On the day Joseph R. Biden Jr. was declared the winner of the 2020 election, President Donald J. Trump refused to concede, insisted that “this election is far from over” and vowed to fight the results in court. Two months later, as his supporters ransacked the U.S. Capitol in hopes of derailing the vote, Mr. Trump still would not accept defeat.
On Thursday, Mr. Biden took a very different approach.
In a seven-minute address to the nation, the president congratulated Mr. Trump on his return to power, urged Americans to accept that result and promised to work toward the kind of orderly transfer of power that Mr. Trump had tried to block four years ago.
“The American experiment endures,” Mr. Biden said in the White House Rose Garden. “We’re going to be OK, but we need to stay engaged. We need to keep going, and above all, we need to keep the faith.”
For Mr. Biden, the remarks were a moment of profound restraint. He had repeatedly condemned Mr. Trump as a threat to democracy and had warned that allowing him back into the White House would lead to economic disaster, a loss of rights for women and minorities, and a return to chaos and uncertainty overseas.
And yet, after a majority of voters concluded otherwise, Mr. Biden did not use his platform to air his grievances. Instead, he echoed Vice President Kamala Harris, who a day earlier told a crowd of supporters, some of them in tears, that she had conceded the race in a phone call to Mr. Trump.
Both Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris acknowledged the pain of losing. In her concession speech, the vice president said that “while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign.” In his remarks on Thursday, the president said that “setbacks are inevitable” but added that “giving up is unforgivable.”
It was an allusion to one of the most defining themes of his life and career, going back to the days after his first election as senator in 1972 when he considered resigning after his wife and daughter were killed in a car crash. During five decades in politics, he has persevered through defeats to achieve his life’s dream to become president.
Now, however, that dream has come to the kind of end that he had hoped to avoid. Mr. Trump’s victory will ensure a conservative assault on Mr. Biden’s agenda that threatens to undo his legislative and political achievements.
For most of the past four years, Mr. Biden expected that he would be the one to face Mr. Trump again. But concerns among Democrats about his age and mental fitness forced him to turn his re-election bid over to Ms. Harris. In his remarks, Mr. Biden praised her for giving her “whole heart” to the campaign.
“She has a backbone like a ramrod,” he said. “She has great character, true character. She gave her whole heart and effort, and she and her entire team should be proud of the campaign they ran.”
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said members of Mr. Trump’s team had not yet responded to White House officials’ outreach about transition planning, but that Mr. Biden’s staff would “leave that line of communication open.”
When the president walked to the lectern on Thursday in his trademark aviators, he received a standing ovation from the audience of cabinet members and staff members who had worked for years with an eye toward a second term, only to see that hope dashed when Mr. Biden abruptly withdrew in July.
At times, he spoke directly to them: Senior White House officials like Mike Donilon, his longtime strategist, and Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House chief of staff, sat in the front row, just to the right of the lectern. Mr. Biden’s granddaughter Finnegan was also in the audience.
But the tenor of the short speech suggested that it was the start of an effort by Mr. Biden to shape his legacy in a more far-reaching way in the days, weeks and months ahead. News organizations and history books will eventually catalog the president’s accomplishments and failures, and he wants to have a hand in how he will be remembered.
“Don’t forget all that we accomplished,” he urged people watching his speech. “It’s been a historic presidency, not because I’m president, because of what we’ve done, what you’ve done, a presidency for all Americans.”
On one level, Mr. Biden’s remarks sounded very much like his campaign pitch before and after he pulled out of the race. He described the legislation his administration passed and the people he believed he helped. But he also acknowledged that much of that help — like vast federal investments in infrastructure and climate measures — would not be felt for years. Despite those investments, many voters have said they did not feel his policies.
The president noted again that he believed the election was “the struggle for the soul of America,” a callback to the slogan for his presidential run in 2020. And he hinted at the idea that his presidency should be judged not just by the results on Tuesday but also as part of a longer story of America.
“I know for some people, it’s a time for victory, to state the obvious. For others, it’s a time of loss,” he said. “Campaigns are contests of competing visions. The country chooses one or the other. We accept the choice the country made.”
“I’ve said many times you can’t love your country only when you win,” he added.
Mr. Biden’s statement was notable not only for what it said, but also for what it did not. He did not offer any insight into the lessons he might have drawn from the outcome of the election. And he did not say if there was anything he regretted about his decisions along the way, notably his insistence on running for re-election and his choice this summer to step aside.
His staff says there will be time for reflection, commentary and memoirs later. But at least publicly, Mr. Biden appears to have set those thoughts aside. Toward the end of his remarks, as he almost always does in speeches, the president referenced advice he had once received from his father.
“We all get knocked down,” he said. “But the measure of our character, as my dad would say, is how quickly we get back up.”
For much of Mr. Biden’s life, it was him getting back up. Now, the getting back up will be for his successors, his staff and his supporters.
“So proud to have worked with all of you,” he told them. “I really mean it. I sincerely mean it.”
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