Washington DC [US], January 16: President Joe Biden will cap his half-century political career on Wednesday with a final Oval Office speech, hoping to seal a legacy that has been overshadowed by Democrats' failure to stop Donald Trump from returning to the White House.
Biden ran for president in 2020 as a transition figure, but opted at the unprecedented age of 80 to run for reelection, convinced he was the only Democrat who could beat Trump.
Forced out of the race in July after a disastrous debate against Trump, Biden has been blamed by some Democrats for their November wipeout, after Vice President Kamala Harris' whirlwind campaign lost every battleground state.
Biden and his allies oversaw the recovery from COVID, funded an infrastructure revival, sparked new semiconductor chips manufacturing, and tackled climate change as they tried to rebalance inequality and invest in the future. He leaves an outperforming U.S. economy and optimistic businesses.
But Biden was unable to heal divisions in the country the way he had hoped, or stop democratic backsliding around the world. His crowning political achievement - defeating Trump in 2020 - proved temporary. Now the Republican president-elect has vowed to undo much of what the Democratic administration accomplished.
Biden addressed what he described as an ongoing threat to the country in a letter released early Wednesday by the White House.
A White House official said that legacies are set over the long term.
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Corporation
