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Trump transition live updates: President-elect raises prospect of pardons for Jan. 6 crimes

Jabin Botsford

President Joe Biden was in the Oval Office on Wednesday, speaking to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a> — a man he’d referred to as an “existential threat” to democracy — as if everything was normal. The last time Trump was in the White House, the former and future president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/what-happened-trump-jan-6-insurrection/" target=_blank>sat back and watched</a> his supporters sack the U.S. Capitol to keep him in power.

“We’ll do everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated,” Biden said to Trump, sounding like the concierge at a Marriott. The two old bulls, sitting in front of a roaring fire with their thinning hair and pearly-white veneers, could’ve been mistaken for reunited fraternity brothers — forever bonded by long-ago hazing rituals.

“Politics is tough and it’s, in many cases, not a very nice world,” Trump said. “But it is a nice world today.”

As the media shouted questions, Trump offered a knowing nod at Biden, and the two seemed to share a laugh. It was a vision of American normalcy worthy of a Norman Rockwell painting. And it made some people sick.

“Blech,” says Tim Miller, the Never Trump pundit, recalling the scene.

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“It was quite nauseating,” says Keith Edwards, a strategist who worked for the Democratic National Committee this cycle. “It felt like Biden was trying to make everything seem fine. And everything isn’t fine.”

“It’s naive, gross, counterproductive, moronic,” Miller says. “Like baby-talking a crocodile hoping it won’t bite. Much of Washington has totally deluded themselves as to the insanity to come.”

For years, Democrats and other opponents have cast Trump as a supervillain who will destroy America. He’s given them plenty to work with: from playing footsie with Charlottesville neo-Nazis to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/28/how-trump-speaks-like-mob-boss/" target=_blank>playing mob boss</a> with Georgia’s secretary of state (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/d45acb92-4dc4-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html" target=_blank>“I just want to find 11,780 votes”</a>). A few weeks ago, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-john-kelly-nazis-hitler-87d672e1ec1a6645808050fc60f6b8bc" target=_blank>during a CNN town hall</a>, Vice President <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/kamala-harris/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Kamala Harris</a> affirmed that she thinks Trump is a fascist.

“He’s willing to sacrifice our democracy to put himself in power,” Biden said in January, near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

Couldn’t Biden have at least acknowledged reality on Wednesday? He could’ve said to Trump, in full view of the public: I’m extending you the key democratic courtesy that you did not extend to me. I hope you carry that spirit forward, Donald, as we peacefully transition power.

When asked Wednesday about the “unfinished business” between the two men, including Trump’s refusal to concede to Biden in 2020, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “What we want to do is move forward.”

And so what you might be feeling is the whiplash of Washington norms yanking against democratic distress.

“I just don’t understand the White House visit,” the radio host Charlamagne tha God said on his show Thursday. “Now, granted, you know, I’m glad it’s a peaceful transition of power, but what happened to the ‘threat of democracy’ talk? What happened to the ‘fascist’ talk? … I’m just trying to figure out how do you go from ‘He’s an existential threat to democracy’ to ‘Welcome back.’”

Evan Vucci

Jean-Pierre said in her press conference that Biden’s thoughts about democracy being under threat “still stands,” and pointed out that there was much more to Trump’s visit than the public could see or hear: two hours of “substantive meeting.” She did not, however, offer specifics. Neither did Andrew Bates, senior deputy White House press secretary, when contacted Friday about this story.

“President Joe Biden believes that, in our democracy, it is critical to respect the will of the voters by providing an orderly transition and peaceful transfer of power,” Bates said via email.

Before the meeting, at least one Democratic strategist contacted the White House, pleading with them not to participate in a cozy, friendly meet-and-greet. This strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private exchange, warned that it could help “normalize” Trump, that the change in tone could make it hard for voters to trust anything Democrats say in the future. But the concerns were rejected, this person said (when presented with this claim, the White House did not address it).

“We are so ill-prepared for this moment,” Edwards says. “Democrats just do not understand what is about to happen, and I worry that our leadership is not willing to be as creative and loud and disruptive as you’re going to need to be.”

“Well,” says Sen.-elect Andy Kim (D-New Jersey), “he did win the election.”

Kim is very aware of what Trump wrought during and after the 2020 election. After Trump’s supporters smashed up the Capitol, the congressman spent the next day on his hands and knees, cleaning up the mess. Maybe he’s still trying to clean it up.

“We have to restore a sense of trust in government,” Kim says. The place to start, Kim says, is “by making sure people have trust in their elections.”

Perhaps losing the election has put Democrats in a no-win situation.

This is how John Ganz, an author who has written about populism and fascism, sees things. If the party of norms starts breaking them, he says, it only makes their “arguments about being a defender of democracy weaker.”

And he continues, “if you normalize them, you end up giving them a sense of legitimacy.”

He isn’t sure what he’d do if he were Biden. Ganz understands the need to calm an anxious nation while also knowing that “welcome back” moment might one day live in infamy.

“They don’t want to cause mass hysteria,” Ganz says. “But sometimes a little mass hysteria is called for.”

Trump’s transition moves have offered plenty of reasons for concern: he’s nominated a loyalist <a href="https://time.com/7176545/matt-gaetz-attorney-general-trump/" target=_blank>with a vengeful streak</a> to be his attorney general, a vaccine skeptic to be his secretary of health and human services and a Fox News host to run the Pentagon.

If there was alarm at the White House, it was hidden from view this week. Instead, the public got a cheerful photo of Trump standing with the Bidens near the South Portico of the White House. Joe, Jill and Trump stood shoulder to shoulder, squinting into the sun and smiling for the camera.

It looked like democracy wasn’t at stake.

During Trump’s first term, “This isn’t normal” became a rallying cry of the resistance. But this week, in those public moments at the White House, the message seemed to be: The abnormal is normal. And democracy has made it so.

Excellence in Feature Writing, Society for features Journalism

Brandeis University, B.A. in American Studies

Ben Terris is a writer in The Washington Post's Style section with a focus on national politics.

Ben Terris

Biden says ‘welcome back’ to Trump, an ‘existential threat’

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