From warning Americans about “oligarchy taking shape” to standing up against an avalanche of misinformation, outgoing US President Joe Biden delivered a farewell speech from the Oval Office on Thursday.
Here are the key quotes from the 82-year-old’s speech:
1. “Today, an oligarchy of extreme wealth, power, and influence is taking shape in America that literally threatens our entire democracy,” he said,
2. Biden warned about a “techno industrial complex” that is “a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-wealthy people.”
3. “We see the consequences across America, and we’ve seen it before, more than a century ago, but the American people stood up to the robbers at that time and broke the trust. They didn’t punish the rich. “Just the rich being asked to play by everyone else’s rules,” Biden said.
4. Biden said, “Americans are being buried under a pile of misinformation and disinformation, leading to abuse of power.”
5. Cautioning against the rhetorical dangers of AI, he said the US should “take leadership” over China on the transformative technology.
6. Biden said “powerful forces” threaten his climate achievements.
7. “You know, it will take time to feel the full impact of everything we’ve done together, but the seeds have been planted, and they will grow, and continue to bloom for decades to come,” Biden said in his farewell. Address.
8. “The free press is collapsing. Editors are disappearing. Social media are abandoning fact checking. The truth is being drowned out by lies told for power and profit.”
9. He said that just days before his administration’s term ends, a ceasefire and hostage agreement have been reached in the Israel-Palestine conflict. “After eight months of continuous negotiations, a ceasefire and hostage agreement have been agreed upon between Israel and Hamas,” he said.
10. “Seeing the resiliency of personnel needed to respond to a once-in-a-century pandemic, the heroism of service members and first responders keeping us safe, the determination of advocates standing up for us has been the honor of my life rights and our freedoms,” Biden said.
