(Washington) The soul of America remains “at stake”, recognizes Joe Biden, who will deliver his farewell speech to the country on Wednesday, in a message to Americans mixing pride in a duty accomplished and a call for vigilance before the return of Donald Trump in power.
Posted at 7:03 a.m.
Updated at 11:51 a.m.
Aurelia END
Agence France-Presse
“I ran for president because I believed that the soul of America was at stake. Our very essence was at stake. This is still the case,” notes the outgoing president in a letter to his compatriots disclosed by the White House, before he delivers a solemn address from the Oval Office at 8 p.m. local time (Eastern time).
Joe Biden will return the keys to the White House to his Republican rival on Monday, which he had fought hard to take from him four years ago.
In 2019, Joe Biden assured that Donald Trump “would remain in history as a passing aberration”.
But it is his presidency which for the moment stands out as an anomaly, or the final hiccup of a bygone era, in an America in the grip of violent political, cultural and economic changes.
“The ideal of America is in your hands,” warns Joe Biden in this testamentary letter published Wednesday, which does not contain the name of Donald Trump.
But he evokes it implicitly, recalling that when he came to power, in January 2021, the United States was not only in the grip of the pandemic and a violent economic crisis, but also faced with “the worst attack against democracy since the Civil War.
Joe Biden was sworn in a few days after the assault on the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump, who refused to recognize the defeat of their champion in the presidential election.
Special prosecutor Jack Smith has since concluded that the Republican would have been convicted of unlawful attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election if he had not been re-elected in November.
Donald Trump called these conclusions “false”, calling their author “crazy”.
“Privilege of my life”
Joe Biden, an unpopular president who has never been able to remove concerns about his age or thwart the appeal of Donald Trump’s populist rhetoric, wants to defend his record.
“Today our economy is the strongest in the world,” writes the man who leaves his successor with robust growth and very low unemployment.
“Inflation continues to fall,” he continues, at the end of a mandate marked by a very sharp rise in the cost of living, which heavily penalized him politically.
Joe Biden also emphasizes that violent crime is at its lowest level in fifty years, before giving way to Donald Trump, who describes America as a country ravaged by insecurity.
“Serving this country for fifty years has been the privilege of my life,” concludes the man who was senator, vice-president then president and who long believed that he could beat Donald Trump again.
“I gave my life and my soul to our nation,” says Joe Biden, who has been committed since the November 5 election to ensuring an orderly transition with the man he had publicly described as “a danger to democracy”.
In an interview published Wednesday in the Washington Posthis wife Jill Biden, her husband’s unwavering ally in the face of numerous family tragedies as well as in the face of political trials, declares: “I hope that [les Américains] will remember Joe as a strong, empathetic, honest and upright president.
Before adding, as if she didn’t really believe it: “Because righteousness is what matters most, isn’t it? »
The Democratic president decided in the spring of 2023 to run again against Donald Trump.
He ultimately stepped down in early summer, giving way to Vice President Kamala Harris, who was soundly defeated in the presidential election.
