Show an ad over header. AMP

President Joe Biden speaks at his inauguration: "Democracy has prevailed"

20 January 2021
Dan Ackermann

President Joe Biden sought to sooth a nation riven by political divisions and a global pandemic, but warned that "we have far to go" to heal the country and defeat a "virus that silently stalks the the country."

The big picture: Moments after taking the oath of office, Biden spoke on the Capitol’s West front, from the very steps that a pro-Trump mob launched an assault on Congress two weeks earlier. They were attempting to overturn an election where Biden defeated former President Donald Trump by more than 7 million votes.

  • "American has been tested anew and America has risen to the challenge," Biden said. "Democracy has prevailed."
  • Biden vowed the "confront domestic terrorism," and channelled former President Abraham Lincoln to help "bring America together and united our nation."
  • Trump, breaking with tradition, did not attend his successor's inauguration.
  • "This is a great nation. We are good people." Biden said. "But victory is never assured."
  • Biden directly addressed Trump’s supporters and asked them to “hear me out” before vowing to be “a president for all Americans.” "We must end this uncivil war."

Why it matters: While Biden's speech included olive branches to Trump supporters, his immediate actions are aimed at reversing many of the policies that Trump imposed in the opens days of his presidency.

  • After the speech, Biden will return to the White House, where he served as vice president just 8 years ago, with 15 executive orders, awaiting his presidential signature.
  • His flurry of executive actions is the start of an ambitious agenda to reverse Trump’s policies from energy to energy, banning drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve and wiping to a travel ban from mostly Muslim countries that Trump imposed on his first weeks in office.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

Section2

Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.