WASHINGTON DC: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump returned triumphantly to Washington on Wednesday, pledging a smooth transition of power in January as he met for two hours at the White House with his longtime political rival, President Joe Biden.
“It was a substantive meeting,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. “They discussed important national security and domestic policy issues facing the nation and the world.”
Biden invited Trump for the traditional visit — a show of the coming Jan. 20 peaceful transfer of power in American democracy between the current U.S. leader and the incoming chief executive.
It was Trump’s first visit to the White House since his first presidential term ended in January 2021.
The two men sat in front of a roaring fireplace in the Oval Office ahead of their private talks and traded niceties in a peaceful tableau.
“I’m looking forward to having a smooth transition and we’re looking forward to talking about some of that today,” Biden said.
“Thank you very much,” Trump replied. “Politics is tough and in many cases it’s not a very nice world. It is a nice world today and I appreciate very much a transition so smooth — it will be as smooth as it can get — and I very much appreciate that, Joe. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Biden responded. First lady Jill Biden joined her husband in greeting the president-elect upon his arrival at the White House. The White House said she gave Trump a handwritten letter of congratulations for his wife, Melania, and expressed her team’s readiness to assist with the transition.
The former first lady, who lived in the White House from 2017 to 2021 during her husband’s first presidency, did not accompany him to Washington and has not indicated whether she plans to move into the White House again when he takes office.
Biden, a Democrat, had sought to defeat Trump, a Republican, for a second time in the Nov. 5 election, but ended his campaign in July after faltering badly in a debate against Trump.
Biden quickly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to succeed him, but Trump swept through seven political battleground states in the election and easily defeated her.
When Biden defeated Trump in 2020, Trump offered no White House invitation to meet him ahead of the inauguration and left Washington two hours before Biden’s swearing-in on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.
Trump, who to this day claims falsely that he was cheated out of winning the 2020 election by vote fraud, was the first president to not witness his successor’s inauguration since Andrew Johnson skipped the swearing-in of Ulysses S. Grant in 1869. Biden has said he plans to attend Trump’s inauguration.
(VOA)
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