TIME has always had a special connection to the presidency.
Every elected president since FDR has been person of the year at some point during their term.
This is the first time we've also named a vice president as person of the year.
The Biden-Harris ticket represents something historic.
Thank you for the honor.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Person of the year is not just about the year that was but about where we're headed,
and the next four years are going to be an enormous test of them
and all of us to see whether they can bring about the unity they've promised.
Do you think this is a do or die moment for democracy?
This moment was one of those do or die moments.
Had Trump won I think we would have changed the nature of who we are as a country for a long time.
You have always been so action oriented, so what is the first thing that you want to do in that role?
We're at a moment where we are being confronted by many crises that have converged.
We're talking about a public health crisis. We are in the midst of an economic crisis,
a long overdue reckoning on racial injustice, and a climate crisis. We got a lot of things that we need
to handle, and we multitask to address them all.
Biden was running on a message of unity and healing at a moment when the country was sicker
and more divided than almost any time in American history.
This obviously was an election like no other, a campaign like no other.
The new Supreme Court justice, radical left...
Will you shut up, man?
The country is in deep trouble, and Donald Trump was just a symptom to reveal how deep
the trouble actually is.
Joe Biden saw what happened in Charlottesville as a symptom of a deeper American disease
that only he could fix.
I am convinced that the American public is looking for the possibilities that are available out there. They know
we're so much better than this. When I ran I said, this is about who we are as a nation,
who we're going to be, what we want to be, and the American people stepped up.
It starts at the top, and if you see a divisive leader, it trickles down.
Worst job of any governor.
Fake news media.
The words of a president matter. Whether they're good presidents or bad, they matter.
When I first announced my candidacy, what I got most criticized for was I said,
we had to unite America. That we weren't going to respond to hate with hate.
We had to restore the soul of the country, and I never came off that message
because that's my objective.
The promise of a Biden candidacy was always about turning the clock back
to a sort of gentler, more civil, more decent time in American politics
but the divisions don't end when the election does.
What a testament it is to Joe's character that he had the audacity to break one of the most
substantial barriers that exists in our country and select a woman as his vice president.
Kamala takes us to that next chapter from the moment she walked across that stage. She is someone that we've
never seen before in one of the top two jobs in the country.
I get frustrated because dozens of nations have had women in their highest offices. We have not.
And I'm proud that he made it plain early, that I'm going to choose a woman to be my vice president, and in that, boom.
He has now changed American history.
I went for someone who, if in fact something happened to me, I knew they can take over. That's Kamala.
Look she is straight as an arrow. She is really, really bright. She is tough but yet she has a heart that
understands what it's like to be on the other side of prejudice.
This is a moment in time that is requiring us to fight.
Joe understands that we have different life experiences, but we also have an incredible amount of shared values.
We both have spent our entire careers in public service, and I think that's what makes ours a full and very robust partnership.
Some of the criticisms of him were whether the Black community could trust him to look after their interests
And so putting the first African American woman on a presidential ticket was a way of repairing that breach in some ways.
We want to see it for what it is. Because Kamala Harris, it's important that she's there, but we need to see policies.
We need to understand the limitations of a certain kind of representational politics.
They're going to have to address the fundamental inequality at the heart of the country, and then they're going to have to figure out how to finally rid us of this
belief that white people matter more than others.
What do you say to Black Americans, immigrants, others who feel victimized by the Trump administration and have no interest in uniting with Trump supporters?
When George Floyd occurred, I was cautioned by some really smart people, you know don't go out and talk about racial inequity,
systematic racism, don't mention it because you're going to lose the suburbs. My argument all along was the American people do want to see justice.
And they understood things were out of wack, and I had to change them.
This was a pandemic election, and we have to realize that we got victory here because the most oppressed
and suppressed voters fought like hell to make it happen.
Part of what I think settles some of these questions is to work your behinds off for a more just America.
I don't think there's ever been a president and vice president to take office in a moment like this where we don't just disagree on issues.
We disagree on basic facts. What happens to the American experiment in this kind of chaos?
None of us should be waiting on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to fix everything. We are the people for this moment.
The goal is a more just America, and people can not only dream dreams but can make those dreams a reality.
You know, my mother had many sayings, but one of them was, while you may be the first to do many things,
make sure you're not the last. That's about legacy. That's about creating a pathway. That's about leaving the door
more open than it was when you walked in.
I think this is an opportunity to establish that out of our diversity comes enormous, enormous strength.
We're seeing all over this nation, all cities and all parts of the country, indeed across the world, an outpouring of joy, of hope, renewed faith in tomorrow
to bring a better day.