Obama, Trump meet at the white house to begin a transition of power

US President Barack Obama on Thursday met with President-elect Donald Trump at the White House.

This is the first public step in a transition of power after the Republican businessman’s surprise victory in a bitterly fought election campaign.

“I just had the opportunity to have an excellent conversation with President-elect Trump. It was wide-ranging. We talked about some of the organizational issues in setting up the White House. We talked about foreign policy. We talked about domestic policy. As I sat last night, my number one in the next coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our President-elect is successful and I have been very encouraged by the interest by the President-elect Trump’s wanting to work with my team around many of the issues that this great country faces,” said president Barack Obama.

There is no love lost between the two men, who have had almost no one-on-one contact previously.

Trump says he look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel.

“Well, thank you very much President Obama. This was a meeting that was going to last for maybe 10-15 minutes and we were just going to get to know each other, we had never met each other. I have great respect. The meeting lasted for almost an hour and a half and it could have, as far as I’m concerned,” Donald Trump said.

President-elect Donald Trump says it was a “great honour” being with President Barack Obamahttps://t.co/2EudkM4RFc https://t.co/OmfpY6nFiv

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) November 10, 2016

Obama on Wednesday said despite his major differences with Trump, he would follow the lead of former Republican President George W. Bush in 2008 and ensure a smooth handover to Trump.