WILMINGTON, Del. — On a day of grace and griev­ance, Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden sum­moned Amer­i­cans to join in com­mon pur­pose against the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic and their polit­i­cal divi­sions while the man he will replace stoked the fad­ing embers of his cam­paign to “turn the elec­tion over.”

Biden, in a Thanks­giv­ing-eve address to the nation, put the surg­ing pan­dem­ic front and cen­ter, pledg­ing to tap the “vast pow­ers” of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and to “change the course of the dis­ease” once in office. But for that to work, he said, Amer­i­cans must step up for their own safe­ty and that of their fel­low citizens.

“I know the coun­try has grown weary of the fight,” Biden said Wednes­day. “We need to remem­ber we’re at war with the virus, not with one anoth­er. Not with each other.”

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, who has scarce­ly men­tioned the pan­dem­ic in recent days even as it has achieved record heights, remained fix­at­ed on his elec­tion defeat.

He sent his lawyer Rudy Giu­liani and oth­er mem­bers of his legal team to meet Penn­syl­va­nia Repub­li­can state sen­a­tors in Get­tys­burg. Inside a hotel near the hal­lowed bat­tle­fields of civ­il war, they again aired com­plaints about the elec­tion and repeat­ed alle­ga­tions of Demo­c­ra­t­ic malfea­sance that have already dis­in­te­grat­ed under exam­i­na­tion by courts.

“We have to turn the elec­tion over,” Trump said from the Oval Office, where he joined the meet­ing by speakerphone.

“This was an elec­tion that we won eas­i­ly,” he said. “We won it by a lot.” In fact, the elec­tion gave Biden a clear man­date, and no sys­temic fraud has been uncov­ered. Judge after judge has dis­missed the Trump campaign’s accu­sa­tions as base­less, and the tran­si­tion to Biden’s pres­i­den­cy is ful­ly underway.

Nev­er­the­less, Trump repeat­ed: “This elec­tion has to be turned around.”

Trump had been expect­ed to appear in per­son in Get­tys­burg, but did not after anoth­er mem­ber of his legal team test­ed pos­i­tive for the coro­n­avirus. Few at the meet­ing wore masks.

Alto­geth­er, the forum heard — and cheered — yet anoth­er dec­la­ra­tion from a U.S. pres­i­dent seek­ing to reverse a demo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tion and the vot­ers’ will because he wants to stay in pow­er. The set­ting was about a mile from the scene of Pickett’s Charge, where Union troops repelled a des­per­ate Con­fed­er­ate attack in July 1863 and helped turn the tide of the Civ­il War.

The pres­i­dent fol­lowed up by par­don­ing for­mer nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er Michael Fly­nn, the sec­ond Trump asso­ciate con­vict­ed in the Rus­sia probe to be grant­ed clemen­cy by Trump.

The par­don was part of a broad­er effort to undo the results of an inves­ti­ga­tion that for years has shad­owed Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion and yield­ed crim­i­nal charges against a half dozen asso­ciates. The par­don voids the crim­i­nal case against Fly­nn just as a fed­er­al judge was decid­ing whether to grant a Jus­tice Depart­ment request to dis­miss the pros­e­cu­tion despite Flynn’s own guilty plea to lying to the FBI about his Rus­sia contacts.

For his part, Biden has large­ly pro­ject­ed seren­i­ty as the nec­es­sary ele­ments of a pres­i­den­tial tran­si­tion — mon­ey, access to office space and more — were held at bay for near­ly three weeks by Trump’s machi­na­tions and a delayed ascer­tain­ment by the Gen­er­al Ser­vices Admin­is­tra­tion that he had won the elec­tion. On Wednes­day, he addressed Trump’s raw tac­tics only in passing.

“Our democ­ra­cy was test­ed this year,” Biden said, “but the peo­ple of this nation are up to the task.”

“In Amer­i­ca, we have full and fair and free elec­tions, and then we hon­or the results,” he said. “The peo­ple of this nation and the laws of the land won’t stand for any­thing else.”

And he offered an opti­mistic vision, call­ing on Amer­i­cans to “dream again” and pre­dict­ing that “the 21st cen­tu­ry is going to be an Amer­i­can century.”

Biden pledged more virus test­ing, more pro­tec­tive gear and clear­er guid­ance for busi­ness­es and schools to reopen when he becomes pres­i­dent. Until vac­cines are dis­trib­uted, he said, masks, social dis­tanc­ing and lim­its in the size of gath­er­ings “are our most effec­tive tools to com­bat the virus.”

Biden’s remarks came as COVID-19 cas­es are surg­ing nation­wide. Hos­pi­tal­iza­tions, deaths and the test­ing pos­i­tiv­i­ty rate were also up sharply as the nation head­ed into Thanks­giv­ing, and pub­lic health experts have warned that the large fam­i­ly gath­er­ings expect­ed for the hol­i­day are like­ly to extend and exac­er­bate the surge.

He has formed a coro­n­avirus advi­so­ry board of sci­en­tists, doc­tors and pub­lic health experts, and plans to estab­lish a COVID-19 coor­di­na­tor in the White House to lead his administration’s response.

This week, how­ev­er, Biden focused beyond the cri­sis state­side and unveiled his nation­al secu­ri­ty team on Tues­day, includ­ing his nom­i­nees for sec­re­tary of state, direc­tor of nation­al intel­li­gence and U.S. ambas­sador to the Unit­ed Nations. Draw­ing implic­it con­trasts with Trump, Biden said the team “reflects the fact that Amer­i­ca is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it.” He’s also expect­ed to name Janet Yellen as trea­sury sec­re­tary in the com­ing weeks.

In urg­ing Amer­i­cans to be vig­i­lant in their Thanks­giv­ing plans, Biden said Wednes­day he was tak­ing pre­cau­tions of his own, eschew­ing his tra­di­tion­al large fam­i­ly gath­er­ing and spend­ing the hol­i­day instead with just his wife, daugh­ter and son-in-law.

He’s trav­el­ing with his wife, Jill, to Rehoboth Beach, the small Delaware beach town where the two have a vaca­tion home. That’s where they’ll host their fam­i­ly for Thanks­giv­ing din­ner. Biden is expect­ed to stay through the week­end in Rehoboth before return­ing to Wilm­ing­ton for fur­ther work on the transition.

Trump will for­go his usu­al plans to cel­e­brate Thanks­giv­ing at his pri­vate club in Flori­da and will instead remain at the White House.

Colvin report­ed from Wash­ing­ton. Asso­ci­at­ed Press writer Mark Scol­foro in Har­ris­burg, Pa., con­tributed to this report.