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Hello, I'm Oliver Conway and this edition is published in the early hours of Thursday, the 21st of January. Joe Biden has begun work as the 41st president of the United States.

I pledge this to you. I will be a president for all Americans, all Americans.

And I promise you, I will fight as hard for those who did not support me as for those who did is call for unity came up.

What he said was one of the most difficult times in American history. In this podcast, we'll look at the many challenges he faces, not least how to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

Also, we ask, what next for Donald Trump? Now he's left Washington for his home in Florida. And what about his supporters? Is it time for healing?

I think the biggest thing we need to do is a state in the nation as we need to find a little bit of unity. We need to be able to agree to disagree. And I don't know if it'll happen right away. It may take some time, but hopefully we can come back as one.

We'll hear from our correspondents in Washington and Michigan and we get reaction from the rest of the world.

Two weeks after a baying mob stormed the US Capitol, Joe Biden has been sworn in there as the 41st president of the United States. At 78, he becomes the oldest person to hold the office. And after John F. Kennedy, only the second Catholic standing on the Capitol steps, Mr. Biden pledged to be president for all Americans, saying that together they could overcome this moment of crisis and challenge. From the National Mall in Washington, Ally McBeal sent this report.

The national anthem sung by Lady Gaga near the start of a U.S. inauguration ceremony like no other. The dignitaries may have gathered, as they always do, on a platform on the west front of the U.S. Capitol. But they weren't, of course, looking out onto huge crowds because of the pandemic. Around 200000 flags instead filled the National Mall far into the distance to the towering Washington Monument. That was the rather haunting scene as Kamala Harris was sworn in as the first ever nonwhite and first ever female vice president.

And I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter. So help me God. So help me God. This land was made for you and me after Jennifer Lopez sang that stirring, inspiring folk song from the 40s that many consider an alternative national anthem.

Finally, the moment that President Trump had tried hard through legal action and misinformation to stop AI Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. do solemnly swear.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. do solemnly swear that the Mike Pence was in attendance.

Donald Trump was the first U.S. president in more than 150 years not to attend the inauguration of his successor. Given that exactly two weeks ago, the very stage on which Joe Biden stood was overrun with Trump supporters storming the Capitol. There are many who feel that was for the best. But Joe Biden's overarching message at this potentially dangerous juncture was about the need to come together on this January day.

My whole soul is in this bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation. And I ask every American to join me in this cause.

He made direct reference to the events of the 6th of January. The reason more than 20000 troops were stationed around Washington for this inauguration.

Just days after iritis, mom thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work of our democracy, to drive us from this sacred ground. It did not happen. It will never happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

And as the U.S. this week passed 400000 deaths from coronavirus, he gave remembrance and empathy.

We're entering what may be the toughest and deadliest period of the virus was set aside politics and finally faced this pandemic as one nation, one nation.

It was his third time of trying to be president. And after a lifetime of service and at the age of 78, Joe Biden has finally made it. But in doing so, he inherits challenges that are daunting in the extreme and limbo in Washington Wolf.

More on the challenges facing the new president. We can hear from our North America correspondent, Nick Bryant.

Knowing coming modern presidents has faced so many overlapping crises, the coronavirus pandemic and economic emergency, a racial reckoning and the challenge of trying to unite such a disunited nation which couldn't even agree on which candidate who won the election. This has been a transfer of diminished U.S. power. Joe Biden will signal a break from the Trump impasse with the stroke of his presidential pen. The United States will rejoin the Paris climate change accord. He'll end Donald Trump's travel ban on people entering America from several mainly Muslim countries.

He'll push for 100 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine in the first 100 days and also urge people to wear masks, a piece of fabric that's become a symbol of division. And under him, the U.S. will re-engage with the World Health Organization to help the global response to the pandemic Hilditch, the America first foreign policy doctrine of the Trump administration and seek to repair his country's battered international alliance system, the cornerstone of its postwar dominance. But like Donald Trump, he'll adopt a robust stance towards China.

The style of the Biden White House will also be completely different. A return to traditional conventions of behavior after four years of Donald Trump's reality TV presidency, there's a sense in Washington that normal programming has been restored.

