Biden: "This is America’s day”

Shafaq News / Joe Biden has been sworn in as the 46th president of the United States in a ceremony in at the US Capitol in Washington DC.

“Through a crucible for the ages, America has been tested anew, and America has risen to the challenge,” Biden said as he began his inaugural address. “Today we celebrate the triumph not of a candidate but of a cause: the cause of democracy . . . At this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed.”

Biden said “this is America’s day” and “democracy’s day”.

Biden was sworn in as president on Wednesday, assuming the helm of a country reeling from deep political divides, a battered economy and a raging COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 400,000 Americans.

With his hand on an heirloom Bible that has been in his family for more than a century, Biden took the presidential oath of office administered by US Chief Justice John Roberts, vowing to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”.