'Celebrating America' - A PBS NewsHour inauguration special

JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening, and welcome to this "PBS NewsHour" live inauguration night special.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

Today, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both made history.

He, at 78, is the oldest person to become president, and she as the first woman and person of Jamaican and South-Asian descent to be vice president.

It was a day many feared could see violence, but it was marked, thankfully, by peace, by calls for unity and perseverance.

Even so, this new administration faces a myriad of challenges, a pandemic that has claimed over 400,000 American lives, an economic crisis crippling millions of households, a need to reconcile after the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and the second impeachment of the outgoing president.

Instead of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans on the National Mall today, there were more than 25,000 National Guard on high alert.

Tonight, rather than the traditional inaugural balls, there will be a virtual program that organizers are calling "Celebrating America."

But before we get to that, we want to take a listen again to some of the words of President Joe Biden today in his inaugural address, and then reflect for a moment on this historic day.

JOE BIDEN, President of the United States: My fellow Americans, this is America's day.

This is democracy's day, a day of history and hope, of renewal and resolve.

Through a crucible for the ages, America has been tested anew and America has risen to the challenge.

Today we celebrate the triumph not of a candidate but of a cause, the cause of democracy.

The people, the will of the people has been heard.

And the will of people has been heeded.

We've learned again that democracy is precious.

Democracy is fragile.

And at this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) JOE BIDEN: So now on this hallowed ground, where just a few days ago violence sought to shake the Capitol's very foundation, we come together as one nation under God, indivisible, to carry out the peaceful transfer of power as we have for more than two centuries.

I know speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy these days.

I know the forces that divide us are deep and they are real.

But I also know they are not new.

Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal, that we are all created equal, and the harsh, ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, demonization have long torn us apart.

The battle is perennial and victory is never assured.

We have never, ever, ever, ever failed in America when we've acted together.

And so today, at this time and this place, let's start afresh, all of us.

Let's begin to listen to one another again, hear one another, see one another, show respect to one another.

Politics doesn't have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path.

Every disagreement doesn't have to be a cause for total war, and we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated, and even manufactured.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) JOE BIDEN: To all those who supported our campaign, I'm humbled by the faith you placed in us.

To all those who did not support us, let me say this: Hear me out as we move forward.

Take a measure of me and my heart, and if you still disagree, so be it.

That's democracy.

That's America.

The right to dissent peaceably within the guardrails of our republic is perhaps this nation's greatest strength.

Yet hear me clearly: This agreement must not lead to disunion.

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

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) JOE BIDEN: And I promise you, I will fight as hard for those who did not support me as for those who did.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) JOE BIDEN: I understand that many of my fellow Americans view the future with fear and trepidation.

I understand they worry about their jobs.

I understand, like my dad, they lay in bed, staring -- at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering, can I keep my health care, can I pay my mortgage, thinking about their families, about what comes next.

I promise you, I get it.

But the answer is not to turn inward, to retreat into competing factions, distrusting those who don't look like -- look like you or worship the way you do, or don't get their news from the same sources you do.

We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural vs. urban -- rural vs. urban, conservative vs. liberal.

We can do this, if we open our souls, instead of hardening our hearts.

My fellow Americans, in the work ahead of us, we're going to need each other.

We need all our strength to preserve -- to persevere through this dark winter.

We're entering what may be the toughest and deadliest period of the virus.

We must set aside politics and finally face this pandemic as one nation, one nation.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) JOE BIDEN: Folks, this is a time of testing.

We face an attack on our democracy and on truth, a raging virus, growing inequity, the sting of systemic racism, a climate in crisis, America's role in the world.

Any one of these would be enough to challenge us in profound ways.

But the fact is, we face them all at once, presenting this nation with one of the gravest responsibilities we've had.

Now we're going to be tested.

Are we going to step up, all of us?

It's time for boldness, for there's so much to do.

And this is certain.

I promise you, we will be judged, you and I, by how we resolve these cascading crises of our era.

My fellow Americans, I close today where I began, with a sacred oath.

Before God and all of you, I give you my word, I will always level with you.

I will defend the Constitution.

I will defend our democracy.

I will defend America.

And I will give all, all of you, keep everything I do in your service.

So, with purpose and resolve, we turn to those tasks of our time, sustained by faith, driven by conviction, and devoted to one another and the country we love with all our hearts.

May God bless America, and may God protect our troops.

Thank you, America.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) JUDY WOODRUFF: Joe Biden, excerpts from his inaugural address earlier today.

It is a new day at the White House.

And our Yamiche Alcindor has been there all this day from early this morning.

Yamiche, the pile of challenges doesn't get any higher than what Joe Biden is looking at.

And he was talking about that today.

How is he starting on day one to address them?

