President Joe Biden met with Donald Trump this Wednesday at the White House to demonstrate the desire for a “peaceful” transfer of powers. During the campaign, when Biden was still a candidate, the Democrat claimed that Trump was a threat to democracy. Now he will have to hand over executive power to the man who instigated the assault on the Capitol in 2021 and who tried to prevent the certification of his victory, as well as overturn the 2020 election result.
“Mr. President-elect, former president, Donald, congratulations. Welcome back,” Biden said at the beginning of the meeting in front of the media. The president has defended a “calm transition.” Trump responded: “Thank you very much. Politics is hard and many times it is not a very pretty world. But today is nice and I am very grateful for a smooth transition.”
The cordiality of the meeting has been one of the few exceptions in the midst of the exchange of attacks between both politicians, where Trump has stood out for his aggressiveness when it comes to insults.
Biden has recovered the tradition that Trump broke in 2020, when the Republican did not invite the Democrat after winning the election. Both have sat in the Oval Office, honoring the custom that the outgoing president receives the incoming president. The Republican even left Washington before the inauguration on January 20, 2021, becoming the first president to do so since Andrew Johnson was absent from the inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant in 1869.
The only two images that exist of Trump complying with tradition are from when he was the winner: first in 2016, when Barack Obama also met with him in the Oval Office, and now in 2024. The emptiness of 2020 once again highlights the an anomaly that the Republican has represented for the political life of the country and exposes the fragility that the North American democratic system has experienced since then.
The meeting between Biden and Trump was behind closed doors. When Trump met with Barack Obama in 2016 after winning the election, the talk lasted almost an hour and a half, when it was scheduled to last less than half an hour.
It is the first time that Biden and Trump have appeared together publicly since the disastrous CNN debatewhich marked the beginning of the end for the Democrat’s candidacy. During the presidential face-to-face, Trump reveled in the Democrat’s fragility to the point of mocking him by challenging him to a game of golf. “I don’t know what he said at the end of the sentence. I think he doesn’t know what he said either,” he said in response to Biden’s stutters on the Atlanta set.
Before the meeting at the White House, the president-elect met with Republican congressmen, where he also went with Elon Musk. Everything indicates that the Republicans will maintain the majority in the House of Representatives and, in addition, have also regained control of the Senate.
During the meeting, Trump told lawmakers that he believes he will not run for re-election again: “Unless you say it’s so good that we have to think about something.” The US Constitution prohibits a third presidential term unless amended. Although to do so it would be necessary to have two-thirds of the Senate and two-thirds of the House of Representatives. Once it was approved in Congress, three-quarters of the states, that is, 38, would also have to ratify it.
An institutionalist for the Senate
In parallel with the meeting between Biden and Trump, Republicans have carried out the vote to elect the new Senate majority leader. Until now the lower house had been in the hands of the Democrats and the position had been held by Chuck Schumer.
Senator John Thune, of South Dakota, has been the winner of a close race and it is one of the few positions in which a Trumpist does not triumph. Thune, 63 years old and with a marked institutionalist profile, has defeated John Corny, senator from Texas, with 29 votes to 24, who is also considered part of the old establishment of the party.
Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who was Trump’s candidate and had the support of his entire circle, only managed to collect 13 votes during the first round.
Although Thune presents a more moderate profile, he already assured on the Fox network that Republicans had to ensure that Trump could fulfill his campaign promises to maintain voter support. “If we do not comply with President Trump’s priorities, we will lose his support,” he said. “They have entrusted us with their votes. “Now we have to roll up our sleeves and get to work.”
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