President Joe Biden welcomed President-elect Donald Trump back to the White House on Wednesday in a meeting between bitter rivals that was extraordinary precisely for how ordinary it all seemed.
Stiffly seated next to each other in oversized chairs in the Oval Office, the two smiled for the cameras and quietly joked among themselves. They exchanged a handshake and warm pleasantries, with Biden congratulating Trump on his electoral victory and Trump complimenting Biden for initiating a smooth transition of power.
And as Trump contemplated his return to the building that he’d left in disgrace four years ago, only to mount a stunning comeback that’s set to return him to power, he chose the high road — at least for now.
“Politics is tough, and in many cases it’s not a nice world,” he said. “But it is a nice world today.”
For the brief moment made available to reporters, the Oval Office meeting was the start of the peaceful transfer of power that Trump denied Biden four years ago.
The scene was jarringly surreal in the aftermath of a vicious campaign that both parties cast as critical to the survival of the United States, and perhaps for no one more than Biden, who had warned for years that Trump represented a threat to the very soul of the nation — and a particularly offensive figure to his own institutional sensibilities.
Biden made Trump’s authoritarian instincts and efforts to overturn the 2020 election the centerpiece of his reelection campaign. Trump, in turn, spent his own run mocking Biden’s mental acuity and threatening repeatedly to punish his political opponents. The last time the two had an extended back and forth, it was during the June debate that effectively doomed Biden’s bid and brought his lengthy political career to an abrupt end.
“I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence,” Trump said on that stage, adopting a pitying attitude toward Biden as the president struggled to make a coherent argument.
But reunited a week after an election that delivered Trump the White House in resounding fashion, the two managed a cordial — if somewhat awkward — photo op in front of a roaring fire.
Biden and Trump then held a private discussion that ran nearly two hours, eventually drawing in chief of staff Jeff Zients and Susie Wiles, Trump’s campaign manager and incoming chief of staff.
First lady Jill Biden also popped in, the White House said, congratulating Trump and delivering a letter intended for Melania Trump, who had declined to make the trip.
The White House offered few immediate details on how Trump and Biden filled their time behind closed doors, though press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said they discussed a pair of immediate priorities in keeping the government funded and managing the handoff between the current administration and Trump’s incoming team.
Biden allies ahead of the meeting said they also expected the president to touch on foreign affairs, where aides harbor deep worries about how Trump will upend diplomatic relations amid wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Trump has opposed continuing aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russia, vowing instead to work with Russian President Vladimir Putin to broker a peace deal. Officials also expect him to pursue a far more permissive approach toward Israel and its offensive in Gaza, potentially worsening an already catastrophic humanitarian situation.
But neither Biden nor Trump reemerged when the meeting ended, with Trump slipping past the hundreds of reporters assembled on the White House driveway and off the premises.
“It was very cordial, very gracious,” Jean-Pierre told reporters in the briefing room. “The president wants you all to know that Trump was gracious, came with a detailed set of questions.”
The approach fit with Biden’s broader emphasis on conducting a professional transition, viewing it as critical to reinforcing Americans’ trust in elections and the strength of the nation’s institutions.
Despite warning at one point earlier this year that Trump was “willing to sacrifice our democracy,” Biden in the aftermath of the election ordered his aides to ensure the Trump team gets all it needs to stand up its administration. He has declined so far to voice the range of worries about Trump’s inclinations that he and Vice President Kamala Harris made the centerpiece of their respective campaigns.
“We accept the choice the country made,” Biden said last week in the Rose Garden. “I’ve said many times that you can’t love your country only when you win.”
It’s an attitude that has doubled as a rebuke to Trump’s own behavior in 2020, though perhaps not as directly as desired by some other Democrats confounded by the lack of public anxiety over Trump’s return that’s come from Biden and his aides to date.
When the roles were reversed four years ago, Trump refused to concede and never invited Biden to the Oval Office. Instead, the then-president embarked on a weekslong effort to overturn the results of the election, a bid that culminated in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
The insurrection — and Trump’s decision to stoke such election denialism — drove Biden’s decision to run for reelection at 81 despite widespread doubts about his age and ability that would eventually catch up to him. The president, he and his allies argued throughout the doomed bid, was the only one who had beaten Trump before.
And as he sat alongside Trump on Wednesday in the Oval, preparing to hand the reins back to the twice-impeached convicted felon he once dismissed as a “loser,” he remained the only one.
