-
A lone man knelt at Beau Biden's grave as President Biden gave his inauguration speech
5:43 p.m. -
Biden signs wave of executive orders to immediately reverse Trump policies
5:41 p.m. -
Fox News contributors choke up talking about the importance of Kamala Harris being the first Black woman VP
4:59 p.m. -
Watch Biden arrive at the White House for the 1st time as president
4:48 p.m. -
Clyburn says George W. Bush called him 'the savior' over his Biden endorsement
4:24 p.m. -
There's a secret message for coders on the new White House website
3:59 p.m. -
Trump made 30,573 false claims as president, by The Washington Post's count
3:54 p.m. -
Only a sprinkling of Trump supporters showed up at state capitols to protest Biden's inauguration
2:20 p.m.
A Delaware News Journal reporter captured a powerful, private moment on Wednesday as Joe Biden gave his first address as president of the United States. "Poignant moment," the reporter, Patricia Talorico, captioned the photo, which swiftly went viral. "While Joe Biden gave his inauguration speech, a lone man in a uniform knelt at the Delaware grave of his son Beau."
Poignant moment: While Joe Biden gave his inauguration speech, a lone man in a uniform knelt at the Delaware grave of his son Beau. pic.twitter.com/QkCuJRHzTz
— Patricia Talorico (@PattyTalorico) January 20, 2021
As Talorico explained in a subsequent piece, "Delaware is a tiny state." She described how back in 2002, when she was struggling with an assignment from her editor, Beau Biden approached her to ask if she was okay while she sat alone on a bench at an elementary school in Wilmington. "He wasn't in office at the time," she wrote. "He was just being kind. It wasn't a grand gesture, just a small one, but somehow, it made a difference that day. I never forgot that act of kindness."
On Wednesday, Beau — who died of a brain tumor in 2015 at the age of 46 — was on Talorico's mind, and she decided to drive by his grave to say "a short prayer" when she saw "a lone man in a blue uniform kneeling at Beau's grave. No one else was around … In my car, I had the radio tuned to CNN. Joe Biden was being sworn in as president and was about to begin his address."
As Talorico writes, "The journalist in me wanted to go back and find out [the man's] identity and ask why he was there. The person who once received a kind gesture from Beau when I needed it most knew it was a time to be respectful, and I drove away." Read her full story at Delaware News Journal. Jeva Lange
President Biden has entered the Oval Office — and immediately started undoing former President Donald Trump's legacy.
After his inauguration Wednesday, Biden made his way into the White House for the first time as president, and found what he called a "very generous letter" Trump had left there for him. And after sitting down at the Resolute Desk, Biden signed a wave of executive orders overturning Trump's policies and installing others the former president would've opposed.
For starters, Biden instituted a mask mandate on all federal property across the U.S. Biden can't force Americans to wear masks everywhere — that's up to governors — but he does have jurisdiction over any federal government-owned property. He also stopped Trump's planned withdrawal from the World Health Organization, which Trump criticized for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and started the process of putting the federal government in charge of vaccine and testing coordination.
The U.S. had also just withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accords after Trump moved to step away from it years ago. But Biden's executive order signed Wednesday put the U.S. on track to rejoining it. Another order also temporarily banned oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and halted construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
After four years of Trump's hardline immigration policies, and seemingly in an attempt to counter the Obama administration's widely criticized immigration legacy, Biden quickly took action on immigration as well. He signed orders reversing Trump's Muslim travel ban and stopping construction of the southern border wall, and plans to bring a massive immigration reform bill to Congress on Wednesday. Kathryn Krawczyk
Liberal Fox News contributor Richard Fowler choked up during an appearance on the network as he marveled at the numerous glass ceilings broken by Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday.
"One part [of the inauguration] that caused me to get real emotional was, we've been a country for 243 years, and in all those 243 years, we have had women citizens but we have never had a woman hold national office," Fowler said, his voice breaking as he went on. "So to see Kamala Harris put her hand on the Bible today — also being her and I are of Jamaican descent, and I just think about my grandmother and my mom and so many other women who saw this, and so many young girls who can finally believe that they can be president, too, because of what we did as a country back in November."