Nick Bryan, soon as we record this podcast, President Biden has already begun work in the Oval Office, signing a series of executive orders, including rejoining the Paris climate accord. Meanwhile, the vice president has sworn in three new Democratic senators whose election, together with her casting vote, gives Mr. Biden a majority in the Senate even before the new president and vice president arrive for the day's ceremonies. Donald Trump had taken his leave of Washington, the first president since 1869, to refuse to attend his successor's inauguration.

Shortly after eight a.m., he and the first lady, Melania, were flown from the White House to Andrews Air Base, where they were given a 21 gun salute.

And they're in front of a small crowd of supporters, Mr. Trump gave his final speech as the 44th president.

The future of this country has never been better. I wish the new administration great luck and great success. I think they'll have great success. They have the foundation to do something really spectacular. The things that we've done have been just incredible.

And with that, he and his family boarded Air Force One bound for his Mar a Lago resort in Florida, departing to a soundtrack of Frank Sinatra's My Way. Mr. Trump himself said we were not a regular administration as he listed what had been achieved over the past four years. So how much difference has he made to the lives of Americans?

I asked Anthony Zuiker in Washington when he talks about those achievements, things like the tax cut package they passed, I think that affects some Americans lives, reducing their taxes. Some Americans would pay some some more taxes. I think he made a big mark on the federal judiciary, three Supreme Court nominees, over 200 other federal judges. Those people are going to be making decisions about personal freedoms, about abortion rights. That will have a lasting effect on many millions of Americans lives.

And then there are things like immigration policy which clearly affected how people move around this country, how people come into this country, whether they can expect to be able to stay here. That had a dramatic effect. So it definitely was an unconventional administration. And while he doesn't have a lot of those typical legislative achievements, he did change lives over the course of the four years.

Now, in that speech, he said we will be back in some form. What does he mean?

Yeah, kind of quite there, wasn't he? There have been rumors that he might start his own political party called the Patriot Party. Those have not been confirmed by Donald Trump, but is something clearly he's thinking about. There have been other rumors that he might start a media company to compete with conservative Fox News, that he might want to become Rupert Murdoch style media tycoon. And of course, there still is the possibility that he or one of his children might run for public office again.

There's a chance he might be prohibited from doing that if he's convicted by the U.S. Senate in his impeachment trial. But if he's not, he certainly has dropped hints that this may not be the only time he tries for a public office.

Yeah. Now, there was no mention of Joe Biden by name in those short remarks at Joint Base Andrews. But it was a sort of more measured speech than we've heard from him of late as he comes to terms with his loss, do you think?

Well, I mean, you know, he's getting on a plane and flying to Florida not to come back to Washington. So I think the reality has to be presenting him in the face at this point. It was similar to the speech he recorded and released yesterday evening, about a 20 minute speech, although this one departed from his scripted remarks and it was a lot more kind of Trumpton in the way he bounced from one thing to another and boasted about his achievements.

But now I think he's starting to view his presidency in a historical perspective, wants to frame it as one that was successful despite the criticisms he's facing from conservatives and liberals at this point, he's thinking about, as any president leaving office does, his legacy going forward.

Anthony Zuiker in Washington. The divisions which Joe Biden has said he wants to hear were on display in a small way in the state of Michigan. It voted for Joe Biden in November after helping Donald Trump secure his election victory four years earlier. There had been concerns that Mr. Trump supporters might stage violent protests on Wednesday. But our correspondent Netta Taoufik met only a handful of them in the state capital, Lansing.

At Michigan State Capitol, building longer protesting ground for President Trump supporters, a handful of men demonstrating in the cold, all assault rifle by Second Amendment right. For them, watching Donald Trump leave the White House is a crushing moment, is a stronger leader than the one who's going in there.

I think you had this going on a good path.

And, oh, God, I pray for these next four years and none of them are bothered that he is breaking with the long tradition of attending the successor's inauguration.

I wouldn't have done it either. Be honest with you. I mean, he knows it was all a fraud. The election that is Joe Biden served.

Thirty six other Republicans here, though, are spending the day watching the events in Washington with acceptance and even hope at an automotive repair shop. Jerry Carpenter and most of his staff voted for President Trump, but are looking forward to a bit of normalcy.

I think the biggest thing we need to do is a state in the nation as we need to find a little bit of unity. We need to be able to agree to disagree. And he I don't know if it'll happen right away. It may take some time, but hopefully we can come back as one.

For others, this is the end of a nightmare and a day filled with promise for the future.

