WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will host President-elect Donald Trump for a customary postelection meeting in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
Such a meeting is a tradition between the outgoing president and the incoming president, and is intended partly to mark the start of a peaceful transfer of power under America’s democracy.
However, Trump, a Republican, did not host Biden, a Democrat, for a similar meeting after the 2020 election, when Trump lost his reelection bid.
Trump ran for the presidency again four years later, and this week he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat. Trump is the first former president to return to power since Grover Cleveland regained the White House in the 1892 election.
The White House said Biden called Trump this past Wednesday to congratulate him and invite him to meet in the Oval Office.
In a speech Thursday, Biden stated he had assured Trump “that I would direct my entire administration to work with his team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition. That’s what the American people deserve.”
Their upcoming meeting is scheduled for 11 a.m.