CUSTOMARY MEETING: The two leaders are to discuss an orderly transfer of power, although Trump did not attend Biden’s inauguration ceremony in January 2020
AFP, WASHINGTON
US President Joe Biden is to meet with US president-elect Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday after the US leader pledged an orderly transfer of power back to the Republican he beat in elections just four years ago.
Trump — who never conceded his 2020 loss — sealed a remarkable comeback to the presidency in the Tuesday vote last week, cementing what is set to be more than a decade of US politics dominated by his hardline right-wing stance.
This type of meeting between the outgoing and incoming presidents was considered customary, but Trump did not invite Biden for one after making unsubstantiated election fraud claims that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
US President Joe Biden, left, and US president-elect Donald Trump are pictured in a combined image.
Photo: AP
Trump also broke with precedent by skipping Biden’s inauguration, but the White House has said the Democratic president is to attend the upcoming ceremony.
Biden’s meeting with Trump is to take place in the Oval Office, the White House said on Saturday, with the clock ticking down to the ex-president’s return to power.
Trump, the 78-year-old ex-reality TV star, won wider margins than before, despite a criminal conviction, two impeachments while in office and warnings from his former chief of staff that he is a “fascist.”
Exit polls showed that voters’ top concerns remained the economy and inflation that spiked under Biden in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 81-year-old president, who dropped out of the White House race in July over concerns about his age, health and mental acuity, called Trump on Wednesday last week to congratulate him on the election win.
Trump on Saturday ruled out re-appointing two senior figures from his first administration, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley.
Pompeo had outlined a hawkish plan for Ukraine in July involving more weapons transfers and tough action against Russia’s energy sector which analysts noted on Saturday was at odds with other key Trump backers.
Haley, a former South Carolina governor, had challenged Trump for the Republican Party’s nomination earlier this year.
“I very much appreciated working with them previously and would like to thank them for their service to our country,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Abrasive former ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell is seen as a frontrunner for the secretary of state position, as is Florida Senator Marco Rubio who called Trump a “con artist” and the “most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency” in 2016.
The other frontrunners for a place in the Trump 2.0 administration reflect the significant changes it is likely to implement.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a leading figure in the anti-vaccine movement for whom Trump has pledged a “big role” in healthcare, told NBC News on Wednesday last week that “I’m not going to take away anybody’s vaccines.”
The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, could also be in line for a job auditing government waste after the right-wing SpaceX, Tesla and X boss enthusiastically backed Trump.