There's family members that we don't talk to anymore because of their political view and our political view. And it's just kind of like, I hope that this will bring us all back together.

We should get back to being a normal country in no time, because that's the way we are. We Americans, black, white, white, black, all of us the same in light of the pandemic and the four hundred thousand.

Does this change in leadership takes on even a greater meaning? Thank God for Biden.

Nadette Taoufik reporting from Michigan. Well, in that report, we heard from just a few of the 74 million people who voted for Donald Trump. My colleague Evan Davis spoke to the journalist Megyn Kelly, former Fox News and NBC News anchor who now hosts a podcast, The Megyn Kelly Show. What advice does she have for President Biden and what he needs to do to win over more of Donald Trump supporters?

The core Trump base, that 33 percent, that never leaves him. They're not yet know. But the more moderate Republicans, the Mitt Romney type Republicans National Review is sort of how I look at them. I'm a conservative but moderate publication here. They're gettable. I mean, they would be open minded to certain job policies. But I think that if I were Joe Biden, the number one thing I would do, because this isn't so much policy.

Its approach is back off of the heavy push toward identity politics. Republicans hate it and most liberals hate it.

It's just sort of an established group on the far left that loves it. That's an easy way for him to lower the temperature with people who didn't vote for him without really sacrificing any policy.

And I don't think that is in Joe Biden's heart to push those wars of culture wars. And so I think he could focus on his on his agenda of the stimulus bill and covid relief and the immunizations and so on, the vaccinations in a way that wouldn't be as divisive as some of those issues have been.

Right. Advice for the Republicans, do they now become bipartisan and particularly thinking in Congress and and try and advance an agenda of some kind, the constructive one with the Democrats, or should they continue with with culture war issues?

Should they continue? Should they pay more heed to their more extreme right?

I feel like they have bigger problems first to solve before they get to policy. And the Republican Party is completely fractured. And now, you know, you've got the Trump wing, the sort of Magga make America great again wing. You've got the more established, quote, elite Republicans, and then you've got people who are more open minded to the Magga policies, though perhaps not the man.

And I think the Republican Party's got a lot of soul searching to do if it wants to win the next election.

So if I were advising them, I'd probably say push the culture wars because otherwise you're not going to win another election. You're so fragmented, you've got to keep people together.

All right. The last group, I guess I'm interested in the people who might have been there on that attack at the top of the Capitol a couple of weeks ago, hide under a bushel or come out and make a noise.

They're not going to go into hiding. These people are not disabused of their ardent love for Trump. We've seen open soundbites of his core supporters saying I would die for him.

You're telling me they're going to abandon that because parlor's gone? We need a little bit more honest reflection by the people who drove them to this place and a little less navel-gazing of it was all Trump and his tweets. I was that was part of it, but I wasn't all of it.

Obviously, impeachment still looms. Is that going to exacerbate some of these divisions, do you think, or not? Is that going to keep Trump is the sort of centre at center stage for the next couple of months?

Well, I think it will keep him at centre stage. And if I were advising the Democrats, I would say, don't do this. You've already won.

Trump is leaving office under a massive cloud. Take the wind. Just take it.

Don't do anything to generate sympathy for him. I just. Wonder whether it is going to be remarkably quiet compared to the the the journey we've been on over the last four years.

It would have to be just look at the ratings boon that cable news got when Trump took office, the tripling quadrupling of the ratings over at MSNBC and CNN, thanks to Trump. And now I do think you'll see that fade.

But I do think Trump will give them enough to talk about because he's not ready to give up that national spotlight.

American journalist Megyn Kelly. And still to come on the podcast, do you agree today that you were wrong to oppose bussing in America? Do you agree? I did not oppose busing in America.

We'll look at Kamala Harris historic journey to the White House. The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was one of the first foreign leaders to congratulate the new president, Joe Biden, the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, said he was looking forward to working with the Biden administration on shared priorities, but not to other parts of the world make of the transfer of power.

Let's hear from some of our correspondents, starting with Rajini Vaidyanathan in Delhi. There's two things, really.

There's the political and there's the personal. I suppose the overriding sense here today in India is one of pride, because, of course, Kamala Harris, the new vice president, is half Indian. And if you look at the Twitter feed today, she talks a lot about how her mother shaped her life and was a huge influence on her. And Shamala Gopalan was born in India and she left South India at the age of 19 to study in the US West Coast.

