Trump makes triumphant return to White House, Biden promises smooth transition

Washington: Donald Trump left White House on January 20, 2021, as a bitter man angry at the 2020 election results that he continued to reject, as an isolated man whose own party sought to distance itself from Trump after the mob insurrection on US Capitol, as a politician whose political obituary was being widely written in Washington DC and beyond, and as a president who had broken the tradition of peaceful transfer of power.
On Wednesday, November 13, 2024, Donald Trump returned to the White House, as a historic figure who became only the second president to win non-successive terms in office, as a political genius who recaptured the Republican Party and reshaped its ideological worldview, as a politician with a keen eye on his political legacy in the second term, and as president-elect ready to pick up the reins of power again.
And this time, President Joe Biden, whose election win Trump refused to accept four years ago, was in Oval Office to welcome Trump and promise him what he did not get; a smooth transition, a peaceful transfer of power.
After landing in DC on Wednesday morning, Trump first made a quick run to the Capitol Hill area where Republican leadership elections were about to commence and threw his weight behind Mike Johnson to lead the party in the House. Trump received a hero’s welcome and joked about a third term — the constitution limits him to two terms.
Trump then went down Pennsylvania Avenue to White House. The president and First Lady Jill Biden greeted Trump, with Jill Biden handing him a letter for Melania Trump who did not make the trip.
In the Oval Office, Biden and Trump shook hands, with Biden congratulating the president elect, and telling him, “I look forward to having a smooth transition. Welcome back.”
Trump said, “Thank you very much. And politics is tough. And it’s in many cases not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today and I appreciate it very much. A transition that is so smooth, it will be as smooth as it can get, and I very much appreciate that.”
As America restored its democratic tradition on Wednesday, the unpredictability of democratic politics was on display yet again. And the transition from a Barack Obama-Joe Biden administration to a Trump administration to a Biden-Kamala Harris administration to now, once again, a Trump administration captured the story of America of the past decade.