Biden welcomes to the presidency a man he condemned as a major threat

President Joe Biden walked into the Rose Garden on Thursday morning to concede his party’s defeat, expressing confidence in the American electoral system and vowing to oversee a peaceful transfer of power.

But underlying his remarks was a funereal mood, as cabinet members and staffers were escorted to their seats, exchanging hugs and sober glances before rising for a standing ovation when the president emerged.

“Setbacks are unavoidable. But giving up is unforgivable,” Biden said. “A defeat does not mean we are defeated.”

“We lost this battle,” he added. “We’re going to be okay.”

Biden is now forced to welcome and legitimize a man he condemned, a man whose ouster - as he has said repeatedly over the past five years - was the entire reason he ran for president in the first place, and a man he has called a fascist and an existential threat to democracy.

Biden is now pledging to honor and accept Trump in a way that Trump did not and would not do for him. Biden’s fealty to democratic traditions requires him to courteously pave the way for a man who often dismisses them - but whom the voters chose.

“The American experiment endures,” the president said.

Staffers for Biden and Trump are now working to schedule a meeting between the two leaders, something that did not occur four years ago when it was Trump who was leaving the White House and Biden who was coming in. Biden’s aides say he will attend Trump’s inauguration, something Trump also refused to do when Biden took the oath of office, breaking a long-standing tradition.

Biden’s remarks in the Rose Garden simultaneously welcomed Trump and, implicitly but not subtly, criticized the man who is his predecessor and successor. He went out of his way to express confidence in Tuesday’s election results that so damaged his party, a stark contrast from Trump’s actions four years ago when he inspired an insurrectionist mob after he lost.

“We accept the choice the country made,” Biden said. “I’ve said many times, you can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t love your neighbor only when you agree.”

Biden spoke in a setting he knows well and where some of the memorable moments of his political career have played out. It was in the Rose Garden where he announced in 2015 that he would not run for president, a decision he came to regret, believing he would not have lost to Trump as Hillary Clinton did.

It was the place where, days after Trump won the 2016 election, Biden joined outgoing president Barack Obama for farewell remarks whose funereal tone was similar to Thursday’s, as staffers lining the colonnade wiped tears from their eyes and as Obama pledged to work on a smooth transition and said of Trump: “We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country.”

Now it was Biden’s turn.

A Marine stood at attention outside the Oval Office door as the president emerged in a navy blue suit and his aviator sunglasses. He smiled at the applause and nodded to one of his granddaughters who was there to watch.

“We’re in a democracy. The will of the people always prevails,” Biden said. “Yesterday, I spoke with President-elect Trump to congratulate him on his victory, and I assured him I would direct my entire administration to work with his team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition. That’s what the American people deserve.”

He praised Harris and the campaign she ran, and he acknowledged the work of her campaign staffers, many of whom once worked for him.

“You know, the struggle for the soul of America since our very founding has always been an ongoing debate and still vital today,” he said. “I know for some people, it’s a time for victory to state the obvious. For others, it’s a time of loss.”

In a career full of poignant moments, his appearance Thursday stood out. Biden was welcoming back a man he thought he’d vanquished for good. A man he was planning to run against until his own party forced him to withdraw. A man he believed his vice president was set to defeat in a triumph that would have cemented his legacy.

White House aides over the past two days have been pointing out that Biden remains the only candidate to have defeated Trump. But Biden also must reckon with the widespread repudiation he endured Tuesday, one that made it clear his presidency had not been popular enough to convince voters to continue with the policies he stood for.

A president who has long said Trump is an aberration in American politics now had to confront the idea that, instead, his tenure will be an interlude between two Trump terms. Biden ran to vanquish Trump only to see his presidency book ended by him. And the self-professed congenial optimist now had many reasons to be pessimistic.

He had once blamed Trump for the dark rhetoric that was inciting violence. In the aftermath of an election that sent Trump back to power, Biden continued pressing for unity.

“No matter who you voted for, you see each other not as adversaries, but as fellow Americans,” he said. “Bring down the temperature.”

During a White House briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre largely avoided answering questions about whether Biden regretted not dropping out sooner, or whether he still believes he could have defeated Trump if he stayed in the race.

“He believes he made the right decision when he stepped aside,” she said numerous times. “I’m not going to get into what could’ve or would’ve. He believed he did the right thing.”

At one point during the briefing, she made sure to note that no one beside Biden has prevailed over Trump in an election.

“This is the president who has been the only person able to beat Donald Trump,” she said. “I mean, that is true in 2020. He was able to do that. There were more than 20 candidates who tried to beat him, and he was the one that has been able to do that.”

During his remarks, Biden urged the country to trust that American elections are run freely and fairly - his most direct rebuke of Trump, who has been baselessly attacking the voting system, and demeaning those who run it, since he lost in 2020.

“I also hope we can lay to rest the question about the integrity of the American electoral system,” Biden said. “It is honest, it is fair, and it is transparent, and it can be trusted, win or lose.”

He touted his accomplishments but, in the closest he came to an explanation for his party’s broad defeat, acknowledged that some of those policies have not been felt or seen by average Americans because they are still being implemented.

At times, Biden seemed to be speaking aloud to himself. His run in 2020, he has long said, was inspired in part by a vow he made to his dying son Beau in 2015, promising he would stay engaged and would not retreat from public life.

“We all get knocked down. But the measure of our character, as my dad would say, is see how quickly we get back up,” Biden said. “But we need to stay engaged. We need to keep going. And above all, we need to keep the faith.”

If Biden has heard the widespread anger at him within his own party, many of whose leaders believe he should have stepped aside earlier and let a Democratic nominee emerge from the primaries, he did not acknowledge it in his remarks. And as reporters shouted questions at him - about what went wrong in the election, whether he regrets dropping out, whether he still believes Trump is a fascist - he did not pause to engage.

He waved to his staff and walked back to the Oval Office, returning just seven minutes after he had appeared, with no other public events scheduled for the day.