It was such a cozy moment in the Oval Office on Wednesday morning, with the roaring fire and the warm handshake and the past presidents — including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and F.D.R. — looking down benignly on the scene.
So why did it feel so nauseating?
It is hard to watch Donald Trump be gracious, because he is gracious only when he wins, and that’s not a good lesson for the children of America. When he loses, he tries to burn the democracy down.
Trump can play it smooth or rough, depending on whether you’re willing to knuckle under. He promised a smooth transition but was crueler to President Biden during the campaign than I’ve ever seen a presidential candidate be to anyone: Trump made fun of how Biden looked at the beach, how he was aging and his sad mental lapse at their debate, calling him “mentally impaired.”
But Biden is an institutionalist, and he honored the institution. Unfortunately, it was nauseating to watch Biden as well, because he was confronting a monster of his own making. If Biden had not bogarted the presidency, if he had not run for a second term, the Democrats would have had time to put together a stronger, centrist ticket with governors of swing states. Trump’s gloating chariot ride up Pennsylvania Avenue might never have happened.
Through the prism of his ego, Biden sees it differently. Trump told The New York Post afterward that after the “slog” of the campaign, the two combatants really enjoyed seeing each other. And it’s hard not to imagine that a frisson of satisfaction must have crossed Biden’s mind as he welcomed Trump back, because, in his view, it ratified his contention that he was the only one who could have beaten Trump.
This ritualistic tableau did not take place the last time these two transitioned, when Biden took over from Trump. Partly that was because of Covid, and partly it was because Trump was busy throwing monkey wrenches into the transition and desperately devising scenarios to purloin the election.
At the time, in mid-November 2020, President-elect Biden warned that Trump’s refusal to authorize an orderly transition would stain him as “one of the most irresponsible presidents in American history,” adding that “it sends a horrible message about who we are as a country.”
Trump’s election taught us a lot about who we are as a country, and the nearly two-hour Oval meeting, juxtaposed with the announcements of Trump’s bizarre cabinet picks, was emblematic of an important truism in Washington: Democrats often try to play fair, while Republicans play to win; Democrats sometimes want to be right more than they want to win.
Just as President Barack Obama did in his transition meeting with Trump in 2016, Biden had to sit there and be gracious while he contemplated all his accomplishments going down the drain at the hands of a man he has total contempt for.
Perhaps the most telling signal was sent by Melania Trump, who didn’t bother to show up at all. Underscoring that lapse in politesse, Jill Biden delivered a handwritten note to the president-elect to give to his wife.
Melania’s no-show was a way of saying: The Trumps tried, in their way, to do things the official way last time. But this time, they’re going to do any damn thing they want. They’re going to run the country like one of Trump’s companies. Tradition will be subsumed by Trumpism. And that’s a very unsettling thought.
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