US President Barack Obama and US president-elect Donald Trump on Thursday met for the first time, setting aside the deep rancor that dominated the long campaign season to discuss the transition to Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
Their 90-minute meeting in the White House Oval Office, with no aides present, took place just two days after Trump’s stunning election victory over Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama’s former secretary of state.
Obama, who vigorously campaigned for his fellow Democrat to succeed him, had repeatedly called Trump unfit for the president’s office, while the businessman had often dubbed Obama’s eight-year tenure a “disaster.”
Photo: Reuters
However, in separate post-election remarks on Wednesday, both men appeared to seek to help the country heal from a bitterly divisive campaign and that tone continued into the White House meeting.
Seated next to Obama after their talks, Trump told reporters: “We really discussed a lot of situations, some wonderful, some difficulties.”
Trump said Obama explained “some of the really great things that have been achieved,” but he did not elaborate.
“It was a great honor being with you and I look forward to being with you many, many more times in the future,” Trump said.
Trump, a real-estate magnate who has never held political office, later met congressional leaders, including US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican who has had a strained relationship with Trump.
“A fantastic day in DC. Met with President Obama for first time. Really good meeting, great chemistry,” Trump said on Twitter late on Thursday.
Amid the efforts to bury hatchets, there were protests in a string of US cities against Trump for a second day on Thursday as demonstrators expressed concern that Trump’s election would be a blow to civil rights.
“Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair,” Trump tweeted.
Obama said he had offered assistance to Trump over the next couple of months and urged the country to unite to face its challenges.
“We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed, because if you succeed, then the country succeeds,” Obama said, adding that he and Trump discussed a range of domestic and foreign-policy issues and details related to the transition period.
“The meeting might have been at least a little less awkward than some might have expected,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.
The two men’s relaxed, cordial demeanor in front of the cameras was in stark contrast to the months of harsh rhetoric during the campaign.
Trump used Obama as a punching bag during his campaign speeches, repeatedly attacking the president’s policies from healthcare to an Iran nuclear deal.
Both Obama and first lady Michelle Obama attacked Trump as temperamentally unfit for the White House and dangerously unprepared to have access to US nuclear codes.
Asked at a White House briefing on Thursday whether the meeting had eased any of the concerns about Trump that Obama expressed during the campaign, Earnest said: “The president was never in a position to choose a successor. The American people chose his successor.”
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