Washington, Apr 8 (PTI): For US President Joe Biden America can be defined in one word: possibilities.

This is what he told Chinese President Xi Jinping a long time back during a meeting with him in the foothills of the Himalayas when he was the vice president of the US, Biden said on the South Lawns of the White House as he introduced Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first black woman judge of the US Supreme Court.

“America is a nation that can be defined in a single word. I was in the foothills of the Himalayas with Xi Jinping, travelling with him. I'd actually travelled 17,000 miles when I was vice president. I don't know that for a fact. We were sitting alone. I had an interpreter and he had an interpreter. And he looked at me in all seriousness.

He said, "Can you define America for me?” the president said.

“I said what many of you heard me say for a long time. I said yes, I can, in one word, possibilities, possibilities,...that in America, everyone should be able to go as far as their hard work and God-given talent will take them, and possibilities,” Biden said to a select gathering of a few hundred people gathered on the South Lawns of the White House.

"We're the only ones. That's why we're viewed as ugly Americans. We think anything's possible. (And the idea that a young girl, who was dissuaded from even thinking you should apply to Harvard Law School, don't raise your hopes so high). Well, I don't know who told you that, but I'd like to go back and invite them to the Supreme Court,” Biden said as he invited Judge Jackson to deliver her remarks as the next associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Biden said early in the day before this historic occasion, he was on the phone on Friday morning with President (Cyril) Ramaphosa of South Africa. “And he was talking about how the time that I was so outspoken about what was going on in my meeting with Nelson Mandela here,” he said.

“I said I'm shortly going to go out -- I'm looking out the window. I'm going to go out on what they call the South Lawn of the White House, and I'm going to introduce to the world, to the world, the first African-American woman out of over 200 judges on the Supreme Court. And he said to me, he said, keep it up, Keep it up, We're going to keep it up.. And folks, yesterday we all witnessed a truly historic moment presided over by the Vice President,” he said amidst applause.

Judge Jackson said it is the greatest honour of her life.

Vice President Kamala Harris said President George Washington once referred to America as a great experiment, a nation founded on the previously untested belief that the people, we the people, could form a more perfect union.

“And that belief has pushed our nation forward for generations, and it is that belief that we reaffirmed yesterday, through the confirmation of the first black woman to the United States Supreme Court,” she said.

Judge Jackson, Harris said, will inspire generations of leaders.

“They will watch your confirmation hearings and read your decisions. In the years to come, the court will answer fundamental questions about who we are and what kind of country we live in. Will we expand opportunity or restrict it? Will we strengthen the foundations of our great democracy or let them crumble?” she said.

“Will we move forward or backwards? The young leaders of our nation will learn from the experience, the judgment, the wisdom, that you, Judge Jackson, will apply in every case that comes before you. And they will see, for the first time, four women sitting on that court at one time,” Harris said amidst applause from the audience.

Jackson will take the bench later this year, filling the seat of retiring Justice Stephen Breyer on a court that was made up entirely of white men for almost two centuries. PTI LKJ AMS

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