President Joe Biden will meet with President-elect Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday after the US leader pledged an orderly transfer of power back to the Republican he beat in elections just four years ago.
Trump, who never conceded his 2020 loss, sealed a historic comeback to the presidency in the November 5 vote, cementing what is set to be more than a decade of US politics overshadowed by his hardline right-wing stance.
Biden will join the tiny club of US presidents to return power to their White House predecessor — with a previous instance coming when President Benjamin Harrison handed back to Grover Cleveland in the 19th century.
The Democrat will meet Trump at the Oval Office at 11:00 am (1600 GMT), the White House said on Saturday, with the clock ticking down to the ex-president’s return to power in January.
The 78-year-old ex-reality TV star won wider margins than before, despite a criminal conviction, two impeachments while in office and warnings from his former chief of staff that he is a “fascist.”
Exit polls showed that voters’ top concern remained the economy and inflation that spiked under Biden in the wake of the Covid pandemic.
Biden, who dropped out of the race in July over concerns about his ability to continue at the age of 81, called Trump on Wednesday to congratulate him after his election win.
The Democratic leader urged Americans in a solemn televised address to “bring down the temperature,” in stark contrast to Trump’s refusal to accept his 2020 election defeat.
Trump has begun to assemble his second administration, naming campaign manager Susie Wiles to serve as his White House chief of staff.
She is the first woman to be named to the high-profile role and the Republican’s first appointment to his incoming administration.
“Susie is tough, smart, innovative, and is universally admired and respected,” Trump said of the steely 67-year-old Florida native. “Susie will continue to work tirelessly to Make America Great Again.”
The other frontrunners for a place in the Trump 2.0 administration reflect the significant changes it is likely to implement.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading figure in the anti-vaccine movement for whom Trump has pledged a “big role” in health care, told NBC News on Wednesday that “I’m not going to take away anybody’s vaccines.”
The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, could also be in line for a job auditing government waste after the right-wing SpaceX, Tesla and X boss enthusiastically backed Trump.
Trump is expected to wield the axe on many of Biden’s signature policies.
He returns to the White House as a climate change denier, poised to take apart Biden’s green policies with his pledge to “drill, baby, drill” for oil.
