Biden-Trump White House meeting revives presidential tradition skipped 4 years ago

Just over a week after his sweeping election victory, former and future President Trump returns to the White House on Wednesday.

Trump is returning to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., his first time back in nearly four years, at the invitation of the man he knocked out of the 2024 White House race: President Biden.

The two presidents will sit down in the Oval Office around 11 a.m. ET, according to the White House.

Trump is also expected to address House Republicans and their new incoming members on Wednesday, where X owner Elon Musk is also expected to be in attendance, sources told Fox News Digital.

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The president-elect is making a pit stop at the hotel where House GOP lawmakers are holding their leadership elections near the U.S. Capitol, just before his planned meeting with Biden.

For Biden, who ended his re-election bid in July a month after his disastrous debate performance against Trump reignited questions over whether the 81-year-old president was physically and mentally up for another four years in the White House and sparked calls for him to drop out of the race, the meeting with his predecessor and now successor may be awkward.

Trump spent years verbally eviscerating Biden and his performance in the White House. And even after Biden ended his re-election bid, Trump continued to slam the president and his successor atop the Democrats' 2024 ticket, Vice President Harris.

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And Biden for a couple of years has labeled Trump a threat to the nation's democracy.

But Biden, a traditionalist, wants to ensure a smooth transition between administrations.

"I assured him that I’d direct my entire administration to work with his team," the president said of his call last week with Trump after the election when he made the invitation. 

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Trump's team, in an apparent change of tone toward Biden, said the president-elect "looks forward to the meeting."

Biden's offer to Trump to visit the White House was an invitation he himself was never accorded.

Four years ago, in the wake of his election defeat at the hands of Biden, Trump refused to concede and tried unsuccessfully to overturn the results.

Breaking with longstanding tradition, Trump didn't invite Biden to the White House. And two weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters aiming to upend congressional certification of Biden's Electoral College victory, Trump left Washington ahead of the presidential inauguration of his successor, becoming the first sitting president in more than a century to skip a successor's inauguration.

"President Biden's decision to welcome President-elect Trump to the White House is a tribute to normalcy in the presidential transition process. What was denied to Joe Biden following his election is being restored to Biden's credit," veteran political scientist Wayne Lesperance told Fox News.

Lesperance, the president of New Hampshire-based New England College, called the invitation by Biden "a remarkable gesture in that it legitimizes Trump's return to power by the nation's leading Democrat and, hopefully, will be met with a commitment to orderly transitions in the future."

The meeting will be the first between Biden and Trump since they faced off in their one and only debate on June 27 in Atlanta. The two presidents, along with Harris and Trump's running mate, now-Vice President-elect Sen. JD Vance, stood next to each other on Sept. 11 in New York City's Lower Manhattan at ceremonies for the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

This will be Trump's second meeting at the White House with a departing president.

Eight years ago, after defeating Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton, Trump sat down at the White House with President Obama, who was finishing up his second term.

"We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed. Because, if you succeed, then the country succeeds," Obama told Trump at the time.

While a tradition, the meeting between the incoming and outgoing presidents is not mandated.

A big question mark heading into the meeting: Will the vice president join Biden and Trump for any portion of the gathering?

Harris phoned Trump last week and congratulated him on his victory over her.

As for House Republicans, who are selecting their new leaders behind closed doors on Wednesday, Trump is expected to throw his support behind Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to keep the top job, even despite some rumblings of discontent and threats of a protest against the Louisiana Republican by the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus and their allies.

One of several sources who detailed potential plans by the Freedom Caucus to protest Johnson’s bid for speaker told Fox News Digital that Trump’s endorsement will do little to stop them from trying to block unanimous approval of Johnson’s leadership. However, those protest threats largely fell flat in the House GOP Conference on Tuesday, including among Johnson critics who say Trump’s endorsement will likely seal the deal.

Trump has praised Johnson on multiple occasions and the two men are known to have a good working relationship. He’s speaking to House Republicans after they all but declared victory in the 2024 elections, despite several close races still being undecided.