United States President-elect Donald Trump has been welcomed to the White House by outgoing President Joe Biden as part of a traditional transition meeting.
The meeting between the two rivals in the Oval Office on Wednesday comes after a confrontational election campaign, in which Biden dropped out over the summer following a disastrous debate performance against Trump.
However, his vice president and successor as Democratic candidate for the presidency, Kamala Harris, lost out to Trump in the November 5 election by a decisive margin.
The two men greeted each other with a handshake in front of the cameras, as Biden told Trump he looked forward to a “peaceful transition”.
“I look forward to having a smooth transition and do everything we can to make sure you are accommodated, what you need. We’re going to get a chance to talk about some of that today,” Biden said to Trump, in front of a roaring fireplace. “Welcome back.”
Trump himself said that the transition would be “smooth as you can get”.
“Politics is tough, and in many cases it’s not a very nice world,” Trump added. “It is a nice world today and I appreciate very much a transition that’s so smooth, it will be as smooth as it can get.”
Speaking after the meeting, which comes almost two months ahead of the president-elect’s inauguration on January 20, Trump said that Biden had talked about Ukraine and the Middle East.
“I wanted – I asked for his views and he gave them to me,” Trump told the New York Post. “Also, we talked very much about the Middle East, likewise. I wanted to know his views on where we are and what he thinks. And he gave them to me, he was very gracious.”
Trump also said that he and Biden had “both really enjoyed seeing each other”, and complimented Biden for doing “a very good job with respect to campaigning”.
The meeting between Biden and Trump marks a sharp turn of events from four years ago, when Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Trump disputed the election results and refused to host a transition meeting with Biden, or attend his inauguration.
Fake smiles
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Barbara Perry, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, said the proceedings are a return to form in US governance.
She explained the importance of smooth transition processes, which usually involve several meetings and information sharing between members of the incoming and outgoing administrations, regardless of the party.
“It would be as if you would take the CEO of a major corporation with thousands and thousands of employees and remove the CEO on one day at noon, in this case, January, the 20th of the upcoming year,” she said, referring to inauguration day, “and then take out all of the top figures, including the board of the business.”
“In order for it to be smooth, you need to have cooperation on both sides,” she said, added that beyond Trump’s snub of Biden in 2020, his entry into the White House in 2016 was also notoriously chaotic, with members of his team often failing to meet with members of then-outgoing President Barack Obama’s administration.
“I think that will be different as well,” she told Al Jazeera. “This time, I hope that the Trump people will be more open to the transition material.”
However, as of Wednesday, Trump’s team had not signed any of the transition agreements that would allow his team to begin to receive classified documents before he takes office. A main sticking point has been an ethics code Trump’s team is legally required to submit as part of the transition agreement.
Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s White House correspondent Kimberly Halkett said the bonhomie on display was likely a facade.
“These two men don’t like each other,” she said, “even if they may be smiling in front of the cameras.”
Trump and Biden spent much of the presidential campaign talking ill about each other and the threat to democracy they purportedly represented, she noted. “But you won’t see any of that when they’re in front of the cameras. They’re going to be all smiles and and pretending that they’re the best of friends. That’s politics in Washington, that’s how it works,” she added.
In a sign of his growing importance to Trump, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, is accompanying him on the trip to Washington, although he did not attend the meeting with Biden in the White House.
Biden had previously pledged a peaceful and orderly transition in a speech last week in which he accepted the election results.
“You can’t love your country only when you win,” he said, repeating a theme he has referenced in previous speeches.
Trump’s return to the presidency marks a shift in fortunes for himself and the Republicans. Many doubted that he would be able to resurrect his political career after his loss to Biden, particularly after his supporters rioted at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, leading to denouncements from across the American political divide.
But the president-elect is now in a strong position, and has quickly set about appointing and nominating his allies for several of the top jobs in his incoming administration.
Trump also met Congressional Republicans on Wednesday, as he attempts to ensure their support for his agenda. It is increasingly likely that the Republicans have won a majority in the House, meaning that – along with the Senate – the right-wing party controls both legislative bodies, as well as the presidency.
That gives Trump an opportunity – at least until the 2026 mid-term elections – to push through more hardline policies that the Democrats may have attempted to stop if they controlled either the House or the Senate.
Speaking to legislators, Trump joked about the possibility of a third term, in contradiction to the constitutional limit of two terms for US presidents.
“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say he’s good we got to figure something else,” Trump said to laughter.
Meanwhile, US Senate Republicans also gathered behind closed doors on Wednesday to vote for their new Senate majority leader in a secret ballot, in which they chose South Dakota Senator John Thune for the role.
Florida Senator Rick Scott had been Trump’s preferred candidate for the position, but dropped out in the first round of voting.
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