Obama And Trump’s First Post-Election Meeting Broke With Tradition

After 90-minute meeting with his successor at the White House, Obama says he and Trump had an “excellent” discussion. “It was wide-ranging. We talked about some of the organizational issues in setting up the White House”, the president said.

He said they had discussed domestic and foreign policy and he had been “very encouraged” by Mr Trump’s interest in working with President Obama’s team.

Obama, who has called Trump unfit for presidency during the bitter election campaign, stressed that it’s important for the country to “come together”.

Despite striking a conciliatory tone in his meeting with the president- elect, Obama just last week described Trump as an existential threat to the world’s oldest democratic republic. Trump in return said that he looked forward to receiving the outgoing president’s “counsel”.

It’s a moment many believed would never happen: President Obama and Donald Trump in the same room. If the meeting of Obama and Trump is any indication, it would have also been amazingly awkward.

Mr Trump headed from the White House to Capitol Hill for a lunch meeting with House Speaker Paul Ryan. “He’s explained some of the difficulties, some of the high-flying assets and some of the really great things that have been achieved”.

Trump for years antagonized Obama by questioning whether Obama really was born in the US and alleging his birth certificate was a fake. If they all vote the way their states voted, Donald Trump will become the next president.

In a possible early pivot by Trump, controversial campaign proposals, including his call to ban Muslims from entering the United States, have been removed from the president-elect’s campaign website.

Both Barack Obama and Donald Trump have been staunch critics of one another for years.

Obama said his main priority was to ensure a smooth transition of power and he wanted Trump and his wife, Melania, to feel welcome as they prepare to move into the White House.

Obama also noted that while he and Trump met, First Lady Michelle Obama also met with the future First Lady, Melania Trump.

Chanting anti-Trump slogans, such as “not my president” or “we reject president-elect“, people have been occupying streets in cities from California to NY, expressing their displeasure with the presidential race’s outcome.

“It is no secret that the President-elect and I have some pretty significant differences”, Obama said Wednesday during a press conference.