President Joe Biden will meet with President-elect Donald Trump at 11 a.m. ET Wednesday in the Oval Office. It will be just the second time the two men have met since Biden was elected in 2020. The first was the debate held back in June, which led to Biden’s giving up his run for re-election. Expect this one to go a bit better for the president.
While this meeting will likely be brief and visibly strained, look to Biden to be the patriot he has proven to be many times over. For the sake of the country, he will be gracious, congratulate Trump on winning a fair election and, most of all, emphasize the importance of a peaceful transfer of power.
Biden has often been called the consoler-in-chief for his ability to relate to people who suffered great loss, after he experienced great loss himself. He surely sees parts of the nation experiencing grief after the election and will seek to reassure them.
While this meeting will likely be brief and visibly strained, look to Biden to be the patriot he has proven to be many times over.
Trump will likely be polite and probably bring up Biden’s call to him following the first attempt on his life in July — a call he seemed to genuinely appreciate. Trump will have the cameras on him, and he is flush with victory, so he will be on his best behavior, relatively speaking.
This meeting will probably not go on for 90 minutes, as Trump’s post-election meeting did with President Barack Obama in 2016. But it will also be different in that we can expect a much more confident President-elect Trump. This, as they say, will not be his first rodeo, and Trump has never been one to ask for advice.
This doesn’t mean Trump will be dismissive, at least publicly. But don’t be surprised if he drops some sort of wisecrack walking out the door, making some quip about Biden’s age or about he was wronged in 2020 and should never have left back then.
Do expect Biden to use a little humor — not only is it in his nature, but it is a disarming technique. But perhaps the biggest ask that will come from Biden is for the president-elect to look at Ukraine with fresh eyes. Biden may go as far as to imply that continuing aid to Ukraine as it approaches its third year resisting a brutal Russian military invasion could cement his name in the history books as a stalwart defender of democracy. (Ironic, I know.)
It will likely end with Biden assuring Trump, and the public, that he will do everything possible to make this a smooth transition and promise to assist the president-elect in any way needed.
Now, it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that some White House staffers might refuse to follow their boss’ classy and patriotic lead, perhaps in the vein of the prank that disgruntled outgoing Clinton staffers pulled when they reportedly removed the letter W from some of the White House keyboards during the transition in early 2001. But let’s hope they don’t. The message that Biden wants to send, and which the country could use, is that however much disappointment and hurt Democrats might be feeling right now, disrespecting the office only debases themselves and contributes to the seemingly unbridgeable partisan divide.
Regardless of how the meeting plays out, performative political moments like this actually matter. They’re a reminder that we’re a country built on democratic values.
