Trump makes his triumphant return to Washington for a meeting like the one he never gave to Biden

() – The last time Donald Trump was in the Oval Office, he wrote a two-page letter to Joe Biden in his distinctive jagged handwriting, slipped it into his Resolute desk drawer, and, despite the note’s surprisingly kind tone, walked away from the office. defeated and bitter building.

He returns to the White House on Wednesday for a meeting with Biden under very different circumstances, emboldened by a likely popular vote victory in last week’s election and relishing his return to power.

Trump is no longer the pariah figure that even many Republicans said would never return to the White House after his role in instigating the January 6, 2021, riot.

Instead of being rebuffed, Trump will sit with Biden just feet from the same dining room where he watched the attack unfold on his 60-inch television, resisting pleas from his advisers to intervene.

Just imagining the scene would probably make Biden’s blood boil. But 1,393 days after Trump last left the White House, skipping Biden’s inauguration in a fit of rage, the president will welcome Trump as he seeks to demonstrate a peaceful transition of power following the Republican’s decisive victory last week. pass.

The discomfort cannot 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 punch in the a**.” As a candidate and then as a (little-used) surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden presented Trump as nothing less than a threat to democracy itself.

Throughout his presidency, Biden sometimes bristled at remembering the man who had moved on. “What an idiot,” he told visitors when they saw the $50,000 golf simulator that Trump installed in the White House residence.

However, at least for one morning, Biden will put those feelings aside, as the imperative of a smooth transition trumps any personal animosity. Despite the bitterness expressed on the campaign trail by both Biden and Trump toward each other, the tone of Wednesday’s meeting is expected to remain professional.

“Everyone is going to be polite,” a senior administration official told .

A brief call Wednesday between Biden and Trump after the former president’s victory was described as “very friendly,” with Biden’s aides expressing surprise at Trump’s approach of deference and adulation.

“I assured him that I would direct my entire administration to work with his team,” Biden said after calling Trump last week.

It is a favor that Trump never granted Biden under the opposite circumstances. He never admitted defeat, never made a phone call, never invited Biden to lunch.

He left Washington before Biden was inaugurated, using Air Force One one last time to escape to Palm Beach, Florida. It was the first time a sitting president skipped his successor’s inauguration since 1869.

Those were dark days for Trump. He was barely seen in public, his calendar empty except for the notice he issued himself stating that he would “work from early in the morning until late at night” and “make a lot of calls and have a lot of meetings.”

Moving trucks arrived at the White House to collect the Trumps’ belongings. Workers hung garlands reading “Biden-Harris 2021 Inauguration” from temporary stands in front of the North Portico of the White House, visible from their third-floor residence.

Inside, Trump had become consumed by the unraveling of his presidency, surrounded by a shrinking circle of associates, many of them decades younger. Old friends who used to talk to him regularly said they could no longer communicate with him, both literally, because he was rejecting their calls, and figuratively, because those who managed to communicate described a man lost in denial and disconnected from reality.

To some advisers, Trump suggested he might not leave the building at all, claiming the election had been stolen from him. When reality set in that he would, in fact, have to leave the White House, his focus turned to the military-style farewell at Joint Base Andrews on the morning of Inauguration Day. But finding fans to attend became an ordeal, and in the end only about 300 people showed up.

“We will be back in some form,” Trump told the modest crowd of supporters who gathered to see him off. “So have a good life. “We will see each other soon.”

The statement seemed outlandish at the time. But the following years saw Republicans mostly abandon their reservations about Trump, leading to his political comeback.

Upon returning to the Oval Office, Trump will find that some things have changed since he left. Gone is the hanging oil portrait of President Andrew Jackson, a populist known for overseeing the forced relocation of Native Americans. Biden hung portraits of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton in their place, the latter two selected as reminders of two leaders with very different ideologies who worked together.

A bust of British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill has also been removed from the Oval Office, replaced with statues of Latino civil rights leader César Chávez, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Rosa Parks and Eleanor Roosevelt (Biden has Churchill’s bust in his private dining room).

Alternatively, you may be intrigued by one of Biden’s additions to the Oval Office: a small television, encased in a gold frame to remain unobtrusive, located behind the Resolute desk.

When they sit down Wednesday, Biden hopes to convey “how he sees things, where they are, and talk to President Trump about how President Trump is thinking about addressing these issues when he takes office,” said his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. , to CBS News this weekend.

That includes pushing to maintain U.S. support for Ukraine, an area where Trump has questioned maintaining the Biden administration’s stance.

“Biden will argue that continued resources are needed for Ukraine beyond the end of his term,” Sullivan said.

It won’t be the first time Trump sits in the Oval Office, listening as the incumbent Democrat appeals to keep certain initiatives in place. In 2016, an overwhelmed-looking Trump visited then-President Barack Obama after his surprise victory, even for him, against Hillary Clinton.

Obama entered the meeting intending to convey a warning that North Korea was quickly becoming a predominant national security concern, and to convey the importance of selecting qualified personnel for the White House.

The meeting extended well beyond its allotted time. Obama later told advisers that Trump was cordial but also difficult to read, more interested in discussing his political and media prowess than anything of substance.

Even Trump’s staff at the time seemed unprepared to take on the enormous task before them. Obama advisers who met with their incoming counterparts described their questions as less focused on running the country than on basic tasks like finding an apartment in Washington.

This time it will probably be different. Trump himself served as president for more days than Biden has served, making his advice about the job itself somewhat redundant.

And based on how Trump treated Obama’s policy advice — keep the Iran nuclear deal, don’t try to repeal Obamacare — Biden may be selective about what he pushes for.

With information from Kayla Tausche.