Fox News contributor Richard Fowler gets emotional when talking about Kamala Harris being the first woman VP, and how it makes him think about his grandmother and mom, who like Harris are of Jamaican descent pic.twitter.com/Wdlo8Ca3uh
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 20, 2021
Fowler was not the only contributor on Fox News on Wednesday to be audibly moved by the significance of Harris' oath. Political analyst Juan Williams also emotionally explained, "It's visceral, and I'll tell you why. I have granddaughters, I'm the son of a Black mother — you think about American history, you think about the status of Black women in this country for most of our history. And the idea that a Black woman would assume such power in this moment as a national leader — truly inspiring." Jeva Lange
Fox News' Juan Williams gets choked up talking about Kamala Harris:
"You think about the status of Black women in this country for most of our history. And the idea that a Black woman would assume such power in this moment as a national leader, truly inspiring." pic.twitter.com/K13K0Q1vVX
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) January 20, 2021
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were sworn into office Wednesday, marking the end of former President Donald Trump's term. After the inauguration ceremony, Biden and Harris embarked on a short parade around the Capitol Hill area that ended at the White House. That's where Biden and his family got to step inside for the first time since Biden was vice president four years ago.
President Biden and @DrBiden arrive at the White House. https://t.co/xvklJYaA5z#InaugurationDay pic.twitter.com/6DGb7JjWC5
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 20, 2021
Shortly after Biden's arrival, Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff made it to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The vice president has a set of offices in the building next to the White House, but lives in a house on the grounds of the Naval Observatory about two miles northwest.
WATCH: Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, after being sworn in today as the first Black, female and South Asian VP in U.S. history. https://t.co/6hMTteTAC3 pic.twitter.com/N6LOjZt4Qz
— CNBC (@CNBC) January 20, 2021
The White House got a thorough cleaning after the Trump administration departed Wednesday morning. Biden administration members will be required to wear masks once they start working, unlike Trump's staff. Kathryn Krawczyk
Former President George W. Bush described House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) as "the savior" for helping President Biden make his way to the Oval Office, according to Clyburn himself.
The South Carolina Democrat revealed Wednesday he spoke with Bush ahead of the inauguration ceremony and that the former president called him the "savior" because of his key endorsement of Biden's campaign, The Associated Press reports.
"George Bush said to me today, he said, 'You know, you're the savior," Clyburn explained. "Because if you had not nominated Joe Biden, we would not be having this transfer of power today.'"
Clyburn backed Biden prior to the 2020 South Carolina Democratic primary, which Biden went on to win in what was widely seen as the major turning point in his presidential campaign; former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) subsequently dropped out of the race and endorsed him.
Bush, according to Clyburn, also described Biden as "the only one who could have defeated the incumbent president." Brendan Morrow
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) says President George W. Bush told him he's "the savior" for his help in getting Joe Biden the nomination.
Clyburn says Bush told him Biden was "the only one who could have defeated" Trump. pic.twitter.com/lXeRGLGCLu
— The Recount (@therecount) January 20, 2021
A new White House means a new www.whitehouse.gov. But most people who browse the spiffy website won't know that there's a secret message hidden right under their eyes.
Snuck into the HTML code is a "neat little Easter egg," Protocol reports — a message that says "If you're reading this, we need your help building back better," followed by a link to the U.S. Digital Service, the executive branch's elite technology unit.
Another hidden message on the page points anyone creeping on the HTML toward the White House's analytics website, which allows viewers to see how many people are on government websites at any given time, as well as what pages are the most viewed (if all this tech talk is Greek to you, you can snoop the page the easier way, by clicking here; turns out a lot of people try to track their USPS packages!):
In addition to the hidden message from the U.S. Digital Service, the new White House website’s source code also includes a plug for the federal government’s web traffic dashboard https://t.co/NtUta04bvA pic.twitter.com/c8ueoZljox
— Benjamin Freed (@brfreed) January 20, 2021
President Biden's tough tech agenda in office will indeed need all the help it can get — read more about what he wants to accomplish in office on the cyber front here. Jeva Lange
The numbers are in.
