WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden mentioned that his predecessor, Donald Trump, left him a “very beneficiant letter” before leaving Washington forward of his inauguration on Wednesday.
Biden informed reporters within the Oval Office: “The president wrote a really beneficiant letter. Because it was personal, I cannot discuss it till I speak to him.”
The remarks got here after Biden signed three government actions, together with a requirement for face masks on federal property and a measure that might re-enter the US into the Paris Agreement on local weather.
The signing was Biden’s first press availability within the Oval Office, the place some decor from the earlier administration has been changed. He sat on the Resolute Desk, the identical desk Trump, Barack Obama and several other different presidents have used. Busts of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F Kennedy, whose careers impressed Biden’s work in public service, flanked the room’s hearth.
On a desk behind the desk sat photos of Biden’s household and a bust of the labor chief Cesar Chavez.
Trump departed Washington early Wednesday and arrived at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, before Biden was sworn in to switch him within the White House.
After signing the actions, Biden swore-in about 1,000 political appointees on the White House and federal companies, who participated by way of video convention within the East Room.
“We have to revive the soul of this nation and I’m relying on all of you,” he mentioned. “We’ve reached a degree, in my opinion, the place the American individuals — the blinders have been taken off.”
He mentioned that the federal government’s coronavirus vaccination program could be the “most consequential logistical factor that’s ever been achieved within the United States,” and that his administration “can meet this existential risk of local weather change.”
But he additionally admonished his appointees to guide with “one core American worth: humility and belief.”
“If you ever work with me and I hear you deal with one other colleague with disrespect, speak right down to somebody, I’ll hearth you on the spot. No ifs, ands or buts,” Biden mentioned. “Everybody is entitled to be handled with decency and dignity. That’s been lacking in an enormous approach the final 4 years.”
In response to a query from a reporter, Biden mentioned that he’s not involved about his cupboard nominees being confirmed. The Senate has but to fill any of his cupboard posts.
