President Joe Biden on Wednesday night will deliver a farewell speech from the Oval Office that’s expected to focus on key achievements of his administration.
In a letter previewing his prime-time remarks, Biden touted persistent job growth, lower prescription drug costs and investments in clean energy to fight climate change.
He portrayed the early days of his administration as a battle to emerge from the grips of the Covid pandemic and “a winter of peril,” saying Americans came together and “braved through it.”
“We emerged stronger, more prosperous, and more secure,” Biden said in the letter.
Biden also touted his economic record, particularly gains in the labor market.
In a statement last week lauding the final jobs report of his term, Biden said that more than 16.6 million new jobs were created since he took office and that his was “the only administration in history to have created jobs every single month.”
Biden did not refer to President-elect Donald Trump by name in the letter released Wednesday morning, but he made indirect references.
“I ran for president because I believed that the soul of America was at stake. The very nature of who we are was at stake. And, that’s still the case,” he said.
Striking a personal tone, Biden reflected on his upbringing and his life as a public official. “Nowhere else on Earth could a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings” serve for 50 years in the halls of Congress, as vice president and eventually in the Oval Office.
“I have given my heart and my soul to our nation. And I have been blessed a million times in return with the love and support of the American people,” Biden said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
