Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan.

It is January 19th, and today we're going to do something a little different on the show.

Tomorrow, of course, is Donald Trump's inauguration for his second term. We will keep our eye on that.

And then on Tuesday, the day after

inauguration, we're going to have an episode that sort of ties a little bit into that. But today,

on this Sunday, I wanted to talk about something that perhaps flew under the radar a bit,

as everyone is thinking about what's coming with the next administration. And that is the goodbye to

the Biden administration and specifically

the farewell address that Joe Biden gave earlier this week on Wednesday night. I'll talk a little

bit more about it in a second and share my thoughts. But I got to say, I was very struck by the

speech. I happened to catch it on the actual radio and listen to it. But it was very historically

minded, which I think makes it sort of appropriate for this show and a lot of things I think about on this show.

And I don't know how many people stopped and kind of spent time with it in a way that maybe they should have.

So we're going to talk about it and other notable farewell addresses.

And then we're going to try something out.

But first, here, as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson

of Wellesley. Hello there. Hello, Jody. Hey there. So as I said, I want to talk a little bit

about farewell speeches, but then I don't know, I had this instinct as soon as I finished hearing it,

that I wanted to play it in full on the show. So after we talk a little bit, we're going to just

play Joe Biden's

farewell address. It's 18 minutes, not that long. And I think it's worth listening to in full,

no matter how it makes you feel. And we'll talk about how complicated it can make us feel.

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