Biden urges Americans to ‘bring down the temperature’ as he vows peaceful transition

President Biden has entered the Rose Garden outside the White House, where he is met with applause. He is about to deliver his speech.

We’re poised to bring you all the key lines here from the news desk.

You’ll be able to follow along in our page or you can watch yourself by clicking Watch Live above.

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from the White House

We’ve just been let into the Rose Garden, where a podium has been set up in front of rows of chairs and attendees – including White House staff.

Dozens of reporters are set up behind them.

It’s extremely quiet while the attendees wait. The only quiet talking seems to be coming from reporters. I mostly hear the sound of cameras.

President Biden is expected momentarily.

We’re about to hear from Biden any moment. Here’s the podium on the White House grounds where he will be speaking.

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from the White House

I and dozens of other journalists are still waiting to get into the Rose Garden for Biden’s remarks.

There is plenty of speculation about what Biden’s speech may focus on.

It’s very possible, for example, that we will hear him respond to the growing criticism that he harmed Democrats’ chances by deciding to run for re-election.

It’s unclear whether that would have changed the election’s outcome, but there’s been a lot of self-evaluation and sniping in the Democratic camp in the wake of Harris’s loss.

It’s also possible we hear him repeat his warnings about Donald Trump. He has frequently warned that his predecessor has authoritarian tendencies, and that the country faces a historic “inflection point” in this election.

As we’ve reported, President Biden will soon speak at the White House about the US presidential election and Trump’s victory.

This will mark Biden’s first televised address since his party lost. He is scheduled to speak at 11:00 EST (16:00 GMT).

This morning Biden wrote on X that he would discuss both the election result and the transition.

Stay with us – we’ll bring you the key lines and analysis in this page or you’ll be able watch the livestream by clicking Watch Live above.

Anna Foster
Reporting from the White House

President Biden is preparing to address the nation from the Rose Garden, essentially completing this phase of an electoral process that took many people by surprise with the speed of its result.

Outside these manicured grounds, several shops and cafes are still boarded up, a reminder of the fear of unrest which was felt just a few days ago, before Donald Trump won a definitive victory.

Joe Biden is expected to echo Kamala Harris’s concession speech message, that he and his team will do whatever necessary to ensure a smooth and peaceful transition of power.

That process will last for the next two and a half months, until Donald Trump is officially inaugurated as the next US President on January the 20th.

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from the White House

There are a lot of reporters at the White House today ahead of Joe Biden’s address to the nation scheduled for 11:00 local time (16:00 GMT).

The atmosphere is relatively subdued, however. In the press area, staffers are working to process accreditation requests from visiting journalists.

There are few familiar faces here. Many are still returning from the campaign trail, and those that are here are clearly tired. One man was briefly dozing off in a briefing room seat.

The staffers, for their part, also seem to be a bit exhausted with this week. There’s none of the joking or banter of “normal” days.

I casually asked one staff member how he was doing earlier.

“Tired, man,” he told me. “Really tired.”

We’re expecting to hear from Biden at around 11:00 EST (16:00 GMT). It will be the president’s first address to the American people since the election.

We have had some reaction from Biden already – he released a statement describing his admiration for Harris after her speech yesterday.

Biden, who ended his re-election campaign in July amid mounting criticism of his poor debate performance against Trump, had endorsed Harris as the best person to replace him in the race.

“Under extraordinary circumstances, she stepped up and led a historic campaign,” Biden said, adding that picking her as his vice-president was “the best decision” he made.

The statement did not mention the election result or the transition to come, but earlier today he posted on social media to say he would address those topics in his remarks to the nation from the White House.

We also know that Biden has already called Trump to congratulate him on his victory and invited him to the White House to discuss the transition.

Donald Trump won a second stint as US president after winning the electoral college – and now he looks on track to win the popular vote as well.

When he ran the first time in 2016, Trump lost the popular vote – the total number of votes cast across the country – to Hillary Clinton. But in the US, the election is ultimately won by whoever wins at least 270 electoral college votes – more on that here.

The last time a Republican presidential candidate won the popular vote was in 2004, when George W Bush also won the electoral college.

Trump is currently ahead of Kamala Harris in the popular vote, but the figure is about nine million votes below Joe Biden’s result in 2020.

(As a reminder, you can see the latest vote tallies at the top of this page – it’s currently Donald Trump on 72,717,236, and Kamala Harris on 68,023,088)

Nearly a full day after Donald Trump’s victory speech, reactions to his return to the White House are still trickling in.

