Former Vice President Joe Biden urged graduates of Columbia Law School to use their degrees to remake the world into better place amid the global pandemic and ongoing threats to democracy, during recorded remarks for the school's virtual graduation ceremony May 20.

Biden—who was originally slated to address the class of 2020 in person—acknowledged that it was a "bittersweet commencement day" given that the festivities were occurring on computer screens. "No matter your best-laid plans, reality has a way of intruding," said Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Biden said he has high hopes for this year's crop of Columbia-educated law graduates, who include his granddaughter Naomi Biden. (Naomi is the daughter of Biden's son, Hunter.) Joe Biden's 10-minute keynote, which at times sounded like a political stump speech, praised the contributions of essential workers such as doctors, nurses and grocery store workers.

He also challenged the law graduates to make sure the sacrifices made by essential workers during the COVID-19 outbreak are not in vain, and that they use their legal skills to protect democracy and tackle key issues such as climate change and health care.

Biden noted that when Franklin Delano Roosevelt, himself a Columbia Law graduate, was newly elected in 1932, he tapped the school's faculty and graduates to help conceive of and implement the New Deal, which would help pull the nation out of the Great Depression.

"From this pandemic, you can remake the world as it should be," said Biden, a former public defender who graduated from Syracuse University College of Law in 1968.

Biden did not mention President Donald Trump by name, although he made several comments that could be interpreted as swipes at the current occupant of the Oval Office. Graduates can build a representative democracy with "more facts than lies," Biden said.

"The very people tasked with enforcing the rule of law are abusing their powers, protecting their friends and weakening the very principles that make our country work," he said.

Columbia is among the many law schools that opted to hold a virtual commencement celebration due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The ceremony streamed live on the law school's YouTube channel. Dean Gillian Lester congratulated graduates for their resilience and said she is hopeful for the future and all the things they will accomplish.

Biden wasn't the only big name Columbia Law brought for its new graduates. The school sent customized goodies boxes to each graduate that included a personal letter from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—who graduated from Columbia Law in 1959 after transferring from Harvard Law. (The law school declined to make Ginsburg's letter available, saying it's intended to be a special memento for graduates.)