Biden, Trump to meet at White House for handover discussion

Alicia Diaz and Skylar Woodhouse, Bloomberg News on Nov 9, 2024

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President Joe Biden will host President-elect Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday for their first post-election meeting, setting in motion the U.S. transition of power that will be completed in January.

They’ll convene in the Oval Office at 11 a.m. at Biden’s invitation, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Saturday in a statement.

In another step toward the handover, Trump picked Witkoff Group founder Steve Witkoff and former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia to co-chair his inaugural events committee. Both are “longtime friends and supporters” of the president-elect, the Trump campaign said in a statement.

Biden pledged on Thursday to help ensure a peaceful transfer of power in January and called for healing divides in a politically polarized nation.

“I hope we can do, no matter who you voted for, to see each other, not as adversaries, but as fellow Americans, bring down the temperature,” Biden said. “I also hope we can lay to rest the question about the integrity of the American electoral system. It is honest. It is fair and it is transparent. And it can be trusted, win or lose.”

In the formal transition process, Trump has yet to sign the U.S. General Services Administration’s memorandum of understanding that would grant access to resources from the federal government to assist with the handover, which follows the Republican’s victory in the Nov. 5 election.

In 2020, Trump fought the election result for weeks with false claims of voter fraud and didn’t invite Biden to the White House as part of the transition. In contrast, Barack Obama invited Trump to the White House after the 2016 race.

This year, Trump flipped key swing states to win a second term as president, with Republicans winning control of the Senate, in an election that most polls had rated too close to call.

Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s defeated opponent in the presidential election, will oversee the certification of his election victory by Congress in January. In 2021, a mob of Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol to disrupt those proceedings after Biden won the 2020 election.