Latvia’s President Edgars Rinkēvičs says he’s not nervous about a second Trump administration.

“Everyone is now trying to figure out” the incoming government’s foreign policy, “particularly vis-à-vis Ukraine,” he tells BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme.

Asked about the suggestion Trump could enforce a settlement between Ukraine and Russia, he adds: “Whatever the political process there is, it must include Ukraine.”

Western leaders have been calling on president-elect Trump to renew American support to Ukraine.

But France’s Emmanuel Macron warns European leaders “we cannot delegate our security to the Americans forever”, adding it is now time for Europe to “write its own history”.

• Donald Trump has repeatedly said he would end the war between Russia and Ukraine “within 24 hours” but has not clarified what either side would have to give up to secure a peace deal

Back to Europe now, where Ukraine’s president says relations between the US and the continent “must be valued and cannot be lost” after Donald Trump’s US election victory.

Speaking at a European leaders’ summit in Budapest, Volodymyr Zelensky says: “We do hope that America will become stronger.”

“This is the kind of America that Europe needs,” he says. “And a strong Europe is what America needs – this is the connection between allies that must be valued and cannot be lost.”

Zelensky, according to AFP news agency, also tells the summit it would be “unacceptable for Ukraine” and “suicidal for all Europe” if Russian leader Vladimir Putin is offered any concessions.

James FitzGerald

Continuing our round-up of Donald Trump’s electoral pledges, here’s another four issues he says he will be focusing on during his second term in the White House:

End the Ukraine war

• Trump said he would end the Russia-Ukraine conflict “within 24 hours” through a negotiated deal. However, he has not said what either side should give up to do so

No abortion ban

• During the presidential debate with Harris, Trump said he would not sign into law a national abortion ban. But he has regularly said states should be free to decide their own laws on abortion but has not presented a consistent message on the topic

Pardon some Jan 6 rioters

• He will “free” some of those convicted of offences during the riot in Washington DC on 6 January 2021, he has maintained. As a reminder, his supporters stormed the Capitol building in an effort to thwart the 2020 election victory of Joe Biden

Sack Special Counsel Jack Smith

• “Within two seconds” of taking office Trump has said he will sack the veteran prosecutor leading two criminal investigations against him. We have more on what will happen to those legal cases here

Our story has further details on these seven policies

James FitzGerald

In his victory speech, Trump vowed he would “govern by a simple motto: Promises made, promises kept. We’re going to keep our promises”.

But in some cases, he has given little detail of how he might achieve his aims. As we continue our coverage of the election’s aftermath, here’s a look at some of the pledges Trump made during the campaign.

Deport undocumented migrants

• Trump has promised the biggest mass deportations of undocumented migrants in US history, as well as the completion of a wall at the border with Mexico that was started during his first presidency

Moves on economy, tax and tariffs

• The future president has said he will “end inflation”, make sweeping tax cuts and has proposed making tips tax-free. He has also suggested new tariffs of at least 10% on most foreign goods

Cut climate regulations

• As he did during his first term, Trump has vowed to again cut environmental regulations, particularly as a way to help the American car industry
• He also wants to increase production of US fossil fuels – saying he will “drill, drill, drill” on day one in favour of renewable energy sources such as wind power

Stay with us, we’ll have more on this shortly.

Why vote totals aren’t ‘proof’ of voter fraudpublished at 13:56 Greenwich Mean Time

By Mike Wendling

Partisans on both sides are pointing to live vote totals on news websites and arguing that they prove some kind of fraud – in different directions.

The reasoning goes like this: there seems to be just as much interest in this election as there was in the 2020 presidential election, when more than 158 million votes were cast.

Currently you can see at the top of this page that around 140 million votes have been tallied for the two major party candidates.

Republicans who distrust the voting system and backed the “stop the steal” movement say the numbers “prove” the last election was rigged and that the total vote was artificially high in 2020.

Meanwhile Kamala Harris supporters are wondering where all their “missing” voters are – although the candidate is not entertaining these conspiracy theories and there is little sign that a large-scale movement is brewing.

Both sides are missing a very simple fact: votes are still being tabulated.

In fact, the University of Florida’s Election Lab turnout tracker, external is showing roughly the same number of votes in 2024 as were cast in 2020.

Once again, “fraud” claims just do not stack up, but that won’t stop dedicated partisans from making claims based on faulty evidence.

