EGN NEWS DESK
The logs have been stacked excessive and flames crammed the Oval Office hearth as President Joe Biden sat subsequent to President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday.
Biden smiled and prolonged his hand in welcome. It was a gathering Biden hoped may convey down the temperature in American politics however the halting introductions betrayed the awkwardness of the second. It hadn’t been that lengthy since Biden had known as Trump a menace to democracy and nationwide safety and Trump had known as Biden “crooked” and “low I.Q.”
“Mr. President elect, and the previous President, and Donald, congratulations,” Biden mentioned. “And, uh, trying ahead to having a, like we mentioned, clean transition, do every part we are able to to ensure you are accommodated, what you want.” Trump replied: “Good.”
With that, Trump was welcomed again to the identical workplace he left 4 years earlier after attempting and failing to overturn Biden’s election victory. The President-elect thanked Biden and hinted on the high-octane political struggle the 2 simply got here by means of. “Politics is hard, and it’s—many instances—not a really good world. But it’s a good world as we speak, and I respect—very a lot—a transition that’s so clean. It’ll be as clean as it could actually get,” Trump mentioned.
The assembly itself, which lasted practically 2 hours, is a part of Biden’s bigger undertaking to restore what Trump had damaged when he denied the 2020 election outcomes, sparked a violent assault on the Capitol, and refused to welcome in his successor. And Biden desires to impress upon Trump the advantages he sees in maintaining in place a lot of his outgoing administration’s large investments in American infrastructure like eradicating lead pipes, laying new broadband cables and shifting the American economic system away from fossil fuels.
But Trump’s picks for his cupboard and key White House posts point out he’s gearing as much as dismantle as a lot of Biden’s signature undertaking as potential. Trump is assembling a combative group who’re finest recognized for his or her potential to ferociously defend Trump and his concepts on TV. Lee Zeldin, his choose to run the Environmental Protection Agency, promised to “restore US power dominance.” His overseas coverage group has been skeptical of America’s assist for Ukraine in its battle with Russia, which Biden has championed for practically three years.
Before Trump arrived on the White House on Wednesday, he stopped to talk to House Republicans at a resort close to the Capitol and hinted he’d welcome Congressional Republicans altering the Constitution to permit him to run for a 3rd time period. “I believe I gained’t be working once more except you do one thing,” Trump advised the GOP lawmakers within the ballroom.
Trump and Biden have been joined at their assembly by White House chief of employees Jeff Zients and Susie Wiles, who’s poised to fill in that function for Trump after serving his marketing campaign manager. Also with Trump on his Washington journey have been his private aide Natalie Harp and his valet Walt Nauta. Nauta has pled not responsible to expenses of concealing or withholding categorized paperwork and obstruction of justice within the investigation into Trump’s possession of categorized paperwork at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s expenses in that case are prone to be dropped, as Special Counsel Jack Smith decides wrap up the federal instances in opposition to Trump earlier than Trump turns into President.
