintained our democracy for nearly 250 years, longer than any other nation in history that has ever attempted such a bold experiment,” Biden said.
But he warned of a “technology industrial complex” that is bringing an “avalanche of misinformation, enabling the abuse of power.” The free press, he added, “is falling apart.”
Biden passes power to Trump at noon (2pm in Brasília) on Monday. , who helped with his election efforts as a special advisor in charge of cutting federal government costs.
The speech comes at a time when Biden’s Democratic Party has little influence in national politics and Trump has appointed a slate of cabinet members who have pledged to upend traditional American alliances and governing norms.
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Biden ran for president in 2020 as a transitional figure but chose, at the unprecedented age of 80, to run for re-election, convinced he was the only Democrat who could defeat Trump.
Biden was blamed by some Democrats for his November defeat after Vice President Kamala Harris’ turbulent campaign lost every swing state.
Biden and his allies have overseen the recovery from Covid-19, funded an infrastructure renaissance, spurred the manufacturing of new semiconductor chips and combatted climate change as they sought to rebalance inequality and invest in the future. He leaves a high-performing North American economy and optimistic companies.
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But Biden has failed to heal divisions in the country in the way he had hoped, nor to prevent democratic backsliding around the world. His greatest political achievement — defeating Trump in 2020 — was temporary. Now, the Republican president-elect has promised to undo much of what the Democratic administration accomplished.
“All Joe Biden wanted was to be remembered for the great things he did for this country, and at least in the short term, they were eclipsed by his ill-conceived decision to run,” said David Axelrod, a former adviser to President Barack Obama.
Biden addressed what he described as an ongoing threat to the country in a letter released Wednesday by the White House.
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“I ran for president because I believed the soul of the United States was at stake. The very nature of who we are was at stake. And that is still the case,” he said, calling on Americans to continue fighting for the country’s focus on equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
A White House official said legacies are established over the long term.
“In historical terms, a thousandth of a second has passed since the election. This president has achieved the most significant legislative record since LBJ (President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s), and the irreversible benefits of these laws will grow over decades,” the official stated.
