Biden Bids Emotional Farewell To Delaware En Route To The Presidency

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NEW CASTLE, DELAWARE - JANUARY 19: One day before being inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States, President-elect Joe Biden becomes emotional as he delivers remarks at the Major Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III National Guard/Reserve Center January 19, 2021 in New Castle, Delaware. The reserve center is named for Beau Biden, Joe Biden’s oldest child and who served as attorney general of Delaware and a major in the state’s National Guard before dying of brain cancer at the age of 46 in 2015. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

President-elect Joe Biden teared up twice Tuesday afternoon as he said goodbye to his adopted home state of Delaware and prepared to fly to Washington, D.C., to assume the presidency.

Paraphrasing, as he often does, Irish literature, Biden paused for several moments as he told a small, socially distanced crowd at a National Guard center named after his son Beau that “when I die, Delaware will be written on my heart.”

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Biden had hoped to travel to the capital by train, just as he did for decades as a U.S. senator, and like he and Barack Obama did before their 2009 inauguration. Security concerns nixed the train trip, though, so Biden is flying into Joint Base Andrews instead.

Still, Biden looked back on that 2009 trip, as he frequently did in speeches during his presidential campaign.
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“Twelve years ago, I was waiting at the station station in Wilmington for a Black man to pick me up on our way to Washington, where we were sworn in as president and vice president of the United States of America,” Biden said. “And here we are today, my family and I, about to return again to Washington, to meet a Black woman of South Asian descent, to be sworn in as president and vice president of the United States. … That’s America. That’s Delaware.”

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Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will join Biden later Tuesday for a ceremony on the National Mall honoring the 400,000 people who have died from COVID-19.

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