Biden says goodbye: 5 takeaways from president's farewell address

 

'May you all be the keeper of the flame:' key takeaways from Joe Biden's farewell address

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden bid goodbye to the American people Wednesday night, saying in a farewell address to the nation that serving as president has been “the highest honor of my life” but warning that dangers on the horizon pose a serious threat to democracy.

“The America of our dreams is always closer than we think,” Biden said from the Oval Office. “It’s up to us to make our dreams come true.”

Biden’s nationally televised remarks came just days before he leaves office and President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House. Trump, who defeated Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, in November, will be sworn in for a second term on Jan. 20.

Biden’s 13-minute address marked not only as his departing words after four years in the nation’s highest office, but also served as a coda to a career of public service that spanned more than half a century.Here are five key takeaways from his speech:

Biden celebrates Gaza ceasefire deal

Much of Biden’s time in the Oval Office has been consumed by events on the international stage, with wars raging in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip.

Just hours before he addressed the nation, Biden announced a ceasefire and hostage-release deal after more than 15 months of war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The Biden administration brokered the deal, along with Qatar and Egypt.

Biden started his speech by reflecting for a few minutes on that agreement, which he said had resulted from eight months of nonstop negotiations.

While the plan was developed and negotiated by his team, Biden noted that it will be largely implemented by the incoming Trump administration. Biden said he had instructed his team to keep Trump and his staff fully informed about the agreement “because that’s how it should be – working together as Americans.”

Biden also noted that, under his watch, “Ukraine is still free” nearly three years after it was invaded by Russia. NATO has been strengthened, he said, “and we pulled ahead of our competition with China.”

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Biden touts job creation, other successes

Biden used his address to tout what he sees as his accomplishments on the domestic front.

When he came into office four years ago, the nation was still reeling from the deadly COVID pandemic that had wreaked havoc on the economy. The pandemic wiped out 22 million jobs because businesses were forced to shut down temporarily.

But through resilience, he said, the country bounced back, creating 17 million new jobs in the process, with entrepreneurs and companies setting up new businesses and industries hiring American workers using American products.

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“We’ve launched a new era of American possibilities,” he said.

He pointed to his administration’s campaign to modernize the nation’s roads, bridges and tunnels, bring high-speed internet to rural Americans and invest billions of dollars to bring semiconductor supply chains back to the United States “where they belong.” He also cited efforts giving Medicare the power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for millions of seniors and the passage of the most significant gun-safety law in three decades.

“It will take time to feel the full impact of all we've done together,” Biden said, “but the seeds are planted. And they'll grow and they'll bloom for decades to come.”

Biden warns 'oligarchy' threatens democracy

While he celebrated the past, Biden also warned of dangers in the future – particularly the potential rise of a “tech industrial complex” and an “oligarchy” of “extreme, wealth and power” that he said threatens American democracy.

Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, he said, enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling, he said, while social media is giving up on fact checking.

“The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit,” he said, stressing that social media platforms must be held accountable to protect children and families from abuse of power.

Artificial intelligence is the most consequential technology of our time, he said, but could spawn new threats to individual rights and privacy unless safeguards are put in place.

Biden also warned of “a dangerous concentration of power” in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy people who he said must be forced to pay their fair share of taxes and play by the same rules as everyone else.

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Biden calls for constitutional amendment

He never mentioned Trump by name, but Biden called for the passage of a constitutional amendment to make sure that no president is immune from crimes he or she commits while in office.

In July, the Supreme Court ruled that presidents cannot be prosecuted for "official acts" during their time in office. The court's ruling stemmed from the Justice Department's case against Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump, who was impeached twice during his first term, became the first former president to hold a criminal record after he was convicted in New York last year on 34 felonies involving hush-money payments to a porn star.

He also was indicted on multiple felony charges related to his handling of classified documents after he left office and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election leading up to an attack on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.

Biden, however, said the president’s power is not “unlimited.”

“It’s not absolute, and it shouldn’t be,” he said.

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'May you all be the keeper of the flame'

“Now it’s your turn to stand guard,” he said. “May you all be the keeper of the flame.”

“I love America,” he concluded. “You love it, too. … Thank you for this great honor.”

During almost every speech he has given during the past four years, Biden has ended with soaring language intended to lift up Americans and inspire them to reach for the sky.

“We are the United States of America – there is nothing, nothing, nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together,” he often said.

He chose different words for his sign-off on Wednesday, but the sentiment was the same.

Biden said that after 50 years of public service, he still believes in the ideals for which the nation stands, that the strength of its institutions and the character of its people matter and must endure.

But three weeks after Trump's victory in November, a judge acting on the request of special counsel Jack Smith − who deferred to Justice Department policy not to prosecute a sitting president − dismissed the charges that Trump tried to steal the election in 2020. Smith also effectively ended the classified documents case by dropping his appeal of a separate judge’s dismissal of those charges.