Democrat Joe Biden was sworn in as president of the US on Wednesday, assuming the helm of a rustic reeling from deep political divides, a battered financial system and a raging coronavirus pandemic that has killed greater than 400,000 People.
Along with his hand on an heirloom Bible that has been in his household since 1893, Biden took the presidential oath of workplace administered by US Chief Justice John Roberts simply after midday ET (17:00 GMT), vowing to “protect, defend and defend the Structure of the US”.
Biden, 78, turned the oldest US president in historical past at a scaled-back ceremony in Washington that was largely stripped of its regular pomp and circumstance, due each to the coronavirus and safety issues following the January 6 assault on the US Capitol by supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump.
The norm-defying Trump flouted one final conference on his manner out of the White Home when he refused to satisfy with Biden or attend his successor’s inauguration, breaking with a political custom seen as affirming the peaceable switch of energy.
High Republicans, together with Vice President Mike Pence and the get together’s congressional leaders, attended Biden’s inauguration, together with former US Presidents Barack Obama, George W Bush and Invoice Clinton. Jimmy Carter, 96, was the one dwelling US president to not attend the ceremony, citing coronavirus issues.
Biden’s operating mate, Kamala Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, turned the primary Black particular person, first girl and first Asian American to function vice chairman after she was sworn in by US Supreme Courtroom Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the courtroom’s first Latina member.
Harris used two Bibles, together with one owned by Thurgood Marshall, the primary Black US Supreme Courtroom justice.
1000’s of Nationwide Guard troops had been known as into the town after the January 6 siege on the Capitol, which left 5 folks lifeless and briefly pressured lawmakers into hiding. As a substitute of a throng of supporters, the Nationwide Mall on Wednesday was coated by practically 200,000 flags and 56 pillars of sunshine meant to characterize folks from US states and territories.