And that's where she met Kamala Harris, his father. And so today, before the swearing in, of course, because it's late here in India, there were prayers that were celebrations, fireworks, little income to Harris's ancestral village. Kamala Harris has spoken of how India really shaped some of her early political ideas. She used to visit India as a child every few years with her mother to visit her grandfather, Peevey Gopalan, who was a civil servant.

And when he retired, she would visit him and walk along the beach in Chennai city, formerly known as Madras, and they would walk along the beach. Her grandfather, his friends and Kamala Harris said she would hold his hand and listen to their conversations about corruption, about democracy, about justice. And she said in several interviews that those walks on the beach or Bessant, the beach in Chennai, shaped who she is today. So India really has had a profound impact on her life.

And so there's a huge sense of pride that just quickly as well, I should just say, before I had David to my colleagues, that I was just flicking through some of the Indian TV channels. And there's not just pride for the fact that Kamala Harris is at the highest office a woman has ever held in the United States as an Indian, but also the fact that the Biden cabinet has something like 20 Indian Americans in it, 13 of those women.

And so there was a montage running on Indian TV just now of all these people, people at the deputy press secretary, the assistant attorney general, Vanita Gupta, the surgeon general. So, I mean, it's a big day for India on many levels. David Rajini Vaidyanathan in Delhi.

President Trump was seen as a great friend to Israel. So what does the arrival of President Biden mean there? Here's Tom Bateman in Jerusalem.

For the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu was pretty speedy in getting the message out, congratulates Mr. Biden. Within minutes after he was sworn in saying that the warm personal friendship goes back many decades, looking forward to further strengthening the US and Israel alliance. But the reality is that this is the end of an era, as you allude to there, of really unparalleled support from Washington towards Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu had once described President Trump as the greatest friend that Israel had ever had in the White House.

And I think the key issue now is going to be over the Iran nuclear deal. This is going to be, Mr. Biden has said, his regional priority when it comes to the Middle East, because what he wants to do is put the US back into that deal. Was the agreement signed by President Obama with the Iranians and five other world powers that were supposed to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions. Now, Mr. Biden wants to get the Americans back into it after Donald Trump pulled the US out, albeit with stronger conditions attached.

Tom Friedman in Jerusalem with her assessment of the overall impact of a Biden presidency on the wider world. Here's our chief international correspondent, Liz Doucet.

You will notice that it was 15 minutes into a 20 minute speech before he actually delivered. He said very explicitly said, now I have a message to the world. And when he did that, he turned around and he said, you know, I include all my colleagues from the from the Congress and from the Senate. And we all know that the world is watching. But he used phrases, you know, as I said, America has been tested and we have come out stronger for it.

He used that phrase, which Americans have used down through the through many generations, that America will be a beacon to the world. But I think given the tone of the speech, given the content of the speech, what Joe Biden was trying to say and nobody around the world, and I've certainly heard it myself, needs to be reminded that his biggest challenges, his biggest problems and crises, they lie at home. But he also referred to the crisis that America has been through, through an attack on democracy, an attack on truth.

He talked about the climate crisis, systemic racism, inequity. All of those problems, of course, are not just America's problems, but they are the problems of the world.

The BBC's chief international correspondent, Liz Doucet. We heard a moment ago about how. People in India have been celebrating Kamala Harris historic achievement in becoming America's first woman vice president, but reaching the second highest office in the U.S. is just the latest in a series of trailblazing successes for her, as Riley Carlson reports.

Kamala Harris journey to the White House involves a string of firsts, starting with being the first born daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants who came to the U.S. for school and met during the civil rights movement. She credits her mother, Shamala Gopalan Harris, for shaping her outlook on life when she came here from India at the age of 19.

She maybe didn't quite imagine this moment, but she believed so deeply. And an America where a moment like this is possible.

After finishing school, Miss Harris decided to become a prosecutor, a choice she told the 2018 audience at Atlanta's Spelman College raised eyebrows with her activist family.

Well, what I said then and what I maintain today is there is a very important role to be played to change systems from the outside. And we should consider how we can also change the system from the inside being at that table where the decisions are being made.

Then more firsts, becoming the first woman to serve as district attorney in San Francisco, then the first woman and first African-American to be California's attorney general, all before being elected the first black senator from California in 2017. Then came her historic run for president.

