Democrats split after Biden shook hands with Trump — the man he spent years calling a threat to democracy

President Joe Biden shaking hands with Donald Trump in front of a White House fireplace resumed a tradition that the president-elect broke four years ago as he was heading out of the White House door.

Biden — smiling next to a man he was running against for his re-election campaign until July of this year, and who he has spent years warning of his singular threat to American democracy and the rule of law — told Trump “welcome back” and promised to make sure he is “accommodated” as he prepares to return to the White House for another four years starting January 20.

The meeting, which Trump denied Biden when he defeated him in the 2020 election, joins the president’s wider efforts to reaffirm democratic norms in the wake of Trump’s rampant election denialism that fueled a mob’s attack on the Capitol four years ago.

For some Democrats, the meeting marked an important moment that underscored the differences in their administrations. But the moment has also drawn criticism that Biden and the Democratic Party broadly are failing to heed their own warnings.

Biden’s “welcome” — despite his years of warnings about Trump’s antidemocratic threats and autocratic agenda — follows Vice President Kamala Harris’s concession and congratulations to an opponent she agreed is dangerous, unfit for office, and a fascist.

The president had previously pledged that he would direct the “entire administration to work with his team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition.”

Trump’s team has yet to sign any legally required transition agreements, including an ethics pledge stating that he will avoid conflicts of interest, and documents that would allow his team to begin receiving classified briefings before entering office.

The outgoing Biden-Harris administration has sought to maintain institutional stability in an unprecedented transition. Democratic critics have warned that those commitments to established norms aren’t matching their own words and actions, while Trump’s supporters argue that the meeting proves Biden’s warnings were disingenuous.

“This meeting is not an indication that things are now ‘normal’ and should not be portrayed as such by the media,” former Attorney General Eric Holder said.

“Only for me, not for thee! Here is Donald Trump, praising the professionalism and orderly presidential transition he denied the incoming Biden administration in 2020,” wrote Democratic congressman Don Beyer.

“If Trump is a threat to democracy, as Biden has said, and a fascist, as Harris has said, why is the administration treating this transfer of power as normal?” asked Democratic strategist Keith Edwards.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Wednesday that Biden’s previous warnings “still stand.”

“And it’s not just him. You heard this from former staffers,” she said, referencing statements from Trump’s own former officials.

Biden invited Trump to the White House “because he believes in the norms, he believes in our institution, he believes in a peaceful transfer of power,” Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday. “The American people deserve this. They deserve a peaceful transfer of power. They deserve a smooth transition. And that’s what you’re going to see.”

After the meeting, she said they shared a “substantive exchange of views” on national security and domestic policy, and that Biden recommitted to “an orderly transition and a peaceful transition of power.”

Presidential historian and Rice University professor Douglas Brinkley told MSNBC that their meeting was a “heartwarming” reminder that “we can go on” after the “surreal carnival” of the 2024 election.

“It is the absolute right thing for both Trump and Biden to be doing right now,” he said.