Biden promises smooth transition of power as Trump prepares return to White House
WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden called for a peaceful transfer of power in an address to the nation Thursday as Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House.
"The will of the people prevailed," Biden said Thursday. "We accept the choice the country made. I’ve said many times you can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t love your neighbor only when you agree. It’s something I hope we can do no matter who you voted for."
It was Biden's first public comment since Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in Tuesday's election. Biden said he had spoken with Donald Trump on the phone and promised a smooth transition.
The nonpartisan Center for Presidential Transition estimates that every presidential administration has about 4,000 political positions to fill. The work to facilitate this transition started months ago, before it was known whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris would be in the Oval Office.
In April the director of the Office of Management and Budget ordered all executive departments and agencies to designate a point person for the transition. It marked the first step in the congressionally-mandated preparedness for presidential transitions. Biden said he had spoken with Donald Trump on the phone and promised a smooth transition.
Four years ago, the Trump administration did not immediately proceed with transition efforts for weeks after the 2020 election.
Jack Kalavritinos, who served in both the Bush and Trump administrations, says he expects this transition to be "less chaotic."
"This is the first time you’ve had a former president who actually has his own think tank, the America First Policy Institute, which is like a transition team," said Kalavritinos.
The Biden/Trump transition four years ago wasn’t the only one that didn’t go well. In 2000, after a weeks-long court battle between George W. Bush and Al Gore, some Bush appointees reported that outgoing Clinton staffers had removed the "W"s from their computer keyboards.