President Biden will host President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office Wednesday for a traditional post-election meeting, the White House said Saturday.
Biden called Trump this past Wednesday to congratulate him on beating Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the general election and invited him to meet in the Oval Office, officials said.
Their upcoming meeting is slated for 11 a.m.
Although such meetings are customary between outgoing and incoming presidents to give the appearance of a peaceful transfer of power, Trump, 78, didn’t host his Democratic rival for such a sit-down in 2020 after he lost a re-election bid to Biden, 81.
At the time, Trump had not conceded the race, and the world was in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump and Biden briefly saw each other in Lower Manhattan for the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, but this will be their first extended face-time together since Biden’s disastrous debate performance in June that led to Nancy Pelosi and other Dems’ pressuring him to drop out of the race.
In a speech Thursday, Biden said he had assured Trump the day before “that I would direct my entire administration to work with his team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition. That’s what the American people deserve.”
Biden also reportedly plans to attend Trump’s inauguration in January, which Trump didn’t do four years earlier.
Trump is the first former president to return to power since Grover Cleveland regained the White House in the 1892 election.
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