Late Wednesday morning, we caught a glimpse of the interaction between former and future President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden at the White House. Following Trump’s resounding win on November 5, Biden called Trump to congratulate him. Then, over the weekend, Biden invited Trump to meet with him at the White House today.
The meeting lasted for close to two hours, though the press was only privy to a brief snippet of it.
Video footage shows the initial part of the meeting with the two men seated near a fireplace. They shook hands as Biden expressed his desire to facilitate a peaceful handover of power. “Well, Mr. President-elect and former President, Donald, congratulations,” Biden said.
“Looking forward to having, like we said, smooth transition. Do everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated, what you need. We’re going to get a chance to talk about some of that today.”
Trump responded, thanking President Biden. “Politics is tough…in many cases, not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today,” he said, promising “a transition that’s so smooth, it’ll be as smooth as it can get, and I very much appreciate it.”
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After leaving the meeting, Trump spoke with The New York Post and shared a bit more regarding their discussion.
President-elect Donald Trump told The Post Wednesday that he and President Biden “both really enjoyed seeing each other” when they sat down for a historic post-election get-together in the Oval Office.
“You know, it’s been a long, it’s been a long slog,” the 78-year-old said during a phone interview as he left Washington. “It’s been a lot of work on both sides and he did a very good job with respect to campaigning and everything else. We really had a really good meeting.”
Among the topics of conversation, per Trump, were the war in Ukraine and the upheaval in the Middle East.
“I wanted — I asked for his views and he gave them to me,” Trump told The Post. “Also, we talked very much about the Middle East, likewise. I wanted to know his views on where we are and what what he thinks. And he gave them to me, he was very gracious.”