Biden marks country mourning for Covid ahead of inaugural pump



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WASHINGTON (AP) – With hours before the inauguration, President-elect Joe Biden paused what could have been his triumphant entry into Washington on Tuesday night to instead mark the national tragedy of the coronavirus pandemic with a moment of collective grief lost for Americans.

His arrival coincided with the terrible news that the death toll in the United States had surpassed 400,000 in the worst public health crisis in more than a century – a crisis Biden will now be tasked with controlling.

“To heal, we must remember,” the new president told the nation during a sunset ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial. Four hundred lights representing the victims of the pandemic were lit behind him around the monument’s reflecting pool.

“Between sunset and dusk, let the lights shine in the darkness … and remember all of the ones we’ve lost,” Biden said.

The sober moment on the eve of Biden’s inauguration – usually a time of celebration in Washington where the nation marks the democratic tradition of a peaceful transfer of power – was a measure of the enormity of the loss for the nation.

During his brief remarks, Biden faced the larger than life statue of Abraham Lincoln, the president of the Civil War that killed more than 600,000 Americans. As he turned to walk away at the end of the vigil, he faced the black granite wall listing the 58,000+ Americans who had perished in Vietnam.

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Biden was joined by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, who spoke of the nation’s collective angst, a not-so-subtle warning from outgoing President Donald Trump, who has spoken sparingly about the pandemic in recent months.

“For many months we have been grieved by ourselves,” said Harris, who will make history as the first woman to become vice president when she is sworn in. “Tonight we cry and begin to heal together.

Beyond the pandemic, Biden has no shortage of problems when he takes the reins of the White House. The nation is also on economic heels due to skyrocketing unemployment, there is deep political division and immediate concern about more violence following the January 6 insurgency on Capitol Hill.

Biden, an avid Amtrak fan who rode the train thousands of times between his home in Delaware and Washington during his decades in the Senate, had planned to take a train to Washington before the opening day on Wednesday. , but scratched that plan in the wake of the Capitol Riot.

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Instead, he flew to Joint Base Andrews just outside the capital, then drove into Fortress DC – a town that was flooded by some 25,000 National Guard troops guarding a Capitol, the House. Blanche and a National Mall which are shrouded in a maze of barricades and tall fences.

“These are dark times,” Biden told supporters during an emotional dispatch to Delaware. “But there is always light.”

Biden, who has run for president as a cool head capable of getting things done, plans to issue a series of executive orders on day one – including rescinding Trump’s efforts to quit the Paris agreement on the weather., overturning Trump’s travel ban on visitors from several predominantly Muslim countries and extending pandemic-era limits on evictions and student loan payments.

Trump will not be there when Biden is sworn in, the first outgoing president to ignore the inaugural festivities entirely since Andrew Johnson more than a century and a half ago.

The White House released a farewell video of Trump as Biden landed at Joint Base Andrews. Trump, who has repeatedly and incorrectly said that widespread fraud led to his electoral downfall, sent his “best wishes” to the new administration in his nearly 20-minute speech, but did not deliver the name of Biden.

Trump also spent part of his last time in the White House huddled with advisers weighing last-minute pardons and clemency grants. He was planning to leave Washington on Wednesday morning for a grand ceremony at the air base that he helped plan for himself.

Biden’s farewell to Delaware, held at the National Guard / Reserve Center named after his late son Beau Biden, paid tribute to his home state. After his remarks, he stopped and chatted with friends and well-wishers in the crowd, just as he did at the Iowa ropes at the start of his long campaign trip.

“I will always be a proud son of the state of Delaware,” said Biden, who struggled to hold back tears as he made the brief remarks.

Inaugural organizers this week completed the installation of some 200,000 U.S., state and territorial flags on the National Mall, an exhibit depicting the American people who were unable to make it to the inauguration, which is tightly constrained due to security and Covid restrictions.

The display was also a reminder of all the faces of the president-elect as he seeks to guide the country through the pandemic. with skyrocketing infections and deaths.

From the start, Biden and his team intend to speed up vaccine delivery to anxious Americans and pass on his $ 1.9 trillion virus relief program, which includes prompt payments to many people and an increase in the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour. .

Biden also plans to unveil a sweeping immigration bill on day one of his administration, hoping to provide an eight-year path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million people living in the United States without legal status. It would be a major reversal of the Trump administration’s strict immigration policies.

Some prominent Republicans have already turned down Biden’s immigration plan. “There are many problems, I think we can work in cooperation with President-elect Biden, but a general amnesty for people who are here illegally will not be one of them,” said Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Who is often a central player in Senate immigration battles.

Many of Biden’s legislative ambitions could be tempered by the tough numbers he faces on Capitol Hill, where Democrats hold a slim majority in the Senate and House. His hopes of pushing forward an avalanche of laws in his first 100 days could also be hampered by a Trump impeachment trial..

As Biden traveled to Washington, five of his Cabinet picks appeared before Senate committees on Tuesday to begin confirmation hearings. Treasury candidate Janet Yellen, Defense candidate Lloyd Austin, Homeland Security candidate Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of State candidate Antony Blinken and candidate for national intelligence director Avril Haines were being questioned.

Yellen urged lawmakers to embrace Biden’s virus relief program, saying “the smartest thing we can do is act big.”

Helpers say Biden will use Wednesday’s inaugural address – one to be delivered in front of an unusually small in-person group due to virus protocols and security concerns and is expected to last 20 to 30 minutes – to call for U.S. unity and deliver an optimistic message that Americans can overcome the dark moment by working together.

To that end, he invited the four main Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress to attend mass with him at St. Matthew’s Cathedral ahead of the dedication ceremony.

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Madhani reported from Chicago. Associated Press editors Darlene Superville, Alan Fram and Alexandra Jaffe contributed reporting.

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This story has been corrected to show that the flags on the National Mall represent people who couldn’t come, not COVID deaths.

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