Obama, Trump hold meeting in Oval Office
The word that sums up the first meeting between Barack Obama and Donald Trump was “awkward.” What would we expect? The two men have spent the past few weeks questioning each other’s character.
Trump called Obama a disastrous president and spun the birther myth. Obama said that Trump was unqualified and crazy, that he “can’t handle the nuclear codes.” In many ways, Trump’s victory was a repudiation of Obama’s time in office.
And yet, remarkably given how their fates are entwined, this was also the very first time that they had met. The closest they had come to each other before was at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, when the president roasted the billionaire from the stage. Obama’s staff reportedly regret that evening. Not only was it nasty, but it might have encouraged Trump to run for the presidency in 2016 out of a mix of idealism and spite.
So it was no surprise that the visuals for this meeting emphasized formality rather than friendliness.
Trump arrived in his own plane at Reagan airport. It was greeted, bizarrely, by two fire trucks firing a water salute. His motorcade then sped to the White House.
Protesters had gathered outside with placards declaring that Trump wasn’t their president — which was correct, as he won’t be inaugurated for a few weeks yet. One Trump fan was present: a lady called “TC from D.C.” who told me Trump is great because he backs Israel, which is where the Messiah will come from.
Those of us in the press had been hoping for a photogenic entrance. In 2008, we had been afforded some lovely photos of the Obamas and the Bushes looking like regular friends. Now, Trump was taken into the White House effectively around the back — avoiding the cameras.
Michelle and Melania went off to have a chat about being first lady. The boys, meanwhile, hunkered down in the Oval Office to discuss the transition.
Exactly what happened in there isn’t a matter of public record. No staff were present; the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, was reluctant to be drawn on details. When their meeting was over, the press pool flooded in to the Oval Office and the two men gave a brief statement. The gulf between words and body language was enormous. Obama called it an “excellent” and “wideranging” conversation: “We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed — because if you succeed, then the country succeeds.”
Trump said it was “an honour” to be with the president. He added that the meeting was only supposed to last for 10 or 15 minutes but had run on for an hour and a half. The press secretary was asked about this and he diplomatically said that Obama actually had more than 15 minutes pencilled in his diary.
In a campaign season, Earnest might have called Trump a liar. Now the election’s over, he left it up to the press to infer that The Donald was making things up.
Well, you can put a leopard in charge of the free world but he won’t change his spots.
A journalist asked Earnest if Trump had discussed his plans to overturn ObamaCare and put Hillary Clinton in jail. Earnest looked as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Earnest was also asked if the president still believed Trump was “temperamentally unfit” and “uniquely unqualified” to lead the country, as Obama said on the campaign trail
“The president’s views haven’t changed; he stands by what he said on the campaign trail,” Earnest said, none too diplomatically.
The differences between Obama and Trump are not just ideological but intensely personal — because Trump ran a scorched-earth campaign that questioned the very integrity of Obama, Clinton and the Washington establishment. Now, he finds himself in charge of Washington, and the question on everyone’s mind is can he actually govern — or has his candidacy left him with too many enemies?
On the other hand, it might be the case that the campaign was so ugly that there’s a desire to heal wounds and get on with running the country.
When it was time for a handshake, they both looked glum. And then the questions from the press. Obama said: “Don’t answer their questions when they’re just shouting.” Heeding that advice would have gone against every instinct in Trump’s body.
But he has to learn selfcontrol. He is graduating fast from a candidate to a president-elect, and we will surely see an evolution in his character, too. Acknowledging this advice, Trump said Obama is “a very good man”. Something about the White House casts a spell of reconciliation — even if it is just a reluctant act for the cameras.