--- title: Biden Welcomes Trump in Awkward Oval Office Meeting description: The logs were stacked high and flames filled the Oval Office fireplace as Joe Biden sat next to Donald Trump for an awkward meeting. canonical: https://time.com/7176252/trump-biden-oval-office/ author: Brian Bennett article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-11-13T18:05:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-01-19T15:38:09.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Biden Welcomes Trump to Oval Office og:description: The logs were stacked high and flames filled the Oval Office fireplace as Joe Biden sat next to Donald Trump for an awkward meeting. og:url: https://time.com/7176252/trump-biden-oval-office/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9dc4f3571c5dd2ea/698a9c299d83e818a9ba12fa/GettyImages-2183891955.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: US-POLITICS-TRUMP-BIDEN og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Biden Welcomes Trump to Oval Office twitter:description: The logs were stacked high and flames filled the Oval Office fireplace as Joe Biden sat next to Donald Trump for an awkward meeting. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9dc4f3571c5dd2ea/698a9c299d83e818a9ba12fa/GettyImages-2183891955.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # In Oval Office, Biden Welcomes Trump, Who Plans to Unwind Biden's Presidency > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME. Updated: Jan 19, 2026 3:38 PM UTCPublished: Nov 13, 2024 6:05 PM UTC  President Joe Biden meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on November 13, 2024 President Joe Biden meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on November 13, 2024Saul Loeb—AFP via Getty Images  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME. Updated: Jan 19, 2026 3:38 PM UTCPublished: Nov 13, 2024 6:05 PM UTC The logs were stacked high and flames filled the Oval Office fireplace as President Joe Biden sat next to President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday. Biden smiled and extended his hand in welcome. It was a meeting Biden hoped could bring down the temperature in American politics but the halting introductions betrayed the awkwardness of the moment. It hadn’t been that long since Biden had called Trump a threat to democracy and national security and Trump had called Biden “crooked” and “low I.Q.” “Mr. President elect, and the former President, and Donald, congratulations,” Biden said. “And, uh, looking forward to having a, like we said, smooth transition, do everything we can to make sure you are accommodated, what you need.” Trump replied: “Good.” With that, Trump was welcomed back to the same office he left four years earlier after trying and failing to overturn Biden’s election victory. The President-elect thanked Biden and hinted at the high-octane political fight the two just came through. “Politics is tough, and it’s—many cases—not a very nice world. But it is a nice world today, and I appreciate—very much—a transition that’s so smooth. It’ll be as smooth as it can get,” Trump said. The meeting itself, which lasted nearly 2 hours, is part of Biden’s larger project to repair what Trump had broken when he denied the 2020 election results, sparked a violent attack on the Capitol, and refused to welcome in his successor. And Biden wants to impress upon Trump the benefits he sees in keeping in place many of his outgoing administration’s massive investments in American infrastructure like removing lead pipes, laying new broadband cables and moving the American economy away from fossil fuels. But Trump’s picks for his cabinet and key White House posts indicate he’s gearing up to dismantle as much of Biden’s signature project as possible. Trump is assembling a combative team who are best known for their ability to ferociously defend Trump and his ideas on TV. Lee Zeldin, his pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency, promised to “restore US energy dominance.” His foreign policy team has been skeptical of America’s support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, which Biden has championed for nearly three years. Before Trump arrived at the White House on Wednesday, he stopped to speak to House Republicans at a hotel near the Capitol and hinted he’d welcome Congressional Republicans changing the Constitution to allow him to run for a third term. “I suspect I won’t be running again unless you do something,” Trump told the GOP lawmakers in the ballroom. Trump and Biden were joined at their meeting by White House chief of staff Jeff Zients and Susie Wiles, who is poised to fill in that role for Trump after serving his campaign manager. Also with Trump on his Washington trip were his personal aide Natalie Harp and his valet Walt Nauta. Nauta has pled not guilty to charges of concealing or withholding classified documents and obstruction of justice in the investigation into Trump's possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s charges in that case are likely to be dropped, as Special Counsel Jack Smith decides how to wrap up the federal cases against Trump before Trump becomes President. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7176252/trump-biden-oval-office/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7176252/trump-biden-oval-office/"},"headline":"In Oval Office, Biden Welcomes Trump, Who Plans to Unwind Biden's Presidency","datePublished":"2024-11-13T18:05:52.000Z","dateModified":"2026-01-19T15:38:09.000Z","description":"Biden promised Trump a 'smooth transition'","url":"https://time.com/7176252/trump-biden-oval-office/","keywords":["Donald Trump","2024 Elections"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9dc4f3571c5dd2ea/698a9c299d83e818a9ba12fa/GettyImages-2183891955.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Brian Bennett","jobTitle":"Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9dc4f3571c5dd2ea/698a9c299d83e818a9ba12fa/GettyImages-2183891955.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-POLITICS-TRUMP-BIDEN","caption":"US-POLITICS-TRUMP-BIDEN","creditText":"Saul Loeb—AFP via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7176252/trump-biden-oval-office/","name":"In Oval Office, Biden Welcomes Trump, Who Plans to Unwind Biden's Presidency"}}]}] ```