Biden calls on Americans to unite, says it’s time to heal

Democrat Joe Biden, who defeated President Donald Trump to become the next US president told Americans overnight in his victory speech he was a leader who “seeks not to divide, but to unify” a country gripped by a pandemic and economic and social turmoil.

“I sought this office to restore the soul of America,” Biden said in a victory speech close to  his Delaware home, “and to make America respected around the world again and to unite us here at home.”

Biden crossed the winning line with 270 Electoral College votes with a win in Pennsylvania after more than three days of uncertainty as election officials sorted through a surge of mail-in votes that delayed processing.

Trump however refused to concede, threatening further legal action on ballot counting, VOA reported. 

But Biden used his acceptance speech as an olive branch to those who did not vote for him, telling Trump voters that he understood their disappointment but said: “Let’s give each other a chance.”

“It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, to lower the temperature, to see each other again, to listen to each other again, to make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy,” he said. “We are not enemies. We are Americans.”

Biden’s victory was a rejection of Trump’s divisive leadership. However, the president-elect inherits a deeply divided nation that is struggling with the coronavirus pandemic. 

Meanwhile, Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris made history as the first woman, black woman and woman of Asian descent, to become vice president, an achievement that comes as the US faces a reckoning on racial justice, VoA reported. 

The California senator will become the highest-ranking woman ever to serve in the US government.

Harris introduced Biden at their evening victory celebration as “a president for all Americans” who would look to rebuild a nation so deeply divided. 

“Dream with ambition, lead with conviction and see yourselves in a way that others may not simply because they’ve never seen it before,” Harris told Americans. “You chose hope and unity, decency, science and, yes, truth … you ushered in a new day for America.”

However, all indications point towards Trump not giving up easily with media reports pointing towards a potentially turbulent transfer of power. 

Overnight Trump said his campaign would take legal action and in a tweet that was all in caps stated: “I WON THE ELECTION, GOT 71,000,000 LEGAL VOTES.” Twitter however immediately flagged it as misleading.

Trump is the first incumbent president to lose reelection since Republican George HW Bush in 1992.