DONALD Trump had an “excellent” meeting with Barack Obama at the White House yesterday, saying he would look to his predecessor for “counsel” during his own presidency.
The two men met for the first time to discuss the transition of power, after Trump’s unexpected win in the American presidential election on Tuesday.
Trump’s plane, emblazoned with his own name, landed in Reagan National Airport at around 10.30am, before the presidential motorcade took him to what will be his new home from January 20.
For 90 minutes the President and the President-elect spoke alone, with no staff. Afterwards, they sat beside each other, and both delivered short statements.
Obama said the conversation was “excellent” and “wide-ranging”
“We talked about some of the organizational issues in setting up the White House,” he said. “We talked about foreign policy, we talked about domestic policy. And as I said last night, my number one priority in the coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our president elect is successful.”
Trump, Obama said, had shown a willingness on working with his team “around many of the issues that this great country faces”.
Addressing Trump directly, Obama said: “And most of all I want to emphasise to you, Mr President-elect, that we now are gonna want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed then the country succeeds.”
Trump was effusive in his praise or Obama, telling reporters that the meeting was only supposed to last for just maybe 10 or 15 minutes.
“We had never met each other,” Trump said. “I have great respect – the meeting lasted for almost an hour and a half, and it could have, as far as I’m concerned, it could have gone on for a lot longer.
‘‘We really ... we discussed a lot of different situations, some wonderful and some difficulties. I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel. He’s explained some of the difficulties, some of the high-flying assets and some of the really great things that have been achieved. So Mr President, it was a great honor being with you and I look forward to being with you many, many more times in the future.”
It was the first of a number of DC meetings for Trump, who also met with key Republicans such as House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
His Vice-President-elect Mike Pence met with Vice-President Joe Biden, a man who said during the campaign said he’d like to beat Trump up, while incoming First Lady Melania Trump met with Michelle Obama.
Before yesterday’s pragmatic meeting, the two presidents have had little time for each other. Trump’s campaign was effectively based on a platform of being against anything Obama was for.
Trump’s first footsteps into the race was through his suggestion Obama, the first African-American president, was lying about being a Christian, and lying about being born in Hawaii.
Implying that he was a Kenyan-born Muslim infiltrating the country, He spent a small fortune in his campaign to see Obama’s birth certificate.
“He doesn’t have a birth certificate. He may have one, but there’s something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim,” Trump told Fox News in 2011.
“I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want that.”
When Obama gave in and released his birth certificate, Trump suggested it was fake.
At the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner, with Trump in the audience, Obama mocked Trump’s birtherism: “He can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter – like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?”
On Monday, in Philadelphia, Obama had suggested Trump was incompetent and unfit, citing a New York Times report that Trump’s staff had taken his Twitter account away from him after a 3am rant about former Miss Universe Alicia Machado.
“They had so little confidence in his self-control, they said, ‘We are just going to take away your Twitter.’ Now, if somebody can’t handle a Twitter account, they can’t handle the nuclear codes.”
As the two men left they ignored the shouted questions of the press, including one reporter who asked: “Mr. President, do you still think he is a threat to the republic?”
Anti-Trump protesters take to street to chant ‘not my president’
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