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, this is the combination of 48 years of government service for Joe Biden, now president, the 46th president of the United States.

And he said very clearly that he wants to be optimistic, that he does believe America can get through these challenges together.

But he is also being a realist, saying that he understands that this is a dark winter, understands that he is inheriting a country that is divided, both around racial lines, also traumatized by the attack on the Capitol, where Americans took up arms against other Americans, trying to topple American democracy.

He is focused, he says, specifically on two viruses, both the coronavirus and racism, saying that those two things at play are top of mind for him.

He has signed now 17 executive actions, many of them going to the core of the pandemic, talking about having a national mask mandate, and for federal properties, as well as rolling back a number of Trump policies, including a ban on Muslims coming to this country from Muslim-majority countries, also wanting to rejoin the Paris climate accord, wanting to rejoin the World Health Organization.

But this really is about Joe Biden saying, we are turning the page on lies and on disinformation and going now into truth and civility.

Here is what Joe Biden also said to his own White House aides as he was swearing them in today.

JOE BIDEN: If you are ever working with me, and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect, talk down to someone, I promise you I will fire you on the spot, on the spot, no ifs, ands or buts.

Everybody, everybody is entitled to be treated with decency and dignity.

That's been missing in a big way the last four years.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: That is Joe Biden saying that he is changing the tone.

And, of course, he says he's also changing the tone by having a diverse Cabinet, saying - - he's saying the most diverse in history.

And, of course, he's doing all this alongside now Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Black woman, first South Asian, and first member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, a Black sorority, to hold that position, someone that people say really just embodies the change and the civility that Joe Biden is going for here.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And just finally, Yamiche, a sense of reaching across the aisle.

I mean, he spoke about, let's end this uncivil war.

You get the idea that he really does want to sit down with Republicans.

What do you hear there about that?

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: That's right.

Joe Biden, someone who has been a creature of the Senate, who spent a lot of years in the Senate making deals, as well as vice president, being set down to make deals, he says that he is going to work across the aisle with Republicans.

He has a $1.9 trillion COVID package that he needs to get through Congress.

So, it's going to take him talking to Republicans, he thinks.

And this is also a White House that says that they are going to be bipartisan also in the way that they effectively govern, inviting Republicans to have their ideas heard.

This is also a president that, in some ways, is really thinking about bipartisanship, he says, all along the line.

I should say one thing.

I was walking around the White House, taking it all in.

And I ran into White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain.

And on his face was a mask that was red and blue that said "Unity."

So, they are taking that message not only to the inauguration, but also in what they're wearing at this White House tonight.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Very interesting.

And I know, Yamiche, you said they have instituted new rules.

Everybody's being tested, wearing masks, a new kind of day.

Yamiche Alcindor, thank you so much for all this reporting on this long day.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And now let's step back to get a sense of this Inauguration Day and its place in American history.

Joining us, a renowned documentary filmmaker familiar to everyone who watches PBS, Ken Burns, and Harvard historian Annette Gordon-Reed.

It's so good to see both of you.

Thank you for being here.

Ken Burns, I do want to start with you.

You have spent a lot of time looking at American history.

And I know you listened closely and you watched closely what happened today.

What parallels are you drawing, or does this day stand alone?

KEN BURNS, Documentary Filmmaker: Well, it stands alone because it has so many elements of so many other crises.

Up to this moment, the three great crises in the United States, the Civil War, the Depression, and World War II, are sort of all combined in one, and then some, for Joe Biden.

I made, Judy, a film on the history of the Congress in the early '80s.

And Cokie Roberts took me around in the days when you could just walk in a door.

I, in deference, turned to a Capitol Policeman and said -- this big Black man, and I said: "Oh, I'm sorry.

Can I go in here?"

And he said: "It's your house."

And Cokie would take me around and show me the secret hiding places of various members of Congress, where they consciously went to get away, not because they had to hide from a mob, and later on sat down for an interview in which she said that, when Richard Nixon resigned, not a single troop went on alert, not a single troop changed barracks.

And I thought, going into today, that the 25,000 National Guardsmen ringing the Capitol would in some ways affect the day.

And it didn't.

Something was direct and pure and refreshed.

The disgraced outgoing president never saw anything bigger than himself.

And here we have a man, Joe Biden, who has assumed the presidency, who sees other people as equals.

He understands there's no communication except among equals.

And he recognizes things that are bigger than himself, his God and his savior, but also this country and its institutions and its values.

So, something remarkable happened today, that, as this man faces the greatest existential threat in the history of the United States, it came with a kind of calm.

He knew what was ahead of him.

We have three viruses, I would suggest, in all due respects to Yamiche, not just the virus of COVID that is a year-old, not just the 402-year-old virus of white supremacy and racial injustice, but with the age-old human virus of lying and paranoia and misinformation and deceit and conspiracies.

