Biden Says Trump Told Him They’d Be Good Friends Without Politics
Former President Joe Biden writes that Donald Trump told him they would be good friends, and would spend their time golfing together, if not for politics, at their November 2024 White House meeting.
Choose Clash Report as a preferred source and see our reporting first in Top Stories.
Eight days after the 2024 election, President Joe Biden received President-elect Donald Trump at the White House for the customary handover meeting between an outgoing president and his successor.
The appointment on Nov. 13, 2024, was set for 30 minutes. It lasted nearly two hours, and, in Biden’s telling, opened on a tone he had not expected.
A Tone That Stunned Biden
Biden writes in his forthcoming memoir, “Promise Me, America,” that Trump “was immediately chatty and surprised me by adopting a tone so friendly that I thought he might be putting me on.”
“It bordered on fawning,” he adds, in an account published by The Atlantic.
An Offer of Friendship
Biden recalls Trump telling him, “You know, Joe, if it weren’t for politics, I believe we’d be good friends.”
“I think I blinked, too stunned to respond,” Biden writes. “Then he kept going, as if intoxicated by the curious conversational path he had chosen.”
Trump, according to Biden, then said, “Yes, if it weren’t for politics, we’d spend all our time golfing together.”
The comments are Biden’s recollection of a private conversation held that day in the Oval Office.
Compliments, Then Business
Biden writes that Trump called his record on job creation “extraordinary” and said he had been “relieved he didn’t have to run against me,” after Biden ended his own 2024 candidacy.
“I didn’t really understand why he was buttering me up, so I cut off his compliments to move on to the business at hand,” Biden writes.
He says he then tried to give Trump an overview of the world issues that would “dominate his presidency.” Trump “nodded appreciatively,” Biden writes, “but I noticed a curious pattern: He focused on the personalities of the leaders, as if we were sharing gossip about people at a dinner party, not discussing issues of global significance.”
A Familiar Contrast in Tone
Biden has described a similar split before. The same memoir reprints a handwritten letter Trump left in the Oval Office in 2021, which Biden writes sounded “like it was coming from an old friend,” even though Trump had not offered the traditional meeting between presidents that year.
Little, Brown and Company is scheduled to publish “Promise Me, America” on Nov. 17. Biden has said cancer treatment will limit how many appearances he can make to promote the book, a point he also raised in recent comments about his diagnosis.
The Atlantic account also includes Biden’s charge that Nancy Pelosi worked privately to push him from the 2024 race.
Kamer Kurunç
Kamer Kurunç is the Team Leader of Clash Report and has led the outlet for four years. He oversees its breaking world news coverage, from the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine war to defense and global politics. His focus is fast, verified, source-based reporting. Follow him on X at @kamerknc.
Choose Clash Report as a preferred source and see our reporting first in Top Stories.
