What Went Down During Joe Biden’s Inauguration

In his inaugural address, Biden begins by saying how precious and fragile democracy is, referencing the violent insurrection at the Capitol two weeks ago, saying that in this hour, democracy has prevailed.

Chief Justice Roberts, who just administered the oath of office to Biden, has got to be pretty relieved about this moment. He took a couple of very unpopular stands against Trump in narrow Supreme Court rulings and got a lot of flak as a result. The Supreme Court isn’t likely to recede into the background under Biden, of course — we’re likely to see some contentious cases involving Biden executive orders and regulations, for one thing. But with a 6-3 conservative majority on the court, Roberts likely won’t be personally in the spotlight in the same way he was under Trump.

Chief Justice John Roberts gets the first “Mr. President” in of the Biden administration. (Though, yeah, as Nate points out, it’s not official until 12 p.m.)