Ground Game: Biden to host Trump, GOP’s losing streak broken and Trump’s hush money decision

Donald Trump will briefly return to the White House at the invitation of Democratic President Joe Biden, who hopes to defeat his Republican predecessor for a second time and stay there for another four years, before returning for good on Inauguration Day.

Welcome to this week’s edition of the AP Ground Game.

Donald Trump arrives at the election night vigil party at the Palm Beach Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, on November 6, 2024 (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Biden will host Trump this week

Wednesday’s meeting could make for an awkward encounter, especially given that Trump did not offer Biden such a White House invitation after Biden ousted Trump in 2020. Trump even left Washington before the inauguration on January 20, 2021, becoming the first president to do so since Andrew Johnson skipped Ulysses S. Grant’s inauguration in 1869.

Biden also has the unusual distinction of beating Trump in one round and running against him for nearly 15 months during this year’s election campaign. Biden, who is seeking re-election, repeatedly called Trump a threat to democracy and the country’s core values ​​before dropping out of the race in July and supported Vice President Kamala Harris, who ran her own campaign and lost on Election Day.

When the two meet in the Oval Office, it will technically be the first time since 1992 that an outgoing president will sit down with the incoming president he ran against in a campaign. Then-Republican President George H. W. Bush met with Democrat and President-elect Bill Clinton about two weeks after their Election Day spat. Read more.

Notes:

For decades, such succession meetings between outgoing presidents and their successors have been by turns amicable, tense, and somewhere in between. Biden has vowed to ensure a smooth transition this time around and emphasized the importance of working with Trump, both his presidential predecessor and successor, to bring the country together.

Trump breaks GOP losing streak in nation’s largest Arab-majority city

In Dearborn, Michigan, where nearly half of the 110,000 residents are of Arab descent, Harris received over 2,500 fewer votes than Trump, who became the first Republican presidential candidate to win the city since former President George W. Bush in 2000. Harris also lost neighboring Dearborn Heights to Trump; During his previous presidency, he banned travel to many Muslim-majority countries.

Harris lost the presidential vote in two Detroit-area cities with large Arab American populations, following months of warnings from local Democrats about the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel in the war in Gaza. Some said they supported Trump after he visited a few days before the election, meeting with customers and staff at a Lebanese-owned restaurant and assuring people that he would find a way to end the violence in the Middle East.

As it became clear late Tuesday into early Wednesday that Trump could not only win the presidency but also prevail in Dearborn, the mood in metro Detroit’s Arab American communities was described as “somber” by Dearborn City Councilman Mustapha Hammoud. But he still said the result was “not surprising at all.” Read more.

Notes:

The change in Dearborn, where Trump received nearly 18,000 votes compared to Harris’ 15,000, marked a surprising shift from four years ago, when Biden won the city by a nearly 3-to-1 margin.

Notes:

If the judge approves the verdict, the case will move forward to sentencing on November 26; but this may change or disappear depending on appeals or other legal maneuvers. The Supreme Court’s decision gives former presidents immunity from prosecution for official actions and prohibits prosecutors from using evidence of official actions when trying to prove that purely personal conduct violated the law.