PALM BEACH, FLORIDA - JANUARY 07: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks to members of the media during a press conference at the Mar-a-Lago Club on January 07, 2025 in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on January 20, making him the only president other than Grover Cleveland to serve two non-consecutive terms in office. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump had assembled reporters to watch him sign dozens of executive orders in the Oval Office when one asked him if former President Joe Biden had left a letter for him, a ritual for departing American leaders.
“He may have,” Trump said, seeming unsure, as if he hadn’t looked yet. “Wait, don’t they leave it in the desk?”
He opened a drawer in the Resolute Desk and found the sealed letter, holding it up and musing about reading it together with the assembled media before thinking better of it.
“Thank you very much. I may not have seen this for months,” Trump said.
There were many moments Monday that illustrated the dramatic change in leadership as Trump took office. He delivered three speeches in three locations after his outdoor inauguration was canceled because of the cold, each time channeling his no-holds barred, campaign-rally style
The aggressive tone for the opening salvo of Trump’s second administration, and his pardoning of Jan. 6 rioters and signing a blizzard of executive orders aimed at dramatically reorienting federal policy, were more consequential. The letter discovery was trivial in comparison.
But the Oval Office press event Monday evening, which was carried live on CNN and Fox News, illustrated the unscripted, unpredictable nature of the new president, in stark contrast to a departing leader who was known to be tightly stage-managed.