Former President Donald Trump racked up an astonishing 30,573 false claims throughout the four years of his presidency, according to The Washington Post's fact checker. They include repeated inflations like Trump's insistence that more of his border wall was built than actually had been, flat-out lies about just how many votes he received in the 2020 election, and everything in between.
The final count. Never would have believed this number was possible when we started four years ago. https://t.co/rZaAOI0gjd pic.twitter.com/2eCUxwtmSo
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) January 20, 2021
Trump's false claims increased most dramatically in the months leading up to the 2020 election. They plateaued again afterward as Trump stayed out of the public eye, even as he falsely insisted he won the election and that fraud had cost him votes.
Trump most often repeated his claim of building "the greatest economy in the history of the world," saying it 493 times, the Post counts. False claims about his political opponents wanting fully open borders and the actual size of his tax cuts also topped the most repeated list, which you can explore at The Washington Post. Kathryn Krawczyk
In the wake of the deadly riot in the U.S. Capitol building earlier this month, the FBI had warned that armed protests were being planned in every state capital. But though it was still early in much of America as President Biden was sworn in just before noon Eastern time, the handful of pro-Trump demonstrators who actually showed up were largely disappointed by the turnout, to say the least:
Mark Leggiero is the one lone Trump supporter out in front of the NYS Capitol. He says he expected a few thousand ppl here and is disappointed. He said he drove 45 minutes for a peaceful protest pic.twitter.com/hDtCLYFpLq
— Morgan Mckay (@morganfmckay) January 20, 2021
So far, two protesters are here at the Kansas State Capitol to protest the election. pic.twitter.com/huii3mpjIS
— Nolan Roth KAKE (@NolanRothKAKE) January 20, 2021
At the State Capitol in Sacramento, a lone Trump supporter wearing a red MAGA hat protested as President Biden took the oath of office Wednesday.
Live #InaugurationDay updates >> https://t.co/WowWEMPI7l pic.twitter.com/QaSrlvomgd
— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) January 20, 2021
Greetings from Concord, N.H. https://t.co/jD3k47cLIc pic.twitter.com/MxFe4bqROF
— Ruth Graham (@publicroad) January 20, 2021
At 12 Noon the scene outside of the Michigan State Capitol is a quiet one. Just a handful of demonstrators out along S. Capitol Avenue. @WWJ950 pic.twitter.com/JCedFflugr
— Jon Hewett (@JonHewettWWJ) January 20, 2021
In other states, nobody showed up at all:
As ceremonies continue in DC, all quiet at the Washington state Capitol in Olympia. Zero demonstrators. #InaugurationDay pic.twitter.com/fwxolDsLDt
— Drew Mikkelsen (@drewmikkelsenk5) January 20, 2021
There's a large presence of law enforcement and members of the Ky. National Guard at the Kentucky state Capitol in Frankfort – but so far, all is quiet. @heraldleader pic.twitter.com/EugXcLLKbO
— Ryan C. Hermens (@ryanhermens) January 20, 2021
All is quiet at the Utah State Capitol. No protesters that I’ve seen. The @UTNationalGuard is here again to respond, if needed. So far, I’m told no chatter of any local #Inauguration related protests. @fox13 #utpol #Utah pic.twitter.com/ym9pCyFyuD
— Ben Winslow (@BenWinslow) January 20, 2021
Meanwhile, in Montana, the only protester to show up ... was a counterprotester. Jeva Lange
INAGURATION DAY: So far, a quiet morning at the Montana State Capitol. pic.twitter.com/KXsy7DdB2w
— KFBB (@KFBB) January 20, 2021