The last time Donald Trump was in the Oval Office, he scrawled out a two-page letter to Joe Biden in his distinctive jagged penmanship, slipped it into the drawer of the Resolute Desk and notwithstanding the note’s surprisingly gracious tone – walked away from the building defeated and bitter.
He returns to the White House on Wednesday for a meeting with Biden in vastly altered circumstances, emboldened by a likely popular vote victory in last week’s election and basking in his return to power.
No longer is Trump the pariah-like figure who even many Republicans said would never return to the White House after his role in instigating the January 6, 2021, riot.
Instead of shunned, Trump will sit down with Biden a few feet away from the very same dining room where he watched the attack unfold on his 60-inch television, resisting entreaties by his advisers to intervene.
Just picturing the scene would likely make Biden’s blood boil. But 1,393 days after Trump last walked out of the White House – skipping Biden’s inauguration in a fit of pique — the president will nonetheless welcome Trump back into the sanctum as he looks to demonstrate a peaceful transition of power following the Republican’s decisive win last week.
The awkwardness can’t be denied. The last time Biden mentioned Trump before the election, he described him during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania as someone “you’d like to smack in the a**.” As a candidate and later as a (barely used) surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden cast Trump as nothing less than a threat to democracy itself.
Over the course of his presidency, Biden would sometimes grow irritated at reminders of the man who’d moved out. “What an a**hole,” he’s told visitors upon seeing the $50,000 golf simulator Trump installed in the White House residence.
Yet for at least a morning, Biden will put those feelings aside, the imperative of a smooth transition overriding any personal animus. Despite the rancor expressed on the stump by both Biden and Trump toward the other, the tenor of Wednesday’s meeting is expected to remain professional.
“Everyone is going to be polite,” one senior administration official told CNN.
A brief call Wednesday between Biden and Trump after the former president’s victory was described as “very friendly,” with Biden aides expressing surprise at Trump’s approach of deference and flattery.
“I assured him that I’d direct my entire administration to work with his team,” Biden said after phoning Trump last week.
Trump makes his triumphant return to Washington for a meeting he never gave to Biden
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