Joe Biden starts Presidency with a bang, pledging to tackle ‘hate, racism and virus’

Joe Biden
America’s new President called for unity against the “common foes” of hate, violence and the pandemic. 
AP
David Gardner21 January 2021

Joe Biden went straight to work today dismantling the legacy of four years of Donald Trump.  

America’s new President called for unity against the “common foes” of hate, violence and the pandemic. Hours after moving into the Oval Office, Mr Biden had already  jettisoned many of his predecessor’s most controversial policies. “We are facing four converging crises — Covid-19, the resulting economic crisis, climate change, and racial inequity. Today, President Biden took actions to combat these challenges,” the White House tweeted. 

Among the new President’s sweeping changes was a freeze on Mr Trump’s prized border wall with Mexico and a commitment to rejoin the Paris Agreement to combat global warming.

Boris Johnson hailed the decision to rejoin the Paris Agreement as “hugely positive news” and put action on climate change at the heart of a drive for closer ties with the new White House.

The President reiterated his calls for Americans to work together and “meet the moment” before watching a fireworks display with his family from the Truman Balcony at the close of festivities.

Working together is “the only way we’ll get through the darkness around us,” he told a nationwide TV audience, just a fortnight after pro-Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol in violence that left five people dead.

“This is a great nation. We’re good people,” he said. “And to overcome the challenges in front of us requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy: unity. It requires us to come together in common love of what defines us as Americans: opportunity, liberty, dignity and respect, and to unite against common foes: hate, violence, disease and hopelessness.”

Mr Biden’s speech was broadcast during a star-studded Celebrating America event that was screened in place of the usual inauguration balls around Washington DC, which were cancelled because of the pandemic.

The 78-year-old President — America’s oldest ever commander-in-chief — was later seen in the White House dancing with his baby grandson, Beau, to Demi Lovato’s cover of Bill Withers’s hit Lovely Day as the first family watched the inauguration tribute.

The festivities were a brief respite for America’s 46th president as he signed a flurry of executive orders and proclamations, among them instructions to be a part of the Paris climate change agreement that Mr Trump had extricated the US from four years ago. He also reversed Mr Trump’s decision to exit the World Health Organisation.  

An adviser told the New York Times the aim was to “reverse the gravest damages” done to the country by Mr Trump.

Mr Biden wasted no time in ending the Trump administration’s ban on travel to the US from several predominantly Muslim countries and stopping work on the ex-president’s  border wall. He also boosted the so-called “Dreamers” programme that protected children of undocumented immigrants from deportation — a policy that Mr Trump had sought to end — and signed orders promoting more inclusive government hiring and diversity training.

Another of Mr Biden’s first moves was a national mandate for the wearing of masks on all government property, something Mr Trump had refused to do. He was planning in his first presidential address today to set out a new national strategy to tackle the pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 400,000 Americans.

Mr Biden was expected to sign another 10 executive orders dealing with aspects of the health crisis, the Washington Post reported. Moves to boost testing and vaccines are among the priorities, along with making schools and travel safer. In moves designed to restore America’s global role in fighting climate change, Mr Biden began overturning a series of Trump policies, including replacing standards for vehicle emissions and reforming a group examining the dangers of greenhouse gasses.

He also revoked a permit granted by Mr Trump for the Keystone XL oil pipeline that has faced widespread opposition from environmentalists. His first conversation with a foreign leader is expected to be with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Mr Trump was today spending his first day as an ex-president at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida with his family, after becoming the first president since 1869 to snub the swearing-in ceremony. But Mr Biden revealed that his Republican predecessor had left a “generous” letter for him in the Oval Office’s historic Resolute desk. “Because it was private, I won’t talk about it until I talk to him. But it was generous,” he said.  

Trump supporters who greeted him in Florida were urging him not to depart the scene, amid rumours he could launch his own “Patriot Party”.

Mr Biden promised to be a president “for all Americans”.

“We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal,” he said.

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