The soul of America remains “at stake”, warns 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 Donald Trump’s return to the power.
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“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.
“The ideal of America is in your hands,” warns the 82-year-old Democrat, who does not mention his great Republican rival by name, who will be sworn in on Monday for the second time.
But Joe Biden evokes it implicitly, recalling that when he came to power in January 2020, the United States was not only in the grip of the pandemic and a violent economic crisis, but also faced with “the worst attack on democracy since the Civil War.
He 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 had he not been re-elected.
Donald Trump described these conclusions, published overnight from Monday to Tuesday in a report, as “false”, calling its 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, also tries in his message 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 handing over the keys to the White House 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 promised after the November 5 election to achieve an orderly transition with the man he had publicly described as “a danger to democracy “.
The Democrat, despite persistent unpopularity and the visible progress of age, decided in the spring of 2023 to run again against Donald Trump.
He finally stepped down at the beginning of the summer, giving way to Vice-President Kamala Harris, who was clearly defeated in the presidential election.
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