President Biden will address the nation from the White House this morning, a day after Vice President Kamala Harris conceded defeat in the race against President-elect Donald Trump.
Biden is scheduled to speak from the Rose Garden at 11 a.m. ET. Yahoo News will stream his remarks here.
It will be the first time Biden publicly speaks since the 2024 election, although he did issue a statement praising Harris as “a tremendous partner and public servant full of integrity, courage and character.” Both Biden and Harris called Trump to congratulate him on Wednesday afternoon.
Biden also invited Trump to the White House to kick off transition preparations, although an exact date was unclear.
The Associated Press called the presidential race Wednesday around 5:30 a.m. ET after Trump won 276 electoral votes to Harris’s 223, although Trump declared victory at 2:30 a.m. ET during a speech to supporters at an election party in Florida.
“The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for,” Harris told supporters on Wednesday from Howard University, her alma mater. “But hear me when I say — the light of America’s promise will always burn bright as long as we never give up and as long as we keep fighting.”
In his statement Wednesday, Biden also emphasized how Harris launched her presidential campaign under “extraordinary circumstances” after he dropped out 107 days before the election because of pressure from the Democratic party following his June debate performance.
Harris secured the Democratic nomination within two weeks but had about 100 days to sway voters compared to Trump, who announced his intention to run in November 2022 and clinched the Republican nomination in mid-March.