And the only way that that gets mitigated is through love and compassion.

And Joe Biden embodied those today.

In fact, the whole ceremony had that from the very, very beginning to the very, very end, including that young, remarkable woman, Amanda Gorman, who read that amazing poem.

We were, in essence, cleansed today.

And one had a sense that there are difficult tasks ahead of us, perhaps insurmountable, but that we have someone who has the will and the ability to move forward towards them.

And I think he enlisted lots of Americans on both sides of the aisle in a kind of common purpose, unum.

JUDY WOODRUFF: It's so important to hear that take on today, and to be reminded of our late dear friend Cokie Roberts taking you around the Capitol.

Annette Gordon-Reed, to pick up on what Ken was just saying, compare the challenges that Joe Biden is facing, is stepping into with what previous -- I mean, previous presidents have come into office in the middle of wars, on the cusp of a Civil War.

I mean, what -- how do you compare what he faces?

ANNETTE GORDON REED, Harvard University: Well, as Ken said, there are a number of things all crashing together here, the coronavirus that has decimated so much of the -- so many people in the country and that is -- remains as a threat, and the epidemic of, Ken said lying, the prevalence of misinformation, disinformation that create suspicion and created the situation where people stormed, ransacked the Capitol Building.

It's very hard to think of a time like this.

When we had the Civil War, the South did not like the fact that Lincoln was elected president, but they didn't say he wasn't the president.

They just wanted to go on their way.

But this is something different.

We have never seen this.

And we have taken our republic, our democracy for granted, thinking that of course this is all going to work out.

And a lot of those sort of warning signs that were given, we sort of ignored.

And it's still surreal to think that, a couple of weeks ago, there were people storming the Capitol and looking for, apparently looking for members of Congress to do harm to.

And that's something that we think of happening in other kinds of countries.

America is very much into this notion of exceptionalism.

And it's good to be confident, but it can also lend a false sense of security, when people take what we have for granted.

And Biden, President Biden, now has to work against some very, very difficult, difficult circumstances here.

It's -- he hit the right note, I think, talking about unity, talking about the road ahead.

He was very, very matter of fact about what he has to do, and thinking of -- he used the phrase the winter of peril and significant possibilities to sort of say, yes, this is a tough time, but we can do something.

Government can do something.

We can work together to achieve the goals that we have to achieve if we want to go forward in this country.

But the reality is, there are 70 million people who didn't agree with his program.

There are some significant number of people, apparently, who did not even believe or don't believe that he is a legitimate president.

And that's something that we haven't faced before.

I think he's going to have to prevail over that, to the extent that he can, by being successful.

He has to do things, and he has to move the country forward, have some successes, and then maybe people will not invent problems that are not there, if there are actual problems being solved.

So, I was very heartened by his message.

I think he did just what he was supposed to do.

He showed himself.

This was not -- you didn't think that this was artifice.

This was actually Joe Biden speaking, and with humility, but with a sense of purpose.

But I'm still wondering how this is going to play.

Love is important.

Love must be there.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Yes.

ANNETTE GORDON-REED: But I wonder about the other side.

Will that be met with an equal commitment to moving forward?

And we just don't know at this point.

We really don't.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We will see about that, for sure.

Ken Burns, as someone who's in the business of digging out the truth of our history and the story -- the American story, I mean, is there advice for Joe Biden?

How do you go about countering a huge lie?

KEN BURNS: That's the whole thing right now.

We're not on the same page.

Joe Biden has said this.

So many people have said this.

One wouldn't want everyone to believe the same things, but we want to be on the same page.

Many of us grew up with just three different news stations.

You read a couple of different newspapers, if you lived proximate to their publication, or you subscribed to local newspapers that had the AP or the UPI.

We basically shared common information.

You could say that, when the Fairness Doctrine went out in 1987, and then with the fall of the Soviet Union, you had a kind of twin thing, where, absent an enemy, many people turned to the opposite party, particularly Republicans against Democrats, and made them the enemy.

And, somehow, we have got to get back to that.

And Annette is absolutely right.

There is great, obviously, momentum and inspiration that comes from a day like today, but he's going to have to deliver vaccines.

He's got great opportunities ahead of him to invest in education, to invest in unum, to invest in eradicating rural, as well as urban poverty, investing in infrastructure, in climate and sustainability, and, of course, health care, beyond else -- but that stuff has to be done.

And we're not sure how willing people are, making those cold political calculus about what the base wants and what they don't want, and will I get reelected, and will people give me money to run for my election?

So, I'm trying to balance the cascading threats that are greater than any other moment in American history in some ways, understanding that Lincoln understood from the very beginning that the threat wouldn't come.

No transatlantic army could step the earth and crush us at a blow, he said.

If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.

As a nation of free men, we will live through all time or die by suicide.

