WILMINGTON, Del. – In a prime-time speech after the Electoral College vote, President-elect Joe Biden is set to declare that “not even ... an abuse of power” can stop a peaceful transition of power in the U.S. after last month’s election.
That’s an overt swipe at President Donald Trump’s refusal to accept defeat and the top Republicans who have continued to stand by him.
Biden is set to speak in Wilmington at about 7:30 p.m. ET Monday after the Electoral College formally votes to declare him president.
According to excerpts released ahead of time by his campaign, Biden plans to call for unity and again express his intentions to be a president for everyone, regardless of whether they voted for him.
“As I said through this campaign, I will be a president for all Americans,” Biden will say. “I will work just as hard for those of you who didn’t vote for me, as I will for those who did.
But he also will say that “In America, politicians don’t take power — the people grant it to them.”
“The flame of democracy was lit in this nation a long time ago,” Biden is set to say. “And we now know that nothing — not even a pandemic —or an abuse of power — can extinguish that flame.”
As electors gathered in all 50 states and the District of Columbia on Monday to formally vote for the next president, the U.S. reached two major milestones in the COVID-19 pandemic. The nation’s death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 300,000 people and the first doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine were administered to health care workers in several states.
During his remarks, Biden is also expected to touch on the state of the pandemic and what he’ll do to help get the country through it.
“There is urgent work in front of all of us. Getting the pandemic under control to getting the nation vaccinated against this virus. Delivering immediate economic help so badly needed by so many Americans who are hurting today — and then building our economy back better than ever,” Biden is set to say.