Although part of President Joe Biden’s closing argument in the 2024 campaign was calling Donald Trump’s supporters “garbage,” he is now calling for America to “bring down the temperature” in light of Trump’s victory. 

In a speech outside the White House two days after an election that saw Trump soundly defeat the Biden-endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, the president was clear that he accepted the result. 

“We will have a peaceful transition,” Biden said, in a less-than-subtle reference to Trump’s not conceding his 2020 loss of the presidency to Biden.

Biden, who dropped out of the presidential race in July and endorsed Harris, also repeated a point he frequently made about Trump’s not accepting the 2020 outcome. 

“I’ve said many times, you can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t love your neighbor only when you agree,” Biden said. 

“Something I hope we can do, no matter who we voted for, is see each other not as adversaries but as fellow Americans, bring down the temperature,” the president said. 

However, since taking office in January 2021, Biden has used harsh rhetoric in talking about Trump and his supporters. In July, Biden called Trump a “threat to democracy.” He also said Trump stood for “semi-fascism.”

Critics said such rhetoric from Biden, Harris, and other leading Democrats inspired two assassination attempts on Trump over the summer.

Days before Tuesday’s election, Biden said in a Zoom interview with a Hispanic organization: “Donald Trump has no character. He doesn’t give a damn about the Latino community. Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage.’ Well, let me tell you something. … The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”

In a January 2022 speech in Atlanta, Biden said supporters of election reform laws such as voter ID backed “Jim Crow 2.0” and compared them to segregationist politicians George Wallace and Bull Connor as well as Confederate President Jefferson Davis. 

“Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace?” Biden said then. “Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor?  Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?”

Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Biden questioned the legitimacy of those elections after Democrats in Congress couldn’t pass a national law to offset state election reforms. 

“I’m not saying it’s going to be legit,” Biden said in January 2022. “The increase and the prospect of it being illegitimate is in direct proportion to us not being able to get these reforms passed.”

At the White House in March 2021, in a reference to laws after the Civil War designed to prevent blacks from voting, Biden said of a Georgia election reform law: “This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle.” 

During his White House speech Thursday, however, Biden didn’t question the electoral process. 

“Also we can lay to rest the question about the integrity of the American electoral system,” Biden said. “It is honest. It is fair and it is transparent. It can be trusted, win or lose.”

Biden also was known for fiery rhetoric before becoming president. 

As vice president under President Barack Obama, Biden suggested during a 2012 campaign rally before a mostly African American audience that GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney wanted to bring back slavery. 

“They’re going to put you all back in chains,” Biden told the audience in Danville, Virginia.