President Biden is delivering his farewell address to the nation at 8 p.m. Wednesday, five days before he passes the mantle of the presidency to his predecessor and his successor, President-elect Donald Trump.
It will be Mr. Biden’s fifth and final formal address from the Oval Office. Six months ago, in his last primetime speech in the Oval Office, he explained his decision not to run for reelection.
Wednesday night’s speech will be a moment that wraps up not only Mr. Biden’s time as president, but his time in elected office. Apart from the four years following his vice presidency, Mr. Biden has held elected office every year since 1973.
In a farewell letter released by the White House Wednesday morning, Mr. Biden wrote that it has been “the privilege of my life to serve this nation for over 50 years.”
“Nowhere else on Earth could a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware, one day sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as President of the United States,” he added. “I have given my heart and my soul to our nation. And I have been blessed a million times in return with the love and support of the American people.”
The White House has not released excerpts of the president’s address.
Mr. Biden has been on an informal farewell tour in recent days. He delivered his final foreign policy speech at the State Department Monday and a speech on his conservation legacy Tuesday. He’s also expected to speak Thursday at a Pentagon commander-in-chief farewell ceremony.
In his foreign policy speech, the president sought to make the case that America’s position on the global stage and with its allies is stronger than it was when he took office four years ago. But now, the man he blamed for damaging key international relationships and threatening democracy is about to take office again.
Mr. Biden remains the only presidential candidate to defeat Trump, but with the president-elect’s defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden allies and other Democrats fear Trump will undo or undermine much of what they believe Mr. Biden has accomplished.
“I ran for president because I believed that the soul of America was at stake. The very nature of who we are was at stake,” Mr. Biden wrote in the letter. “And, that’s still the case.”
As Mr. Biden leaves office, he does so with a 39% approval rating, according to Gallup.
The global stage
On the foreign policy front, Mr. Biden says he’s leaving the incoming Trump administration with a “very strong hand to play.”
Mr. Biden insisted he’s strengthened relationships with allies and that key adversaries like Iran and Russia have been weakened.
“We’re leaving an America with more friends and stronger alliances, whose adversaries are weaker and under pressure,” the president said in his foreign policy address Monday, “an America that once again is leading, uniting countries, setting the agenda, bringing others together behind our plans and visions.”
The president also stood by his decision to withdraw the U.S. from Afghanistan, which brought an end to America’s longest war, but cost the lives of 13 service members and dozens of Afghan civilians in a terrorist attack at the Hamid Karzai Airport in Kabul.
The next administration will inherit its own set of challenges, Mr. Biden pointed out, including a growing relationship between Russia and North Korea, Russia’s continued war on Ukraine, tensions in the South China Sea and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
The economy
The Biden administration has argued the country is better off economically since he took office, pointing to his efforts to lower drug prices, the enactment of the bipartisan infrastructure law and unemployment levels that have remained low.
The U.S. unemployment rate was 6.4% when Mr. Biden took office, with the economy still reeling from the global COVID pandemic. The president leaves office with an unemployment rate of 4.1% in December.
Mr. Biden said in the letter that he entered office under the “worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,” while touting that four years later, “we have the strongest economy in the world and have created a record 16.6 million new jobs.”
But inflation has also battered Americans’ pocketbooks and voters who sent Republicans to the White House and Congress cited inflation and higher prices as their top issue.
Inflation has risen more than 20% since Mr. Biden took office, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And some key expenses have climbed at a faster rate, including groceries and car insurance premiums.
Between higher home costs and higher interest rates, the monthly payment on a 30-year mortgage on a new home has nearly doubled since Mr. Biden took office.
Key legislation
The bipartisan infrastructure legislation he pushed and Congress passed in 2021 remains one of the most tangible legislative accomplishments of Mr. Biden’s presidency, allowing for the rebuilding of bridges, public transportation and other infrastructure priorities.
In 2022, Congress passed the most significant gun control legislation in decades, with Republican support. It expanded firearm background checks, and addressed the ties between gun violence and mental health.
The Inflation Reduction Act, though criticized for doing little to lower inflation, did make it possible for the administration to embark on negotiations to lower drug costs. The law also contained the most significant climate change measures ever enacted.
Pardoning his son
An inevitable part of the president’s legacy will be his decision, on Thanksgiving weekend, to offer a full and unconditional pardon to his son Hunter for felony gun crimes and tax evasion.