The future of our country depends on you.

It was a fiery exchange with then candidate Joe Biden on busing in civil rights that pushed Harris to the top of the field.

Do you agree today that you were wrong to oppose busing in America? Do you agree?

I did not oppose busing in America, but some of her critics said she didn't do enough as a prosecutor to support more progressive reforms. Many Democrats found her hard to pin down, but just a year later, Joe Biden added her to the ticket as vice presidential candidate.

Her story is America's story, different from mine and many particulars, but also not so different in the essentials.

She'll be bringing another first with her to Washington. Her husband, Doug Imhoff, will become the country's first second gentleman.

My family means everything to me, and I've had a lot of titles over my career and certainly vice president will be great, but my family will always be the one that means the most for the next generation of politicians.

An important glass ceiling is shattered with her oath of office.

While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last. The new vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, ending that report by Riley Carlson. U.S. stocks have closed at a record high after Joe Biden's swearing in. That will be good news for the incoming president, who, like so many of his predecessors, has a bulging in-tray. Barack Obama took over in the middle of the worst recession in decades while Abraham Lincoln faced a civil war.

Joe Biden may not have it quite as bad as that, but he will have to turn around one of the weakest economies in generations, as Joe Lynam reports.

Please raise your right hand and repeat after me.

The OECD reckons that the US economy will have shrunk last year by three point seven percent for the first time since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

US total debt stands at a jaw dropping 29 trillion dollars. While the deficit or the difference between the tax the government takes in and the money it pays out is now at almost four trillion dollars. 10 million Americans are now looking for jobs. And the Gini measure of inequality, or the gap between the wealthy and the poor stands at a near record high of 41 percent.

So to say that Biden has inherited what they call a hospital pass in sport might be putting it mildly. And that doesn't include a rampant pandemic killing thousands of Americans every day as well as a deeply politically divided nation.

Touchdown, Delaware. What must Biden do immediately while taming the virus is Joe Biden's stated primary goal. It's the first time for a US president that the health of its economy is inextricably linked to that of its health.

We're going to create a recovery for everybody, for all. We're going to get this economy moving again. We're going to create jobs, raise incomes, reduce drug prices, advance racial equity.

Biden has promised to roll out the vaccine quicker, but also insists that all federal employees wear a mask for the first 100 days of his presidency. Biden will want to improve the lives of those most deeply affected by the crisis. The less well off he intends to raise the national minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour, which would benefit many of the people who got him to the White House, especially African-Americans. He has spoken about a massive investment program in American infrastructure and ending the trade wars with China and Europe.

Andrew Walker is the BBC's economics correspondent.

Internationally, the country's trade partners are hoping for a less confrontational approach. That was certainly what they got from the Obama administration in which Mr. Biden was, of course, vice president. Now there are additional tariffs, trade taxes imposed on goods from many countries. Will the new president rush to remove them?

And what about the specific conflict with China by Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. do solemnly swear that I will support. And although America bounced back quickly from the last major recession, the economic challenges this time are greater and the virus may be with us for some time in the future. If Biden can right the ship within four years, that alone would be a serious legacy.

A report by Joe Lyneham, and we'll end this podcast with the thoughts of our North America editor Jon Sopel. After four years covering the Trump presidency from the inauguration to the Capitol Hill riot. What does he make of the handover from one president to another two weeks ago?

Unbelievably astonishingly, I was reporting on a mob taking over the capital. It was the triumph of the mob. Two weeks later, we are back and we're reporting on the triumph of democracy. And maybe it was always destined that that would happen. But I have to say that two weeks ago, it didn't seem like that. It seemed that U.S. democracy was in a moment of grave peril and fragility. And the fact that today has gone with such normality and with the speeches in the order that they were laid out and with the address that Joe Biden gave, I think there'll be a huge number of people across America, Republican and Democrat, who will maybe be breathing a sigh of relief.

They may not have signed up to buy it, and they may absolutely loathe what he stands for. They may still be wishing with all their heart that Donald Trump is the next president. But if you believe in democracy, then there has been today the peaceful transfer of power. Our North America editor, John Sopel in Washington.

And that is all from us for now. But there will be an updated version of the Global News podcast later. This edition was produced by Alice Atalay and mixed by Johnny Hall, the editors. Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time. Goodbye.