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President-elect Donald Trump expressed gratitude to President Joe Biden for committing to a seamless transition of power, as the newly elected Republican made a symbolic and historic return to the White House on Wednesday.
“Politics is tough, and in many cases it’s not a very nice world. It is a nice world today and I appreciate it very much,” Trump said after the two men shook hands in the Oval Office.
Greeting Trump by a roaring fire, Biden offered his congratulations and said warmly, “Welcome back.”
Though Trump never offered Biden the same invitation following his refusal to concede in 2020, the 81-year-old Biden welcomed his adversary to the White House.
After stepping out of the election race in July and then watching his successor, Kamala Harris, lose to Trump last week, Biden expressed that he was “looking forward to a smooth transition.”
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Trump, 78, added that the transition would be “smooth as you can get.”
“We’ll do everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated, (have) what you need,” he told Trump.
Their talks after the public handshake may have been a bitter pill to swallow for Biden, who branded Trump a threat to democracy.
It was widely anticipated that Biden would urge Trump to uphold U.S. support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian forces, a position Trump has openly scrutinized, which has caused unease regarding America’s dedication to bolstering democratic allies in volatile regions.
Prior to his visit to the White House, Trump delivered remarks to a gathering of House Republicans at a Washington hotel located near the Capitol, a place that, just a few years earlier in 2021, had been violently breached by a mob of his supporters attempting to overturn the results of the presidential election.
Trump, brimming with energy, provocatively floated the idea of a third term in office, despite the fact that such a move would breach the constitutional limits placed on presidential terms in the United States, an idea that would likely spark legal and political controversy.
