Social media lit up on Wednesday (US time) after outgoing President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump sat down for a customary post-election reunion in the Oval Office of the White House. Netizens noticeably got hung up on the 81-year-old 46th POTUS beaming visage. Many said this was the happiest they had seen Biden in a while.
With the oldest sitting president of the US all smiles in the company of his political rival, a significant faction of internet users are turned to conspiracy talks. Wild conspiracists again dug up the same trail of memes and speculations that the twinkle in the Democrat leader’s eyes was warranted since he possibly voted for Trump during this election run after allegedly being toppled from his own reelection seat by Vice President Kamala Harris and ex-president Barack Obama.
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Donald Trump and Joe Biden keep things civil during historic White House meeting
While the confirmation (or the lack thereof) for those claims will presumably always keep lurking in the dark, the incoming 47th American president later set the record straight about what he and Biden connected over. In a phone interview with the New York Post, the Republican leader basically confirmed that he and Biden kept their proverbial professional hats on despite their political rivalry raging from either side of the Democratic vs Republican divide.
The 78-year-old president-elect said that he and the sitting president “both really enjoyed seeing each other” on Wednesday. Concerning their respective campaigns for a second term, even though Biden dropped out of the race early, Trump added, “You know, it’s been a long, it’s been a long slog. It’s been a lot of work on both sides and he did a very good job with respect to campaigning and everything else. We really had a really good meeting.”
Trump and Biden picked each other’s brains: What they really talked about
The scheduled meeting for which Joe Biden invited Donald Trump to the White House after a staggering election victory was part of a long-established tradition. However, it wasn’t one that he treated to four years ago when he defeated his Republican presidential opponent, ultimately culminating in the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. Nevertheless, the new president-elect confirmed that he and Biden “got to know each other again” through this get-together.
After getting the pleasantries out of the way, the president-elect and the sitting president also got down to some business and exchanged their thoughts on matters they had previously publicly disagreed on. The two discussed the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Also read | Trump and Biden bond over ‘tough’ politics in historic White House meeting despite evident awkwardness
Donald Trump and Joe Biden on good terms
Despite their differences, as also witnessed through a summer-long political debate that has seen them call each other names, Trump affirmed that the Republican transition and the Biden White House teams share a “very, very good relationship.” He also established that the transition process was “going very smoothly.”
The incoming president emphasised that he “asked for his (Biden’s) views and he gave them to” him. Having found an insight into the Democrat’s views “on where we are and what he thinks” about the Middle East, Trump even praised Biden as being “very gracious” through it all.
The two presidents are expected to cross paths again before January 20, 2025. As Trump is looking forward to coming back to the “so beautiful” Oval Office, he also divulged that Biden told him he would be attending his inauguration in the new year.
