Emboldened Trump returns to Washington to meet with Biden, announce controversial Cabinet picks

WASHINGTON —  President-elect Donald Trump returned to the nation’s capital Wednesday for the first time since winning election, meeting with congressional leaders, sitting in the Oval Office with President Biden and announcing a flurry of high-profile nominations for his Cabinet.

The visit to the White House and Capitol Hill offered a visual preview of Trump’s emboldened second term, in which Trump-friendly Republicans are expected to have full control of Congress to carry out his wishes.

Republicans in the Senate selected a new leader Wednesday, John Thune of South Dakota, who has vowed to align the chamber more closely with Trump than his predecessor, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who occasionally bristled at Trump’s attempts to bypass rules. Among Thune’s promises: agreeing to Trump’s demand to recess appointments to the Cabinet that would skirt the Senate confirmation process.

Trump’s newest nominations include Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of State; Rep. Matt Gaetz, also of Florida, for attorney general; and former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence.

Gaetz has long been regarded as a fringe member of the Republican Party, who helped oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) and has himself been under investigation by the Department of Justice, which he is now being asked to lead.

Though the department did not charge him, Gaetz was until Wednesday under a House Ethics Committee investigation that included a review into whether he “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct,” according to a June release by the bipartisan committee.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced Wednesday that Gaetz had resigned from Congress, in effect ending the investigation.

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The newest nomination announcements came on a day when Biden welcomed Trump to the White House, a routine part of the transition that Biden had intended to underscore the need to reinforce democratic norms as the nation prepares for a Trump presidency.

Republicans won control of the Senate in last week’s election and are expected to keep control of the House. That would help Trump enact a broad policy agenda, but the narrow majorities in both chambers would fall short of the two-thirds required to amend the Constitution, which would also require ratification from three-fourths of the state legislatures.

Biden and Trump met in the Oval Office, sitting in front of a crackling fire, less than an hour after Trump met with House Republican leaders. The two men said little during a brief period in front of the news media when they shook hands and appeared cordial, despite their rancorous history.

“Congratulations, and I look forward to having a smooth transition,” Biden said.

Trump replied that “politics is tough and in many cases it’s not a nice world, but it is a nice world today,” while assuring a transition that’s “as smooth as it can get.”

The full meeting lasted nearly two hours and included Biden Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and Trump’s incoming chief, Susie Wiles. They discussed domestic and national security issues, including Biden’s desire that Congress provide disaster relief in the coming weeks and that America continue its support for Ukraine as it fights off a Russian invasion, according to aides.

Biden again tried to persuade Trump, who has been skeptical of sending money and weapons to Ukraine, that it is vital to American interest.

“It’s in our national security interest because a strong Europe, a stable Europe, standing up to aggressors and dictators and pushing back against their aggression is vital to ensuring that we don’t end up getting dragged directly into a war,” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor, told reporters, summarizing Biden’s case.

Before the leaders sat down, First Lady Jill Biden helped welcome Trump, whose wife, Melania, did not attend the meeting. Jill Biden gave Trump a handwritten note for his wife, congratulating the once and future first lady and offering to help her with the transition.

Trump was gracious and came with a detailed list of questions, according to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

“Nearly two hours says a lot about how the meeting went,” she said.

Sullivan said he believes the biggest broader challenge for Trump will be the competition with China, which he sees as “defining for what the world looks like over the course of the next 10, 20 and 30 years.”

Biden will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the final time in Peru on Saturday, while both men attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. Sullivan said Biden will convey to Xi “that we need to maintain stability, clarity, predictability through this transition between the United States and China.”

Trump did not invite Biden to the White House in 2020, hampering the transition, as he refused to concede that Biden won that election. Trump’s obstinacy never relented, culminating on Jan. 6, 2021, when he urged on an angry mob that stormed the Capitol in an attempt to halt the election certification. He has not acknowledged his election loss to this day.

Since Trump won the presidency last week, Biden and his team have made a point of highlighting their cooperation, which they see as a teachable moment in a public civics lesson. Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the Democratic presidential nominee after Biden withdrew in July, argued throughout her campaign that Trump is a threat to democracy.

“Did the elections turn out the way we wanted? Absolutely not. Are we disappointed? Yes,” Jean-Pierre said. “But again, there was an election the American people decided, and what the president wants to focus on is what it looks like, what it looks like to move forward, to put the country first, to put the American people first and move forward in a respectful way.”

Trump’s transition process has been hampered in part because he has missed deadlines to sign papers that promise to avoid conflicts of interest while in office.

But in other ways, he will come into office more aware than his predecessors of the inner workings because he is the only president aside from Grover Cleveland to win nonconsecutive terms.

After he was elected in 2016, Trump met with then-President Obama in the Oval Office for 90 minutes, an encounter that Obama’s advisors described at the time as less awkward than expected. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met with Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, a sign of the influential role Kushner was to play during Trump’s first term. Kushner is not expected to hold a position in Trump’s next term.

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Trump’s failure to sign an ethics pledge has held back some crucial aspects of the transition, including access to agency and national security briefings and documents for his team.

Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for Trump’s transition team, said in a statement that the team’s attorneys “continue to constructively engage with the Biden-Harris Administration lawyers regarding all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act” — the law governing the transition — and would announce later whether they intend to sign the documents.

Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group that seeks to help improve how the federal government operates, said the delay in the process puts the nation at risk.

“Taking over the United States government is the largest, most complex and important operation, I think, not only in our country, but the world,” he said.

The transition is a particularly vulnerable time in the nation’s security, he said, noting that the failure to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was blamed in part on a truncated process following the contested 2000 election. Trump’s team needs to review documents and meet with current leaders throughout the federal government to make sure they are prepared for any manner of crisis, he said.

“You get ready by having access to critical information and critical people, to know what’s going on,” he said.

The president-elect has progressed in assembling his advisory team in recent days, selecting a chief of staff, Wiles, along with her deputy, Stephen Miller, whose position was announced Wednesday along with other members of the senior staff.

The lack of experience in running large organizations in Trump’s early picks for high-level positions is also of concern, even as Trump has pledged to improve efficiency with the help of Elon Musk, Stier said.

“The No. 1 way that you’re going to have an efficient government is to choose people who know how to run organizations well,” he said. “They’re not picking those people so far.”

While meeting with congressional Republicans on Wednesday, Trump hinted at his desire to seek a third term. “I suspect I won’t be running again, unless you do something,” he said.

A third term for Trump would require a constitutional amendment — meaning supermajorities in Congress and the states would have to approve altering the 22nd Amendment, which limits presidents to two terms. Trump, 78, is already the oldest person to be elected president.

Trump may have been partly joking. But the president-elect, who often praises dictators, tried to overturn the 2020 election and has often made comments that have prompted concerns about his strongman tendencies — including threatening to be a dictator on Day One and to use the military to avenge “the enemy from within.”

For as much as Trump’s rhetoric and behavior have worried experts on democracy, his comments Wednesday suggested an appreciation for the role Congress would need to take in altering the Constitution.