UnHerd Washington DC journalist Emily Jashinsky says there’s a “fundamental misunderstanding” when it comes to how Donald Trump succeeds electorally.

She claims around 30% of his supporters are a “hardcore, MAGA, partisan group”. But other Republican voters are “merely kind of putting up with Donald Trump because they find the left to be more threating to them”, she tells the Today programme.

Jashinsky refers to comments made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe during a Trump rally, where he used racist stereotypes and called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage”.

She says people can be “offended” by this yet “tolerate it”, because they are “more offended by millions of people coming across the border in the span of just a couple of years, or a few years under the Biden presidency”.

• Since January 2021, US border officials say there’s been more than 10 million ‘encounters’, with about 8 million coming over the southwest land border with Mexico. You can read more from BBC Verify’s analysis on immigration figures here.

Historically, Republican candidates perform well with older, white voters, while the Democrats typically secure votes from women and minority groups.

The traditional thinking changed this year. Trump maintained popularity with his party’s base, but made gains in demographics which usually vote Democrat.

• Latino voters: Despite a stand-up comedian referring to Puerto Rico as an “island of garbage” at a Trump rally, the Democrat ticket got 13% less votes from Latino voters in 2024 than 2020 (52% in 2024 vs 65% in 2020)
• Women: Kamala Harris’s campaign prioritised abortion rights, something Democrats believed would bring in more female voters. Harris won 53% of women’s votes, 4% less than Biden’s 57% in 2020
• Young voters: Harris lost six points with voters under 30, down from Biden’s 60% win in 2020. It’s been touted as the “bro vote” for Trump, after he featured on a number of popular podcasts popular with young men

These numbers may change as the rest of the votes are counted, but they indicate certain patterns that have emerged from this year’s race.

If you’re just joining us, here are the top stories as America wakes up on Thursday morning:

• Dozens of US House of Representatives races remain uncalled, but Republicans have grown optimistic that they can retain their slim majority and therefore hold unified control of Washington again as they did at the start of Donald Trump’s first term

• Speculation is swirling in Washington over who will staff the incoming Donald Trump administration as his transition team begins vetting potential candidates and ironing out its to-do list
• The Justice Department has begun winding down its twin federal prosecutions against Trump, in line with a long-standing policy of not prosecuting a sitting president
• Trump’s win on Wednesday sent the US dollar soaring against other currencies, including the pound, euro and Japanese yen

• As his landslide victory comes into sharper focus, a Democratic blame-game is escalating, with fingers pointed at President Joe Biden for not stepping away from the race sooner
• Biden will address the nation for the first time post-election later today

A sense Israel will have a ‘much freer hand’published at 13:11 Greenwich Mean Time

Returning to the Middle East, Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet now references the conversation between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump last night.

They are said to have spoken about working together on Israeli security, including the threat from Iran.

Doucet says there is a “sense” Israel will now have a “much freer hand” to attack nuclear infrastructure in Iran under a Trump presidency.

With that, the panel concludes its discussion.

What does a Trump administration mean for abortion access?published at 13:09 Greenwich Mean Time

BBC journalist Bernd Debusmann says seven states in the US have approved measures to protect or expand abortion rights, including “Conservative states like Missouri [and] Arizona”.

But bids to restore protections for the procedure failed in Florida, South Dakota and Nebraska.

Trump has never really taken a firm position on the abortion access issue, Debusmann says, adding the president-elect has distanced himself from the wing of the Republican party that has taken a hard-line stance and called for a national ban.

But it’s been one of the primary concerns among women in the aftermath of his victory, Debusmann says.

Trump has been short on specifics about what he would do in the White House when it comes to abortion access, Debusmann says.

Is there a risk to Ukraine?published at 13:05 Greenwich Mean Time

Doucet is asked if Trump would “throw Ukraine under the bus” and if there would be issues surrounding the possible end of the Russia-Ukraine war.

As a reminder, the US and Nato allies agreed in 2020 to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan. Speaking at the time, Trump said it was “time after all these years to bring our people back home”.

Doucet says Trump wanted to withdraw US troops and his decision to remove them from the country wasn’t out of concern for Afghanistan.

Ukraine needs support from America in its war with Russia, and the “overriding assumption” is Trump would “cut critical support” to Ukraine, Doucet says.

She adds that Trump won’t be able to end the war in one day, like he promised on the campaign trail, unless he gives in to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin’s claims on land.