White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that the meeting between President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump was “gracious” and “substantive” just weeks after agreeing that the then-Republican nominee met the definition of a “fascist.”
Trump arrived at the White House Wednesday morning to meet with Biden about the upcoming transition of executive power, where the two ultimately sat down for over two hours discussing domestic and foreign issues. Jean-Pierre said the president and president-elect had a “cordial” and meaningful meeting at the press briefing held afterwards.
“I’m not gonna go into granular detail of what was discussed in the meeting, what I can say is it was indeed very cordial, very gracious, and substantive,” Jean-Pierre said. “And as I said at the top, national security was discussed, domestic policy issues were discussed, I had an opportunity to speak with the president in the Oval Office before coming out to do this press briefing because I wanted to make sure that I got what the president wanted to share with all of you, so the thing that I am saying is sanctioned by the president. He wanted you all to know that the president-elect was gracious, came with a detailed set of questions, it was substantive.”
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Jean-Pierre assured that Biden respects “the will of the American people” and wants to ensure a peaceful and efficient transfer of power. She said the president answered every question that Trump posed, offered his advice and appeared to believe that the president-elect accepted his advice.
“You all know that there was a very good back-and-forth and it was substantive as I mentioned before,” Jean-Pierre said. “I want to be mindful that it was a private conversation so I don’t want to go into specifics or details. But look, they met for more than two hours, they met for a very long time … and I think by the length of the meeting tells you that they had an in-depth conversation on an array of issues and so look, the president reached out to the president-elect wanting to make sure that he gave an opportunity to the president-elect, afforded him that opportunity to have a meeting with him to talk about the different issues that matter to the American people.”
“But nearly two hours, I think says a lot about how the meeting went,” the press secretary continued.
The press secretary confirmed the White House’s official position that Trump is a “fascist” during an Oct. 23 press briefing in response to former chief of staff John Kelly alleging that the now-president-elect “met the definition of a fascist” and praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Biden and the White House had repeatedly warned about Trump being a “threat to democracy” and an “extremist” before his victory in the 2024 election.
Biden congratulated Trump on his electoral victory in the Oval Office ahead of their meeting, in which the president-elect thanked the president and vowed the transition of power would be “as smooth as it can get.”
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