President-elect Biden begins transition
Biden commits his first term as President to getting COVID under control and pulling a fractured country back together
ABC News
President-elect Joe Biden celebrates his election victory in a speech on November 9 to the American public. During his transition, Biden has continued to preach unity between political parties—a key campaign message.
November 17, 2020
President-elect, Joe Biden, wasted not time taking action. Only hours after winning the election on November 7, Biden gave a speech calling for peace between Democrats and Republicans.
“Refusal of Democrats and Republicans to cooperate with one another,” said Biden in his victory speech, “it’s not some mysterious force beyond our control. It’s a decision, a choice we make. And if we can decide not to cooperate, then we can decide to cooperate.”
Biden urged Americans to put their differences aside and work together to provide opportunity and possibility to the country and the American citizens in it. In this same victory speech, Biden stated that he will begin his presidency by getting COVID-19 under control, starting even before he is officially in office. 
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“Folks, our work begins with getting COVID under control,” said Biden. “We cannot repair the economy, restore our vitality or relish life’s most precious moments, hugging our grandchildren, our children, our birthdays, weddings, graduations, all the moments that matter most to us, until we get it under control.”
Biden also vowed to name a COVID-19 task force compiled of scientists and experts to build an action plan in response to the pandemic set to begin on January 20, 2021, Inauguration Day.
“That plan will be built on bedrock science,” said Biden. “It will be constructed out of compassion, empathy and concern. I will spare no effort, none, or any commitment to turn around this pandemic.”
On November 9, Biden named the members of his COVID-19 task force, which includes 13 doctors and health care experts. In his statement given the same day, Biden urged Americans to wear masks, stay socially distant, and do their part to stop the spread of COVID-19.
“A mask is not a political statement, but it is a good way to start pulling the country together,” said Biden. “I want to be very clear, the goal of mask wearing is not to make your life less comfortable or take something away from you. It’s to give something back to all of us, a normal life. The goal is to get back to normal as fast as possible and masks are critical in doing that.”
Biden’s statement came after Pfizer and BioNTech announced that their coronavirus vaccine was over 90 percent effective in people without evidence of prior infection.
“We are Americans and our country is under threat,” said Biden. “We’re now called to do the same thing that generations of proud Americans have done when faced with a crisis throughout our history.”
Though President Donald Trump continues to falsely claim that Biden’s victory is the result of widespread election fraud — and that, in fact, he won the election — Biden’s transition team has already taken the action it can to set an agenda for the President-elect’s first 100 days.
