US President-elect Donald Trump thanked President Joe Biden for pledging a smooth transfer of power as the victorious Republican made a historic return visit to the White House on Wednesday.

“Politics is tough, and in many cases, it’s not a very nice world. It is a nice world today and I appreciate it very much,” Trump said after the two men shook hands in the Oval Office.

Trump, 78, added that the transition would be “smooth as you can get.” Biden greeted Trump in front of a roaring fire, offering him congratulations and saying: “Welcome back.”

The 81-year-old Biden invited his sworn rival to the White House — despite the fact that Trump, who refused to admit his 2020 election loss, never afforded Biden the same courtesy.

Biden, who dropped out of the election in July but saw his successor Kamala Harris lose to Trump last week, said he was “looking forward to having a smooth transition.”

“We’ll do everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated, [have] what you need,” he told Trump.

Triumphant Trump

Their talks after the public handshake may have been a bitter pill to swallow for Biden, who branded Trump a threat to democracy.

Biden was expected to push during the meeting for Trump to continue US support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia, which the Republican has called into question.

Ahead of the White House visit, Trump addressed Republicans from the House of Representatives at a Washington hotel near the Capitol, which a mob of his supporters stormed in 2021 to try to reverse his election loss. An ebullient Trump suggested that he could even be open to a third term in office — which would violate the US Constitution.

“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s good, we got to figure something else,’” he said, drawing some laughter.

Trump’s party looks set to take both chambers of Congress and consolidate his extraordinary comeback.

He was accompanied at the meeting with Republicans by the world’s richest man Elon Musk, whom he named on Tuesday as head of a new group aimed at slashing government spending. Trump has launched a flurry of nominations as he moves swiftly to name his administration.

Picking his team

Biden’s Oval Office invitation restored a presidential transition tradition that Trump tore up when he lost the 2020 election, refusing to sit down with Biden or even attend the inauguration.

Then-president Barack Obama had welcomed Trump to the White House when the tycoon won the 2016 election.

But by the time Trump took his last Marine One flight from the White House lawn on January 20, 2021, he had also been repudiated by many in his own party for having stoked the assault on the Capitol.

That period of disgrace soon evaporated, however, as Republicans returned to Trump’s side, recognizing his unique electoral power at the head of his right-wing movement.

Trump enters his second term with a near-total grip on his party and the Democrats in disarray. He has spent the week since the election at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida assembling his top team, as the world watches to see how closely he sticks to his pledges of isolationism, mass deportations and sweeping tariffs.

Trump named Space X, Tesla and X boss Musk, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, to lead a “Department of Government Efficiency (‘DOGE’)” — a tongue-in-cheek reference to an internet meme and cryptocurrency.

Trump is moving quickly to fill out his administration, picking a host of ultra-loyalists.

Trump nominated Fox News host and army veteran Pete Hegseth as his incoming defence secretary. An outspoken opponent of so-called “woke” ideology in the armed forces, Hegseth has little experience similar to managing the mammoth US military budget and bureaucracy.

Trump named South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem — an ally who famously wrote about shooting her dog because it did not respond to training — as head of the Department of Homeland Security.