On a day marking the momentous end of the disastrous past four years and the beginning of what might be a new chapter for the United States, Joe Biden was inaugurated as President and Kamala Harris as Vice President. Making history as the first woman and the first woman of color to fill the role of Vice President, the former California Senator, daughter of two immigrants—a Black man and an Indian woman—took her oath of office led by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Following that Joe Biden, who has spent decades in office, was sworn in as President by Chief Justice John Roberts. Mr. Biden’s inaugural address offered a stark contrast from the images of “American carnage” that his predecessor kicked off his tenure with. Among other things he alluded to how dangerously close the 2020 election came to being overturned. Biden offered a calmer era of Presidential politics. He also hailed the start of the history-making tenure of Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden recalled how exactly two weeks ago to the day, Capitol Hill swarmed with loyal supporters of the 45th President who answered his call to invade the Senate and stop Biden’s win from being certified. 

Following President Biden’s inaugural address, a 22-year old Black woman named Amanda Gorman, who is the nation’s first “National Youth Poet Laureate,” and an activist from Los Angeles, read a powerful poem exactly two weeks after a riotous white supremacist armed mob overran the Capitol, and hours after their President flew a helicopter to his new residence in Florida.

Former President Donald Trump refused to attend Biden’s inauguration, becoming only one of a handful of single-term Presidents in U.S. history to showcase his soreness at losing reelection. He did leave a note for Mr. Biden as is the tradition, but the contents of it are so far under wraps. He left Washington D.C. on Wednesday after telling people to, “Have a good life,” as activists gathered on Black Lives Matter Plaza to celebrate his departure. His last day in office was marked by a late-night flurry of showering pardons and commutations to nearly 150 people including his former chief strategist Steve Bannon and former fundraiser Elliot Broidy. And one of his last acts in office was to quietly undo an anti-corruption measure he had hailed as “draining the swamp” – a rescinding of his own executive order to limit officials from turning into lobbyists or working for foreign governments after leaving their government positions. Trump also reportedly wants to form a new political party called the Patriot Party. 

On his first day in office President Biden plans to