WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will deliver a farewell address to the nation Wednesday evening, taking perhaps his last chance to reshape Americans’ grim views of his term before he leaves the White House.
He plans to deliver the speech at 8 p.m. ET in the Oval Office, the latest in a series of remarks on domestic policy and foreign relations aimed at cementing his legacy. Earlier in the day, he announced a long-awaited ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that could end more than a year of bloodshed in the Middle East.
But Biden is not leaving the White House in the way he had hoped. He originally tried to run for re-election, brushing aside voters’ concerns that he would be 86 years old at the end of a second term. After stumbling in a debate with Republican Donald Trump, Biden dropped out of the race under pressure from his own party.
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He supported Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump in November. Now Biden is preparing to cede power to someone he describes as an existential threat to the country’s democratic institutions.
He implicitly acknowledged that his promises remained unfulfilled in an open letter released Wednesday morning.
“I ran for president because I believed the soul of America was at stake,” Biden wrote. “The very nature of who we are was at stake. And that is still the case.”
The rest of the letter highlighted his achievements, including guiding the country out of the coronavirus pandemic, supporting domestic manufacturing and containing prescription drug costs.
Wednesday night’s speech will highlight not only Biden’s presidency, but also his five decades in politics. He was once the nation’s youngest senator at age 30, after being elected to represent his home state of Delaware in 1972.
Biden held the presidency in 1988 and 2008 before becoming Barack Obama’s vice president. After serving two terms, Biden was deemed to have retired. But he returned to the center of attention in 2020 as the unlikely Democratic nominee and successfully ousted Trump from the White House.
“Nowhere else on earth could a stuttering child from humble beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania and Claymont, Delaware, one day sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as President of the United States,” Biden wrote in his letter. “I have given my heart and soul to our nation. And in return, I have been blessed a million times over with the love and support of the American people.”
