WASHINGTON – Donald Trump is making a victorโs return to Washington.
The president-electโs plane landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Wednesday morning. Presidentย Joe Bidenย โ both Trumpโs successor and predecessor to the presidency โ will welcome him to the White House for an Oval Office visit. Itโs aย traditional part of the peaceful handoff of powerย โ a ritual that Trump himself declined to participate in four years ago.
Trump also planned to meet with congressional Republicans as they focus on hisย Day 1 prioritiesย and prepare for a potentially unified government with aย GOP sweep of powerย in the nation’s capital. His visit, amid Republican congressional leadership elections, could put his imprint on the outcome.
โI expect him to give a great message today, more like a locker room speech getting everybody ready for whatโs coming in January,โ Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., said on Fox Newsโ โFox and Friends.โ The new Congress will be sworn-in about two weeks before Trump takes office on Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, 2025.
In an unusual move, Trump was being accompanied on the trip by billionaire Elon Musk. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who was named by Trump on Tuesday to a government efficiency advisory role, is not currently expected to attend the White House sit-down, but will join Trump’s meeting with House Republicans before that.
Musk has been spending much of his time at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate, and participating in transition meetings. Some close to Trump and his team now see the billionaire as the second most influential figure in Trumpโs immediate orbit, after Susie Wiles, the campaign manager who is Trump’s incoming chief of staff.
For Trump, it’s a stunning return to the U.S. seat of government after he departed nearly four years ago a diminished, politically defeated leader after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol but is preparing to come back to power with what he and his GOP allies see as a mandate for governance.
House Speakerย Mike Johnsonย said that Republicans are โready to deliverโ on Trumpโs โAmerica Firstโ agenda.
After his election win in 2016, Trump met with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office and called it โa great honor.” But he soon was back to heaping insults on Obama, including accusing his predecessor โ without evidence โ of havingย wire-tapped himย during the 2016 campaign.
Four years later, Trump disputed his 2020 election loss to Biden, and he has continued toย lieย aboutย widespread voter fraud that did not occur. He didn’t invite Biden, then the president-elect, to the White House and he left Washington without attendingย Biden’s inauguration.ย It was the first time that had happened since Andrew Johnson skipped Ulysses S. Grant’s swearing-in 155 years ago.
Biden insists that he’ll do everything he can to make the transition to the next Trump administration go smoothly. That’s despite having spent more than a year campaigning for reelection and decrying Trump as aย threat to democracy and the nationโs core values.ย Biden thenย bowed out of the raceย in July and endorsed Vice Presidentย Kamala Harrisย to succeed him.
In the wake of the election, the president has abandoned his dire warnings about Trump, saying in a speech last week, โThe American experiment endures. Weโre going to be okay.โ
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden is committed to โmaking sure that this transition is effective, efficient and he’s doing that because it is the norm, yes, but also the right thing to do for the American people.โ
โWe want this to go well,” Jean-Pierre added. “We want this to be a process that gets the job done.”
Bidenโs national security adviser Jake Sullivan echoed that sentiment, saying the administration will uphold the โresponsible handoff from one president to the next, which is in the best tradition of our country.โ
Wednesday’s visit is more than just a courtesy call.
โThey will go through the top issues โ both domestic and foreign policy issues โ including what is happening in Europe and Asia and the Middle East,โ Sullivan told CBS of Wednesdayโs meeting. โAnd the president will have the chance to explain to President Trump how he sees things … and talk to President Trump about how President Trump is thinking about taking on these issues when he takes office.โ
Traditionally, as the outgoing and incoming presidents meet in the West Wing, the first lady hosts her successor upstairs in the residence, But her office said Melania Trump wasn’t attending, saying in a statement that โher husbandโs return to the Oval Office to commence the transition process is encouraging, and she wishes him great success.โ
After his 2016 meeting with Obama, Trump also visited lawmakers on Capitol Hill and will be doing the same Wednesday โ not far from where aย mob of his supportersย staged a violent January 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol to try and stop the certification of Biden’s election victory.
When Trumpย left Washingtonย in 2021, even some top Republicans had begun to decry him for his role in helping incite the Capitol attack. But his win in last week’s election completes a political comeback that has seen Trump once again become the unchallenged head of the GOP.
It’s not the first time Trump has returned to the Capitol area since the end of his first term, though. Congressional Republicans hosted Trump over the summer, as Trump was again solidifying his dominance over the party.
His latest visit comes as Republicans, who wrested the Senate majority from Democrats in last week’s elections and are on the cusp of keeping GOP control of the House, are in the midst of their ownย leadership electionsย happening behind closed doors Wednesday.
The president-elect’s arrival will provide another boost toย Johnson, who has pulled ever-closer to Trump as he worked to keep his majority โ and his own job with the gavel.
The speaker said he expects to see Trump repeatedly throughout the week, including at an event later that evening, and at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida โall weekend.”
It’s unclear whether Trump will also visit the Senate, which is entangled in a more divisive closed-door leadership election in theย three-way raceย to replace outgoing GOP Leader Mitch McConnell.
Trump’s allies are pushing GOP senators to vote for Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who had been a longshot candidate challenging two more senior Republicans, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota and Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, for the job.
