“The president wrote a very generous letter,” Biden told reporters. “Because it was private, I won’t talk about it until I speak to him, but it was generous.”
A senior adviser to Trump described the letter to CNN as a “personal note” that prays for the country’s success and that the new administration takes care of the country. The aide said writing the letter to Biden was one of many items on Trump’s list in the Oval Office on Tuesday night.
Trump did not show the note that left Biden to many of his aides, according to one person.
While it may seem surprising, Trump maintained this tradition when he ignored all the other elements of a peaceful transfer, he agrees with his previous enthusiasm for the letter he received from President Barack Obama.
Trump was so impressed with Obama’s letter that he tried to call him as soon as he read it on his inauguration day in 2017. But Obama was still flying to Palm Springs on the presidential plane and was unable to answer the call.
When one of Obama’s aides returned to the White House to return the call, the president’s new aides said that Trump just wanted to thank him for the note – and he wanted Obama to get the message. Men never connected directly.
“It was long. It was complex. It was thoughtful,” Trump said of the letter a week after taking office in an interview with ABC News. “And it took time to do that, and I appreciate that.”
He later showed the letter to visitors in the Oval Office.
In his farewell speech on Wednesday, Trump did not quote Biden, but said he wished the “new government much luck and great success”.
This happened after Trump spent months lying about the presidential election being rigged against him and spreading unfounded conspiracy theories about electoral fraud. He incited a violent crowd to invade the United States Capitol, which left five people dead, including a Capitol police officer. He was recently charged by the House of Representatives for his role in inciting that deadly attack on the Capitol, and there will be a trial in the United States Senate.
Former Vice President Mike Pence also left a letter to Vice President Kamala Harris. Pence attended Biden’s opening, and as he was leaving the US Capitol after the ceremony, Pence and former second lady Karen Pence laughed with Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff.