President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden welcomed incoming President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump to the White House for tea on Monday morning.
Joe Biden was heard shouting “Welcome home” as Trump arrived.
Chilled by the wind, the two couples shook hands and posed for a few pictures. Biden told reporters he was feeling “good” before Trump arrived and said that “joy” was his message for the day.
Before leaving the building, he and his wife, Jill Biden, took a final selfie outside the Oval Office and shared it on the White House’s social media accounts.
Outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff welcomed incoming Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife Usha to the White House before the arrival of the Trumps.
Harris said, “Congratulations,” to Vance. Before his swearing-in ceremony, she had refused to let him stay at the vice presidential residence.
Trump easily defeated Harris, who called today “democracy in action.”
Watch:
HISTORIC! President Biden and Jill Biden welcome President Trump and Melania Trump to the White House for tea. pic.twitter.com/cKf8lu3RHL
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 20, 2025
Trump is preparing a series of executive orders that he intends to sign into law within hours of taking office. He will use his executive authority on the first day of office to advance his top priorities, which include government reform, energy, and the border.
The scope of the orders demonstrates how quickly Trump and his team intend to implement an ambitious agenda, as they would significantly alter government hiring, immigration, and energy policies.
Trump’s new deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, briefed a select group of top Republican leaders regarding the administration’s agenda. Miller told the lawmakers that they included lifting President Biden’s restrictions on drilling on federal land and offshore, rescinding Biden administration directives on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and declaring a national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border, according to Capitol Hill Republicans briefed on the call.
Part of Trump’s efforts to overhaul the federal government will be aimed at rewriting hiring rules for employees and creating a new process for firing others. The president-elect will again sign an executive order, known as Schedule F, which he issued in October 2020 to eliminate job protections for federal workers, the Republicans said. The Biden administration had previously blocked the order.
The orders, which bypass Congress, are expected to be “border heavy” and focus on undoing the executive orders issued by Biden when he first came to office in 2021, according to a Republican familiar with the planning,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
“Trump is expected to declare a national emergency on the border, Republicans briefed on the call said, which would, in turn, unlock additional Pentagon funding and assets to help address the matter. He is also expected to order troops to help build more infrastructure at the border. The president-elect will direct his administration to relaunch a policy known as Remain in Mexico, which requires migrants seeking asylum at the southern border to live in northern Mexican border cities during their U.S. court proceedings,” the outlet added.
Additionally, Trump intends to ban travel to the United States and label cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. It was not immediately possible to determine how any travel ban would operate.
According to people familiar with the conversation, Trump’s advisers have been organizing immigration raids in several major cities in the early days of the new administration in addition to the border-focused immigration orders. Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., Miami, Los Angeles, Denver, New York, and San Antonio are among the cities that are anticipated to be targeted. The number of cities that will see increased enforcement activity and the scope of the raids are still up in the air.
Miller also talked about what he called an “energy omnibus.” One of the Republicans on the call said that the Trump aide was outlining a comprehensive directive that would declare a national energy emergency.
Along with proposing to reduce funding for climate change initiatives, Trump would also seek to lift restrictions on drilling and policies supporting electric vehicles that were put in place during the Biden administration.
Trump pledged during the campaign to declare a national energy emergency, citing the need to boost production and meet the growing demand brought on by the quick adoption of artificial intelligence.
“We’re going to be using our emergency powers to allow countries and entrepreneurs and people with a lot of money to build big plants, AI plants,” Trump said. “We need double the energy that we already have, and it’s going to end up being more than that.”