And we are at that moment in which we have seen -- the curtain has been drawn, and we have seen what that end looks like with that mob.

And yet 160 million people voted, the most secure election in history.

And poll workers and voters went, withstanding this virus.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Yes.

KEN BURNS: The courts dismissed every challenge.

We have a woman of color and a woman as a vice president.

And we have the oldest president, who has himself been tempered by suffering, which has given him that humility that Franklin Roosevelt also had when he was stricken by polio, and was able to translate, this patrician born to the manner able to translate that into a kind of empathy that ordinary people felt.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And just in a few seconds, Annette Gordon-Reed, the hope that people will listen and will respect each other, as President Biden said today?

ANNETTE GORDON-REED: Yes.

And I -- as Ken said, I was enormously encouraged by the voter turnout.

Young people, after the election of 2016, people of my daughter's generation, some of her friends, ran for office.

She became involved in campaigns.

That's the bright side of all of this.

I think the past four years have been difficult, but it galvanized people.

And we see people standing in line to vote.

I mean, it's not a great thing that they had to work so hard to do that.

And that's one thing that the president should be working on, the president and Congress, and also local officials as well, to make voting easier for people, for eligible voters.

I think that there's a cause for optimism here.

President Biden can't do all this on his own, and I don't expect him to do it on his own.

But I do think that the combination of people working together is what will make this work.

And there are signs that that could happen.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We are so grateful to the two of you, as we began to reflect on, to think about, and to watch closely as this new president gets under way.

Annette Gordon-Reed, Ken Burns, we are so appreciative.

Thank you.

ANNETTE GORDON-REED: Thanks for being here.

Glad to be here.

JUDY WOODRUFF: As we know, new first families in the White House always bring change to Washington in substance, in style and tone.

The differences between the Trumps and the Bidens are already notable.

Robin Givhan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and the senior critic at large for The Washington Post.

Robin Givhan, thank you so much for being with us tonight.

Tell us what you see already in terms of a different tone from this new first family.

ROBIN GIVHAN, The Washington Post: Well, just with the inauguration, I was really struck by, first of all, the sense of calm that was really exuded both from the inaugural address, but also just the circumstances, the symbolism.

And I was very struck by the fact that President Biden was able to speak in a very forthright manner, but in a way that wasn't alarmist.

And I also found so many of the symbols of sort of patriotism and America that had been in many ways sort of weaponized over the last four years, used as kind of a wedge between people, to see them sort of redefined as something that is unifying and more optimistic.

Hearing Jennifer Lopez singing "This land is my land, this land is your land" had really deep resonance.

Hearing Lady Gaga kind of linger on lines from the national anthem, I think, really underscored that, in many ways, the country has come out of a different kind of battle.

And so, in that way, it really felt like a lot of the things that symbolize America have been reborn in a way.

JUDY WOODRUFF: It's so interesting you should say that, because we remember hearing President Trump speak repeatedly about the predominance of America, the centrality of America.

There were flags everywhere.

And there were flags everywhere today.

But there was a different feel about it all.

The message that was coming from this inaugural was just -- was just a different message, in the way people presented themselves.

I mean, you have written about the clothes that were chosen by the new vice president.

She chose American designer.

It's something - - this message can come through in so many ways.

ROBIN GIVHAN: Yes.

I mean, when we were thinking about the flag, particularly -- the previous administration, the flag seemed to be used in a way that was very boastful and that was aggressive.

And, today, I really felt as though the flag had been repositioned, so that it was much more reflective of the people that it represented.

And that was certainly seen in the incredible art installation on the Mall, where some 200,000 flags essentially stood in for the populace that couldn't be there.

And so the flag wasn't diminished, but I think it became a much more intimate kind of symbol and a much more inclusive one.

And, certainly, the vice president made a significant choice when she decided that she would wear the work of a young African-American designer, Christopher John Rogers, for this occasion.

JUDY WOODRUFF: I was thinking, as you were describing the flag, the difference.

That sea of waving flags on the National Mall, we looked at that earlier tonight.

It's an image you just -- you can't get out of your mind.

As you think about the days and the weeks to come, how does a first family go about continuing to set the tone and send the message that it wants to send?

ROBIN GIVHAN: Well, I think, in large measure, it comes from simply being seen.

And one of the things that was really missing from the previous administration were those moments that were as sort of unposed or as informal as a first family can be.

We never really saw pictures of the previous president with the son who lived with them.

Or you never really saw him at ease, except on the golf course.

And so I think, with the Bidens, simply seeing him with the dogs, seeing Mrs. -- the first lady going off to teach will tell us a lot about this family and about the message that they're sending.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Robin Givhan, critic at large - - senior critic at large for The Washington Post, thank you so much for joining us.

ROBIN GIVHAN: Thank you.