President-elect Joe Biden spoke to the country for the first time since he was declared the winner of the election, and he made a point of emphasizing the need for unity after the divisions that were put on center stage during the presidential campaign. Speaking at a drive-in rally in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, on Saturday evening, Biden made a direct appeal to those who supported his opponent. “I understand the disappointment tonight. I’ve lost a couple of times myself. But now, let’s give each other a chance,” Biden said. “This is the time to heal in America.”
Biden pledged that he would be “a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify.” And he vowed that cooperation would be a bedrock of his presidency, calling on lawmakers to start working together as well. “Let this grim era of demonization in America begin to end here and now,” Biden said. “America has always been shaped by inflection points—by moments in time where we’ve made hard decisions about who we are and what we want to be.”
Biden noted that his presidential ticket with Kamala Harris received the most votes of any other in history, showing how voters have “delivered us a clear victory, a convincing victory, a victory for we the people.” Biden went on to express surprise at the celebrations that broke out in much of the country, and around the world, on Saturday after he was declared the winner. “We’re seeing all over this nation, all cities and all parts of the country, indeed across the world, an outpouring of joy, of hope, renewed faith in tomorrow to bring a better day,” he said.
Beyond any specific issue, Biden said voters had delivered a mandate “to marshal the forces of decency and the forces of fairness. To marshal the forces of science and the forces of hope in the great battles of our time.” He went on to list what those battles are:
The battle to control the virus.
The battle to build prosperity.
The battle to secure your family’s health care.
The battle to achieve racial justice and root out systemic racism in this country.
The battle to save the climate.
The battle to restore decency, defend democracy, and give everybody in this country a fair shot.
Although Biden’s speech was filled with generalities and grand ideas rather than specific plans, he did devote time to the coronavirus and detailed that on Monday he will appoint a task force of “leading scientists and experts” to “take the Biden-Harris COVID plan and convert it into an action blueprint that starts on Jan. 20, 2021.”
Biden was introduced by his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, who will become the first woman, the first Black American, and the first person of Asian descent to serve as vice president. Wearing a white suit in honor of women’s suffrage, Harris said that while she “may be the first woman in this office,” she won’t “be the last.” Harris paid particular tribute to Black women “who are often, too often overlooked but so often prove they are the backbone of our democracy.”
