‘We’re at War With the Virus, Not With Each Other,’ Biden Tells Nation
In a repudiation of President Trump’s divisiveness, President-elect Joe Biden urged Americans to take virus precautions and unify in the fight against the pandemic. Mr. Trump said on Twitter that he had pardoned Michael Flynn.
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Biden Calls for Unity in Thanksgiving Address
President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. stressed the importance of unity and encouraged Americans to be careful with Thanksgiving celebrations this year to help curb the spread of the coronavirus.
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You know, looking back over our history, you see that it’s been in the most difficult circumstances that the soul of our nation has been forged. And now we find ourselves again facing a long, hard winter. We’ve fought nearly a yearlong battle with a virus that has devastated this nation. I know the country has grown weary of the fight. We need to remember, we’re at war with a virus, not with one another, not with each other. This year we’re asking Americans to forgo so many of the traditions that we’ve long made this holiday, that’s made it so special. For our family, for 40-such years, 40-some years, we’ve had a tradition of traveling over Thanksgiving, a tradition that we’ve kept every year save one: the year our son Beau died. But this year, we’ll be staying home. I know how hard it is to forgo family traditions, but it’s so very important. I give thanks now for you, for the trust you’ve placed in me. Together we’ll lift our voices in the coming months and years, and our song shall be of lives saved, breaches repaired, a nation made whole again.
President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Wednesday delivered a raw, empathetic and optimistic address to Americans, urging them to “hang on” as they faced a long, hard winter and with coronavirus cases spiking across the country.
“Looking back over our history, you see that it’s been in the most difficult circumstances that the soul of our nation has been forged,” Mr. Biden said, speaking directly to the camera from the stage at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Del., where he positioned himself as the leader of a suffering nation and stepped into a void left for him by the current occupant of the Oval Office.
In language that served as an implicit repudiation of President Trump, he urged Americans to come together to fight the virus. “I know the country has grown weary of the fight. We need to remember we’re at war with the virus, not with one another, not with each other,” he said.
Later, as he urged Americans to wear face masks and practice social distancing, he noted, “None of these steps we’re asking people to take are political statements. Every one of them is based on science, real science.”
Mr. Trump, in the early days of the pandemic, had tried to brand himself as a “wartime president,” before claiming, inaccurately, that the country had “rounded the curve.”
Mr. Biden on Wednesday appeared to pick up the wartime mantle.
“America is not going to lose this war,” he said. “Don’t let yourself surrender to the fatigue.”
Mr. Biden spoke minutes after Mr. Trump called into a hotel gathering of Republican state lawmakers in Pennsylvania to discuss baseless allegations of voting irregularities in the state, where he again claimed he won the election he had lost and demanded that the election results be “turned” in his favor.
Mr. Biden, in contrast, praised the sanctity of the vote and the many Americans who cast their ballots in record numbers despite the raging pandemic.
“Our democracy was tested this year,” he said. “What we learned is this. The people of this nation are up to the task. In America we have full and fair and free elections. And then we honor the results.”
He called voting “the noblest instrument of nonviolent protest ever conceived.”
Mr. Biden’s speech was infused with his own personal pain, which he often draws from as he seeks to lead a country that has so far lost more than 260,000 lives to the pandemic.
“I remember that first Thanksgiving, the empty chair, the silence,” he said, referring to the death of his son Beau Biden in 2015. “It takes your breath away. It’s really hard to care. It’s hard to give thanks. It’s hard to even think of looking forward. It’s so hard to hope. I understand.”
